The first thing I do before my lovely crew comes over on the morning of a shoot is move everything off of the top of the fridge onto our dining room table and push the table to the back wall to make room for the cameras. We have stools under the breakfast bar area that you see in the show so I push those aside too:
Next I take out everything we need for the first segment and put it out on the breakfast bar. This is a wider view than what you might see on the show:
We use two different microphones for the show. The first is the mic from the camera that shoots the frame shot, which used for most of the show, and the second is a lavalier that is attached to the camera that does the close-up and at the stove shots. We drag the wire from the lavalier along the right side of the breakfast bar and hide the mic at its edge:
Sneaky! The harsh streak of light you see comes from the track lighting on the dining room ceiling. These lights make for very convenient "studio lighting" and are the reason why no matter how much makeup I wear I still look like I have none on! The track lights came with the apartment so we were very happy to learn that we had them! We push all three of them to face the breakfast bar and use oven mitts to move them around if needed because they get really hot!
I also wanted to show you the faces behind the cameras and monitor screen. These three are the major players in making "Veggie Bites" a show but we also have people such as my friends Seth and Nate helping when we need an extra hand or two. First up we have our editor Jordan who seamlessly edits out all of my word jumbles:
An interesting fact about Jordan is that she works at her mom's pub, The Jolly Drayman which is located in the beautiful state of Maine. Her favorite episode is the Greek food episode where my friends and I made spanakopita, tzatziki sauce and vegetable kabobs!
Mike is on the main camera and is our go-to man for technological problems (which happen at every shoot, we call it the curse of "Veggie Bites"). Note the light coming from track lighting above his head:
Mike's interesting fact is that he is the only vegetarian working on "Veggie Bites" and his favorite episode is the pizza episode where we made two different kinds of savory pizzas plus a candy pizza. The pizza and Greek episodes were shot in the kitchen of one of the dorms at American University... oh how things have changed!
Kelli does all of our close ups and at-the-stove shots:
Her interesting fact is that she puts butter on all of her sandwiches because of some time she spent in Germany when in high school. She also said that the Germans she was with only drank apple juice with seltzer so she does so too! Her favorite episode is the couscous episode (scroll to the bottom of the page!) where I made a lemony couscous with chickpea cakes and my Great-Grandmothers Romanian eggplant. This episode was taped in the first floor lounge of another dorm at American University that we never knew we could tape in! I still like taping in my apartment best because now I don't have to lug an enormous container of all of my cooking equipment around campus!
I hope you enjoyed learning how we do things on set and feel free to let me know if you have any questions about past episodes!
With health,
Melissa
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