- You notice in this shot,
steam is coming off the back of the table,
so they actually could just have a steamer somewhere below
that gives the illusion of a nice, hot fresh pizza.
It could also be a tampon soaked in hot water
that's just laying behind the pizza and steaming up.
Hi, I'm Lish Steiling.
I'm a chef, food stylist and culinary producer.
I've worked on all kinds of food styling gigs
from commercials to television shows and print.
Today, we'll be breaking down food styling
and TV commercials.
This commercial is from Pizza Hut.
- [Narrator] Pizza Hut, baby.
Detroit-style pizza.
With the cheese all the way to the crispy edges.
Savory sauce poured right on top.
Go ahead, get yourself some Detroit Style.
The Detroit-style pizza.
- Look at that cheese pulls [laughs].
Typically, you wanna be able
to use the right kind of cheese.
Mozzerella is the stringiest, pulliest kind of cheese
that you can use.
If you're buying the pre-shredded
any kind of cheese, really,
normally it has an anti-caking agent on it
so it doesn't always give you the best melt.
So really, the best thing to do is to shred it yourself
off of a block.
The cheese has to be at the right temperature.
This can't just be out comes the pizza
and you do it, because then the cheese is too hot
and it's gonna slide off the sauce.
If the cheese is too cold,
it's just gonna break and snap.
It has to be that perfect moment.
That slomo shot.
Bow-chicka-bow-wow, just perfect.
Once you start the cheese pull, you're committed.
Though it's all slow and steady.
Up and away, slow and steady, up and away.
So you're gonna get one pull per pizza, each try.
And if you don't nail it, in comes the next pizza.
The assistant in back is just cranking through pizzas
trying to get these right.
A little secret to the magic
is we actually pre-cut the crust or the slice
before you actually build it.
Then you put your sauce on.
You might even put a little bit of paper towel in between
so that the sauce doesn't seep out.
Then you cover it and load it with the mozzarella cheese.
Now you have the ability to pull up that mozzarella cheese
and get that pull
without actually cutting through the cheese
and losing the pull.
So it gives you that amplified stretch
that you want in the commercial.
To get those crispy edges around the outside,
you have to make sure that you have
a decent amount of cheese on those edges.
So you might actually stick pieces of cheese vertically
so that you have that crispy wall that forms
instead of just sprinkling it around.
That was not one of these actions.
That was a this action.
So this is where oil comes in.
I like to call it lube
because literally, that's what you're doing.
You're taking canola oil
and you're brushing it on very gently with a paintbrush
over the top that makes it look hot and fresh.
You want something that has that glisten
that says, come take a bite of me.
This is my favorite paintbrush that I have.
This guy I like because it can take a lot of oil
and I don't have to keep going back in.
It's great for just stabbing as well.
That's why I like this guy.
You definitely have to consider the camera angle
when you're a stylist.
When you're looking at something this way,
you're looking at the texture.
You're looking at the pepperoni,
how it sticks up and curls up.
If you're thinking about overhead,
you're not caring so much about all of that movement.
The tomato sauce is very glisteny.
You just have to think about the texture as a stylist
to make sure that it spoons on nicely.
So this is the Kunz spoon.
It was designed by Chef Gray Kunz.
May he rest in peace.
He passed away recently.
And it is thought to be the perfect spoon
for spooning things.
The depth of the bowl is deep enough, but not too deep
and it comes to a nice point here
so that as you're spooning or pouring this way,
it comes off in a nice, steady stream.
Just a little tip about a spoon.
Hold it like you do a pencil
'cause you have more dexterity this way
versus holding it like this.
Then you're just kind of awkward and cumbersome.
The more you know [laughs].
This is a commercial for McDonald's.
- [Narrator] How can you make McDonald's
hot, deliciously juicy quarter pounder even more delicious?
One word, bacon.
The new fresh beef quarter pounder, bacon or deluxe.
- Why do people think that bouncing food is more attractive?
For some reason, a lot of commercials have bouncing food.
Something to think about on this burger
is with McDonald's, typically it's done on a flat top,
right, so it's one side, one side.
With this guy, you can tell that it was specifically
rolled on its edge to get some of those brown crispy bits
coming off the edge.
That's what you want because the angle
is going into the burger.
It's not straight on top of it
so you need that golden brown all around.
You can also use a torch or heat gun
to actually get a little bit of that sizzle on there.
This is a little specific gun
that gives you a very specific point of heat.
