Food styling and food demos are fun to create, but admittedly they do take time and prep. Here are our top 5 food styling tips to help you make your next TV interview a success!
- Always do a dry run of your food demo at home. Practice creating it ahead of time and ensure you have all the ingredients and supplies ready for the interview. Try ‘talking your way’ through your recipe demo to gauge how long it takes to complete all the necessary steps. Double check your ingredient and equipment checklist to make sure you have everything you need for when on set.
- Set-up your food display in ‘stations’ and let your food display become the roadmap for your interview. For example, I recently did an interview on the importance of protein in the diet for kids. For this interview, I used four stations to help tell ‘my story.’ With each station you can discuss key points in the interview. My four stations were used to demonstrate: i. examples of plant-based proteins, ii. common protein choices, iii. to display of all the recipe ingredients (mis en place), iv. and to display the completed finished version of my high protein recipe (the ‘hero’). This last station is important in case you don’t have time to complete the entire recipe during your interview. The hero will also give the audience an idea of what the dish should look like.
- To create your recipe on air, set-up your ingredients already measured and prepped in glass bowls so viewers can easily see the ingredients. This is called ‘mis en place.’ It is helpful to have items chopped and ready to add. For example, if making a salad with broccoli and tomatoes have then chopped and measured. You can also make the display more visually appealing by having some of the whole ingredients used on display. For example, if lemon juice is used in the recipe, have the lemon juice squeezed and measured out, but also have a fresh lemon cut in half on display. Avoid using opaque, stainless steel or coloured plastic bowls. They may look pretty, but make it difficult for viewers to see the recipe ingredients.
- Try the ‘saran wrap trick’. If brining items into the studio use saran wrap to seal ingredients and sticky notes to label items to keep organized. You can label ingredients according to their designated stations. This will aid with a quick display set-up, as set-up time in studio is often limited. This will prevent you from feeling rushed or flustered right before your segment. Also consider using scrunched-up saran wrap as a prop to tilt items a little forward making items you want to emphasize easier for viewers to see.
- Make your display look more visually enticing by added coloured placements and / or napkins to anchor each station. Also, consider using different heights for your display. For example, a cutting board, or tall jar(s) filled with one or more of the ingredients being discussed will add height and interest to your food display and will make it more appealing.
Want more tips and ideas for planning your food displays? We can help! Contact us at info@mediatrainingbootcamp.com for personalized media coaching and secrets of success.
