Narrator: There's a bustling operation
behind the fancy cameras of food commercials.
It takes dozens of people
and a few customized robots
to make a burger look this juicy.
Steve: Oh, nothing here is simple.
As far as the work we do,
it's incredibly complex, very technical.
Narrator: Steve Giralt has filmed commercials
for big brands like Hershey's, Heinz, and Pepsi
through his production company The Garage,
and there's a lot of money on the line.
Filming one 30-second ad can cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And they're working against the clock,
because they use real food,
which doesn't stay pretty for long.
That's the misnomer about everything.
Faking makes things harder.
Narrator: We visited Steve's studio in Brooklyn, New York,
to see how his team films the perfect burger.
Today, Steve and his team are working
on a test shoot for Burger King.
They'll use it to try and land the client.
Yeah, good.
Narrator: Brett Kurzweil is a veteran food stylist.
It's his job to make the burger look like a Whopper.
He usually has a budget of a couple thousand dollars,
and he always buys a lot more than he'll use,
so he can pick out the perfect looking bun,
patty, and veggies.
Then he gets to work,
but he doesn't cook the meat all the way through.
Because I didn't want it to shrink too much.
I wanted to get as much volume
out of this piece of meat as I could get.
Narrator: Even perfect patties need final touches.
So he uses a colorant made of gravy, darkener, and soap
to add a charred look.
He only has to paint half the burger,
because the camera films from just one side.
A mixture of Vaseline and pulverized meat
helps fill in any holes.
And those grill marks? Another trick of the trade.
Brett heats up metal skewers, and then ...
Brett: I just pushed into the burger
with the hot metal, and it seared.
Narrator: Next, he melts the cheese
using a clothes steamer.
Brett: I just said, "You're for food."
But I also, I'm trying to control
how much comes out.
So I've covered up some of the holes.
Narrator: He cuts the onions and tomatoes
on a slant so they lie flatter.
Brett: Well, yeah, my mother would've been happier.
Narrator: Some other tricks?
Denture cream to hold up ingredients.
Steve: For condensation on cans,
we'll use glycerin.
Yeah, not that much. Too far, too far.
Narrator: While Brett finishes up,
Steve's team is making sure everything is ready on set.
The trickiest part is combining what the client wants
in the commercial with what's technologically possible.
Steve: They have no idea about engineering.
Yeah, they're just like, "Robots are cool.
We want a robot."
Narrator: But since today he's working on a test shoot,
he just has to implement his own vision.
I'll be one of those people that wears the protection.
Narrator: Then he turns to master rigger Matthew Huber.
He says half the time, he has
to build the rigs completely from scratch.
They provide the structure for the specialized equipment
that makes food dance across the screen.
His work goes hand in hand with the robots'.
The robot obviously is a hugely complicated
and expensive thing that's used for a lot of what we do.
But if you only just need a straight—line movement
pulling back, it's easier to set up a simple machine
that just does a single type of movement.
Narrator: Like these air pistons he uses to launch food.
Or these catapults.
To save on buying new parts,
he uses a lot of the same base pieces.
Matthew: It's like Legos, you know?
You just put stuff together, take it apart,
do something different with it the next time.
So we've used a lot of these pieces
probably, like, hundreds of times.
Narrator: Meanwhile, Paola Andrea Ramirez
is finalizing the set, from the tables
to the ketchup bottles off to the side.
Paola: I want it to feel real.
So if it's blank it won't feel like it's,
it's a real commercial kitchen.
Narrator: Every inch visible to the camera matters.
So Paola's team built this tile wall
just for this shoot.
But they said it still felt empty.
Paola: So we just added these new,
these two floating shelves up there.
We plan for something,
and then we just have to be ready for the unexpected.
Narrator: Her typical props budget is $40,000 a shoot,
but she can pull a lot from her personal collection.
Paola: This has been 20 years of collecting.
And this is like, Salvation Army, garage sales,
years and years of hoarding.
I always like to have extra.