It's literally called a MAG torch.
It has something to do with construction and carpentry.
Might be a welding tool.
So, the amount of lube on that burger
actually leads me to believe that it might actually
be stored in canola oil.
So, often at the beginning of a shoot,
we'll sear off a bunch of burgers
and then slide them in a bath of canola oil
and when you bring them out and you just
kind of pat them dry a little bit,
use the heat gun if you need to bring them back to life,
and voila, you have a fresh, sizzly burger
that's been sitting for 12 hours.
Here's the thing with getting the cheese
in the right place on the bun.
You're never seeing the back side of that sandwich.
'Cause you're looking into the food
which is good, it's attractive,
but that means you can actually play with the cheese.
So it can actually come forward a little bit more.
You get sexy drape, you cheat the meat a little bit forward.
It's right at the edge of the bun.
It looks like it's a full sandwich
that you just wanna take a bite out of.
So there's definitely tricks that you can do now
to get that wavy looking bacon.
There are pans that you can buy
that actually allow it to drape in that way.
Old school, we used to actually make a aluminum foil
kind of situation
that would allow you to kind of get that waviness
which is the way to achieve that.
Baking just gives you a much more even heat source.
Listen, I love fried bacon like the best of 'em,
but in baking it, you get a more even appearance.
In order to find the perfect bun,
they might have to sent flats and flats
of beef burger buns
for the stylist to be able to pick it up,
do you see enough sesame seeds along the edge?
Is it brown enough far enough down?
Is there any kind of nubbing falling off?
Right, sometimes that ribbony effect
that happens on a bun.
Very sharp kitchen shears
so that if you ever get that ruffle
on the edge of a hamburger bun,
you can simply snip them off.
For the soda in this shot,
it looks like they probably used fake ice cubes
because there's a lot of 'em in there
and they all still look like
they're pretty perfectly intact.
Also, the outside of the glass looks nice and frosty
but you can get that illusion with a spritz bottle [laughs].
It's also good if you're trying to fresh up the pickles.
It's great if you're working with lettuce
to keep things looking crisp and fresh.
This is a commercial for Olive Garden.
♪ It's snowing ♪
♪ The wind is blowing ♪
Bouncing food [laughs] ♪ But I can't weather ♪
♪ The storm ♪ Hello, lover.
♪ What do I care how much it may storm ♪
There is so much happening in this commercial [laughs].
This had to be a multiple day shoot.
Almost every single take in this commercial is a challenge.
From the time-lapsing of the ziti
to the stirring of the soup
and having the dribble come down.
The culinary team in and of itself
would probably have four people on it.
So there's the lead food stylist
and two or three assistants even
or a PA that might help with them as well.
I applause Olive Garden because
there's a lot of details here.
With a slice of lasagna
where it's into the food
and you're seeing all the layers,
you need something to absorb any excess liquid
so maybe there's some paper towel in there.
Maybe there's a little light days panty liner action
to absorb some of the extra.
Something that's gonna stop it from oozing too much.
It just gives you longevity.
It looks dreamy, doesn't it?
I'd eat that piece of lasagna.
To get that bubbly action that's happening
even on the slice,
there's gotta be some kind of heat source
very close by.
A heat gun right on top.
They take it right out of the oven and blast it
and then put it right out in front.
Microwaves work too.
But it's probably some kind of heat source on the set
that's keeping it nice and hot like that.
In reality, with this breadstick in particular,
it's probably one person brushing
and another person coming by and throwing it on.
It's definitely a group effort
between the cameraperson on the pan,
the lighting guy who has the perfect light
coming from the back so it's like oh, it's sunset
and we're just dusting our breadsticks.
It takes a village.
The pouring of the cheese sauce
is all about the consistency of the cheese sauce.
Maybe you have to thin it out a little bit.
Maybe you have to thicken it a little bit.
Maybe you don't have to heat it up
because it pours better when it's cold.
This might be being poured out of a pitcher
because then you get that consistent stream
and you have plenty of sauce in there
to nappee the beautifully browned chicken
that's resting carelessly on top of the pasta.
I mean, it's a whole symphony of white and brown food
that you've never wanted to dive into more, right [laughs].
This is a commercial for Burger King.
[lively orchestral music]
♪ What a difference a day makes ♪
So my first initial thoughts at this commercial
is A, it kinda pulls back the curtain on food styling,
which is great, and B, molding can be beautiful.
Until it's not [laughs].
