Eastern Standard Video Review - March 26, 2007

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Eastern Standard Video Shoot - February 23, 2007

So we shot an hours worth of footage for my video production class yesterday at Eastern Standard.

Expect to see the finished 5-6 minute piece soon.

Until then, please enjoy these pics, taken with my new macro lens!

-Andrew

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Technorati Tags: BU, eastern standard, food, HDR, roast beef, SHA

Food TV these days - February 12, 2007

This was posted over on the eGullet forums by the user "project", and I thought it was worthy of reposting.

Net, so far, in practice, in the US, if it passes through a motion picture camera, then nearly always it has to be from the I Love Lucy crowd.  Yes, in Jurassic Park, Spielberg got the DNA science okay, but he is a rare exception.

News?  The same.  Food?  The same.  Sports?  The same. Science?  The same.  That crowd has only a hammer and sees nearly everything as a nail.  E.g., science programs are nearly never about the science but all about the drama that can be contrived -- geology becomes the violence of volcanoes, the weather becomes the threat of hurricanes, tornadoes, and global warming, ecology and nature become the rape of nature by evil humans, planetary motion becomes the risk of a "global killer" asteroid, rocket engineering becomes "Will they all be killed in a big explosion?", etc.

Endless, pointless, useless, worthless,

dra ra ra ra ra ra-ra ra ra-ra ma ma ma ma-ma ma-ma ma-ma

Sickening.

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Technorati Tags: cooking, food network, food tv

LX Network Restaurant Opening: 15 East. Plus, Kidfresh! - February 08, 2007

This week’s episode features the new restaurant 15 East, personal chef Jennifer Lynn and the new kids food store, Kidfresh.  Lemme know what you think -- these guys (both the network and the spots featured) are doing some interesting stuff.

Technorati Tags: cooking, food, kidfresh, lx tv, restaurant opening

Hungry Detective: Boston - December 17, 2006

Set your DVRs and Tivo's and VCRs and brains....braaaaains! Err, sorry; got carried away.

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Behind the scenes at Hungry Detective - December 03, 2006

Holla. It’s Swizzle. I’m a BU student, and a good friend of the Gentleman Gourmand.  I’m bloggin baby!  When Andrew told me that Chris Cognac asked him to appear on an episode of “The Hungry Detective” I was in disbelief.  Fantasies about living a ballin’ entourage-style life swirled around in my brain; we’d soon be getting drinks with Tony Bourdain, then hitting the clubs with Giada and Rachel. Ahh…

Hey!  We need to shoot the scene first!  Then I can become Andrew’s spiritual advisor when he’s a huge Food Network star.  I mean, why do you think Snoop keeps Bishop Don Magic Juan around? Andrew knows what I’m sayin… Andrew?

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More delicious HD pics - November 15, 2006

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Technorati Tags: cambridge, food network, foodtv, hungry detective, la burdick, mary chung

Mary Chung's Magical Land - October 03, 2006

The location that I was on-screen for was the segment filmed at Mary Chung’s. Now, let me tell you an interesting tidbit about Mary Chung’s: it seems that it was the very first restaurant in the world to be on the internet. If this is accurate: http://boston.openguides.org/?Mary_Chung's "A major hangout for MIT geeks, and thus the first restaurant with a Usenet newsgroup, alt.fan.mary-chungs," then Mary Chung's was most likely the first dining establishment in cyberspace.

Mary Chung, the proprietor (not pictured) is an amazing woman. In one of my recent visits, I was so overcome with elation by the food, I stopped her as she was walking by. I told her, "Mary, your food is so good..." (I was at a loss for words, and looked her right in the eyes). "...so good." She stopped and gave me her full attention (something a restaurant owner/server/hostess/chef rarely gives), and said softly and almost bashfully, "I know... I know. Thank you." She gave me one last look, and whisked off to take care of a ringing phone.

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The Hungry Detective - October 03, 2006

This summer I worked as a production assistant (PA) for O'Malley Productions on the new FoodNetwork show, The Hungry Detective with Chris Cognac.  I met Chris on eGullet, and knew him as the Culinary Detective.  I found out about the show and the schedule, and asked if I could show up and observe.  They ended up asking me to help them out, and I was delighted to do so.  I worked with them in Boston, and hope to do more work with them in the future.  After they left town,  I went to Denver and while relaxing in the mountains, had a chance to ponder long and hard about what I had just gone through.

After much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that the best thing I can compare to filming a TV show would be to a catered gala with chefs from different restaurants. Each chef comes into a kitchen they've probably never seen before, using equipment they are generally, but not specifically familiar with. This parallel was evident from the first day at JP Licks. While the cameramen certainly had used the same type (and perhaps even the same model) cameras before, one of them had a bad audio input -- potentially as disastrous as an oven without a pilot light.  An easy problem to fix, but one that unaddressed could lead to catastrophic failure.

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