Narrator: Ever wonder how food commercials
look so mouthwatering and perfect?
These food shoots can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,
all so you'll buy more of these.
Visual engineer, Steve Giralt,
shoots photos and videos
for food and product-based commercials
in New York City and around the world.
I bring technology
and kind of traditional image-making processes together
in what I call visual engineering.
Narrator: One piece of that technology: robots.
Or, as they call them, motion controls.
Steve's long list of clients include big brands,
like Hershey's, Budweiser, Pepsi, and Starbucks.
Of course making food look so good comes with a price.
A single-day TV shoot can cost
between $50,000 to $100,000.
Steve: In these food shoots that we create,
we have a lot of moving parts.
Basically, you'll have, let's say, one item that's moving,
something else that's flashing and running into it,
something else that it's gonna land on.
We have to use a lot of different technologies
and synchronizing software
to basically allow those things all to happen
at the exact moment we need them to happen.
We love it, here we go.
Comes out pretty low.
Narrator: It also takes a symphony of people
to make the products look the best they can be.
Various stylists, engineers, and operators
work together to create the perfect shot.
My name is Michelle Gatton, and I am a food stylist.
When I get recipes, I read over the recipe
so I know what I'm gonna be doing.
So, in the back of my head,
I start thinking about how I'd like to do it.
It could change once we get on set with the different props,
what the art director wants could change,
but I start trying to create the recipe in my head,
'cause I'm only makin' it pretty much the first time on set.
I made these brownies yesterday,
just so we're not waiting on me making brownies.
And, to make them look like I just made them,
I just warmed up the chocolate with a heat gun,
and I'm adding a little bit of melted chocolate
to the cut side.
Steve: So here we've got our motorized slider,
which is moving a pump that's gonna have caramel on it
that'll be pumping down onto our brownies.
So, in the end, we'll have this shot
of this beautiful ribbon of caramel
kind of draping and curling on top of the brownie.
Narrator: There's a lot of trial and error.
Steve: Are you ready?
And here we go.
Yeah!
Nailed it!
Narrator: Every precise moment captured
is nailed down to the millisecond.
This is the benefit to using robots.
Human hands are also used on commercials
when timing is not a crucial factor.
Steve: We put a lot of effort into these visuals.
It's really cool to see your vision
kinda come to life and be spread with the world.
I think you have to have a really great understanding
of what is appetizing.
Everybody speaks the language of food.