You wouldn't necessarily
have the marks on the side of the burger
so it looks like those were actually darkened
by the food stylist
so you can either use a charcoal starter
that will give you that charred golden brown edge
all the way around the sides,
or you can paint a little something on.
Shoe polish would work
or a concoction of kitchen bouquet and bitters
and ivory soap to help it stick on.
Kitchen bouquet is old school.
It's basically a coloring when you're making gravy
to make your gravy darker [laughs].
This is actually a good example of how,
with a food stylist, you don't want to see
light coming through things,
so as the commercial goes on,
you see the adjustments happening.
A change in the onion, nestling in more lettuce,
just to make that perfect illusion
of the outside of the burger.
This food stylist is using a piping bag
instead of a pipette or a squeeze bottle.
You can see that the dollop of ketchup
actually has that rounded dome to it
so it hasn't been smashed and it hasn't been agitated.
Ugh, beautiful lettuce.
Don't you just love that?
It's like a skirt.
So the perfect piece of lettuce.
Clean them really well, soak them in cold water,
dry 'em really well and find those ones
that have that perfect edge.
Working with smaller pieces
tends to be better in this case,
so that kinda gives you more control
of the ripple effect when working with a piece of lettuce.
So once the lettuce goes on,
often, I'll use a toothpick to secure
the burger at that point
and insert that right down the center
and then that'll kind of hold everything in place.
I would say finishing touches for a burger
would typically be the condiments.
At this moment, the food stylist is using the cue tip
because it looks like the ketchup may have bled a little bit
up onto the onion.
You wanna see that clean line of the white onion, right,
so a little cue tip, very specific, gets it right off.
I mean, it's a good lookin6g burger.
This next commercial is for Dairy Queen.
- [Narrator] When we're serving you Blizzard treats
like M&Ms, cookie dough, and new Oreo fudge brownie,
all made with our world-famous vanilla soft serve.
Thanks for being our fans for all these years.
- Oh, ice-cream's a bitch [laughs].
Let's be honest.
Especially with something like this
'cause it's soft serve.
Like you need it to be the right texture
and there's no way of faking it.
When you're talking about real ice-cream,
you can actually use things
like cans of frosting and 10X
and incorporate more powdered sugar
into your cans of frosting
until you have the right texture and consistency
of like a scoop of ice-cream.
But with soft serve, soft serve has its own unique texture.
With ice-cream, you kind of want a couple of things on set.
One would be like dry ice
or something that's nearby
that you can get things back to the right temperature ASAP.
A blast freezer wouldn't be bad.
Something that just chills something down very rapidly.
It just gives it a shock to the system.
You definitely don't wanna get trapped in one.
Some food stylists might wanna work with liquid nitrogen
or something like that.
With Dairy Queen, I'm pretty sure that their soft serve
is just a tapper.
They might even have brought
all that kind of stuff to set
that you just constantly keep making 'em
and keep making 'em and keep making 'em.
For a commercial like this,
you might be working on a refrigerated set.
Not quite working in a walk-in freezer
but it's definitely below
what you would think of as room temperature.
The perfectly cut Reece's Pieces.
They're cut so precisely so that you see the chunks.
The M&Ms are mostly whole but some of them are halved
so that you can see into it.
Looking real dreamy, Dairy Queen [laughs].
When you see the Blizzard, the vessel is opaque.
You can't see into it.
So for all we know,
it could be like a false bottom cup, right.
The whole bottom of the cup could be empty.
They just tap in some soft serve,
smudge it around a little bit
and then put all the toppings on top
so that you can actually tell what it is.
So this could be more of a fudge of hey,
it's soft serve with stuff on top
and that way, slow motion bow-chicka-bow-wow M&Ms, hey,
go in and that's what you're seeing there.
The commercial did its job.
I definitely wanted a Blizzard [laughs].
This is a commercial for Subway.
- [Narrator] Subway has so much new,
it didn't fit in the last ad.
Like the new Deli-style oven-roasted turkey
and new Hickory-smoked bacon.
It's the Eat Fresh Refresh at Subway.
There's so much new.
Oh, and there's smashed avocado too.
- This one has all the special effects.
It's spinning salad, it's bouncing meat.
I'm really not sure why the ingredients
have to be flying into the sandwich
because I don't know about you,
but when I'm home, I don't stand back and like,
lob my ham at my sandwich,
but I mean, I guess it's just this like
carefree, fun way of building a sandwich.
