Video Production & Photography Request

In celebration of Bastille Day on July 14th, world-renowned premium burger brand Umami Burger partnered with Michelin-star French chef and restauranteur, Daniel Boulud, in their latest Artist Series collaboration. As part of the partnership, Chef Boulud created his take on the Umami Burger, dubbed “The Umami Frenchie,” which draws on his gourmet French culinary background by using ingredients like pork belly, Raclette cheese, arugula, Dijon mustard.. Umami Burger locations nationwide will donate $1 from every Umami Frenchie burger sold to Chef Boulud’s charitable organization, City Meals, which provides a lifeline of nourishing meals and vital companionship to New York City’s homebound elderly.

Ezra Productions was brought on to create a promotional video production and photo campaign to whet the public’s appetite by giving them an audiovisual taste of their collaboration. The clients requested that the videos and photos be fun, spontaneous, and give a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Chef Boulud’s Umami Frenchie burger. It was important that the charitable aspect of the partnership also be front and center. The result was a day-long video and photo shoot that yielded seven videos for social media and countless photographs utilized by their PR, web, and digital teams to promote the partnership and the burger.

Our Approach

We started by creating a script based on previous Artist Collection videos and catered our interview questions to Chef Boulud and this specific partnership. Then, we scouted the restaurant to figure out how to optimize the setup and the schedule for the shoot day to get the best results possible.

We planned the shoot day to optimize the budget and Chef Boulud’s time, while still getting the cinematic aesthetic and authentic and playful feelings we wanted to capture. To do this, we shot everything in one location–the Umami Burger restaurant in New York’s Hudson Hotel–and brought the photo studio to the restaurant. This made more logistical and budgetary sense than moving the whole production to a nearby photo studio halfway through the day, and it gave us the flexibility to grab shots in other setups if we needed them later on. 

On the day of the shoot, we brought a cinema-quality camera and lenses, commercial lighting, and a small crew to minimize our footprint on the restaurant while still being able to produce the most beautiful, clean videos possible. To get the controlled, fluid motions we love, the DP switched between using a Steadicam and a tripod.

We interviewed the chef in the restaurant and then followed him to the kitchen to observe the cooking process. We continued the interview in the kitchen in order to get additional and off-the-cuff sound bites. Between video setups, we took photographs of Chef Boulud and the burger to be used for press and social media. We ended the day by photographing Chef Boulud, The Frenchie, and the burger’s ingredients on clean white background.

We only had about 3 editing days to edit and color all seven videos, so we prepared the client to provide feedback during set times. We followed the tight schedule and ultimately delivered the hero video one day before the deadline.