So if you're shooting, example, a glass of soda,
I need to have at least six of the same glasses
for quick changes, if they're scratched.
Because it's video, so ...
Producer: One breaks. Paula: One breaks, exactly.
Narrator: So when that burger arrives, it's game time.
Brett: I gotta go on set.
Steve: Yay, burger.
Narrator: Now it's a race against the clock.
Steve: We got the tomatoes too, right?
That angle feels right.
Go ahead and roll camera.
Push in a little bit closer.
Narrator: Today, they have custom-built
water-cooled lights that don't torch the food.
Steve: We used to have to have
these really hot lights that would, like,
cook the food, and it would die really quickly.
So ice cream would be impossible
to shoot in slow motion, because it would just melt
the second you turn the lights on.
Narrator: But that lettuce will start to wilt
in a matter of minutes, hot lights or not.
So quick-moving robots and tons of planning
are essential to keep a shoot on schedule,
because any delay could mean running over budget.
The first action uses a dolly zoom
to create something known as the Hitchcock effect.
Steve: But the whole background is like,
warping around it.
Narrator: Cue the robots.
They're actually the same kind that build cars.
This robot cost $150,000,
and it can pretty much do any move you can think of.
Steve: Sometimes you could program
the robot pretty quickly.
some moves take a whole day.
Narrator: Here's the second shot.
Steve envisioned the camera moving
through a field of burgers as each gets pulled out of frame.
Steve: We're probably only, like, an inch and a half
away from that burger when we land.
So to try to do that with people would be almost impossible.
It's a really complex move that the robots do really easily,
and they do it the same exact way every time.
Narrator: But speed is not the only challenge.
Every shot has to be identical.
If a burger is even a centimeter off,
or if something on set gets bumped between takes,
they might have to start over.
Steve: These fries don't want to behave.
Narrator: This laser helps them keep track
of the burger's position.
Narrator: They also have to be really flexible on set.
Steve: There's always curveballs that happen,
because it's a lot of problem-solving, which I love.
Narrator: For the last shot,
Steve ties all the ingredients on a fishing wire.
And a robot slices the string, and the camera
catches the perfect drop.
This exact move was actually
Steve's claim to fame in 2016.
Steve: We did this famous burger drop video
that went viral all over the internet.
Narrator: He slowly raked in millions of views
across platforms, and global publications
started covering his work.
All that social media buzz earned him
a lot of viewers and new clients,
and he was able to launch the Garage in 2019.
Steve: The burger drop was kind of like the spark
that started the path towards where we are today.
And now TikTok is, like,
crazier than Instagram ever was for me.
Narrator: Steve is a former food photographer,
but he wanted to combine his love
of engineering, food, and video.
Steve: And amazingly, there's a job that lets me do that.
There's a lot of different jobs that
my guidance counselor did not tell me about,
including my own.
Narrator: Today, his team films 40 advertisements a year,
billing over $5 million annually.
It kind of feels like CGI,
but it's actually done in camera.
And I think to accomplish that
larger-than-life feeling takes just a lot
of technology and skill.
Narrator: Steve says they know they've done a good job
when viewers can't tell a whole production
is hidden behind a shot.
Steve: They have no idea what we do at the end of the day.
It is fun for me for people to understand
how complex this stuff is.
Narrator: But all that complexity is worth it,
because there's a lot of money on the line.
Fast-food companies poured $5 billion
into advertising in 2019, and for good reason.
They know just how valuable the power
of food suggestion can be.
A Yale University study found that visual cues
like food ads can have an effect on food cravings.
Another study showed visual cues can influence
overeating and even weight gain.
And that can convert into traffic
and impressions for a brand.
Me included.
Narrator: These brands led the pack in ad spending
in 2019, and budgets just keep ballooning.
In September, Burger King announced it'll invest
$400 million in restaurant renovations and advertising,
a 30% increase from 2021.
Which is why Steve and his team filmed this Whopper pitch,
hoping to hook a new client
with their dancing robots and juicy burgers.
I smell like I was at a Burger King all day.