So the right height to drop these items
is actually just out of camera.
There's no dropping from up here,
dropping from down here.
It's like okay, here's your frame.
Am I in, yep, you can see my hand.
Can you still see my hand?
Nope, okay, drop.
Subway does have a very specific way
of laying cheese.
That is not it.
Normally, it's very specifically shingled on itself.
In a perfect paper football kind of situation going on
and it's not as exciting to see somebody lay out cheeses.
I mean, we've all seen it happen.
All of the vegetables in this
are misted lightly with moisture [laughs]
and that ha to do with giving the illusion of freshness.
You're like oh, it's freshly washed,
picked out of the garden, taken to the sink,
rinsed off and now it's ready for my sandwich.
What I actually love about building sandwiches.
Sandwich has so much movement
and I think that that is what makes it appealing
to style a sandwich like this.
You're not just putting meat, meat, meat,
cheese, cheese, cheese, right?
It's ribbons of meat.
Cheese is placed just so
so it drapes off the side.
Little pieces of shredded lettuce
that have a tussled man bun look in the sandwich.
There are all these little elements to it
that makes you wanna squoosh it and take a bite.
This is a commercial for Frito-Lay.
- Twas the night before.
Hold up, let's take this up a notch.
Montana and Rice relive their old glory
while adding Doritos to their Superbowl story.
Bradshaw and Bennett cause a snack table to shatter.
Forget the Doritos.
- Poor food stylist.
- Don't forget the chips.
- How many bags of chips they had to go through
to find that many perfect chips [laughs].
That food stylist must have had
at least four or five people
searching through bags of chips.
I am guessing that Frito-Lays
had very specific standards for their perfect chip.
For example with Lays,
it had to be a certain size.
Sometimes Lays are very large or small.
Maybe one curl or one ribbon in it.
Same thing with the Tostitos.
Probably a certain number of waves.
The Doritos, are there discolorations?
Are they evenly coated?
I'm sure that Frito-Lays did not hold back
on letting them know what the perfect chip should be
and they're probably right.
The entire crew, I can guarantee you,
went home with bags and bags of broken chips.
I want to assume that the chip bags
definitely came from the factory,
but the only thing is is that you don't see
the stamped price on anything
or the Best By date on any of them
which are normally in that top-right corner.
I buy chips.
I want to assume that that was
specifically sent from the manufacturer that way.
You can see often that they're not really like
grabbing a chip, right?
It's held between two fingers, very daintily
about to be consumed
or it's being used as a football
and again, only one finger is touching it
so you see the entire chip
in its full, beautiful potential.
And the poor food stylist
with the whole collapsing table scene.
Whew, what's a mess!
You know, it's picking it up
and redoing everything, replating everything
and it does take a village,
so definitely the art department,
even a special effects team,
to get that perfect bounce off the table.
But yeah, that's one of those scenes that you just go,
oh, the clean up,
and the amount of perfect chips
that it took to fill those bowls
and that it'll take to fill the other ones
that are gonna replace 'em.
I hope they got that in one take.
This is a commercial for Campbell's.
- [Press] Beck, that touchdown, how do you do it?
People say talent runs in the family.
- Really?
- [Both] That's what I've heard.
- Who let my brothers in here?
- Or is it 'cause we feed you chunky soup?
- [Narrator] Campbell's Chunky.
Packed with heart meat and veggies.
- So it's the one shot of the bowl of soup in this.
The beautiful thing is is that
the spoon is already out of the bowl
so you can actually build the perfect spoonful
before the person even grabs the spoon.
The other nice part is is that
as soon as they pull that spoon out of frame,
the bowl is still full.
When it comes to this, opening a lot of cans
and finding the perfect noodles,
the perfect pieces of chicken.
Sometimes you might be able to poach some chicken
so that you get better pieces,
but ideally, you're using their product.
So in this case, you don't have to worry
about anything sinking
because it is such a shallow bowl.
The noodles, the carrots, the celery, the chicken.
It's all sitting on the bottom of the bowl
and there's just enough broth to give the illusion
that it's swimming in the soup.
It's all right there in front of you
so it's smart styling.
I hope that people take away from today
just the simple understanding of enjoying a commercial
for what it is.
That there's a lot more effort
that goes in behind the scenes
that we often think about.
If you can watch a commercial and go wow,
that looked really good,
then we've all done our job.
So I'm Lish, thank you and goodnight [laughs].
[upbeat music]