Have you ever wondered how those mouth-watering deconstructed food commercials are shot? You know, the ones where the burger and all of its delectable ingredients seductively fall into place as the camera pans down and away from the scene?
It might look like witchcraft, but the truth of the matter is it can be done with a camera, a few clever mechanical components, and a lot of patience to get the number of shots needed.
Today, we get a behind-the-scenes look at how these shots are made thanks to photographer and visual engineer Steve Giralt.
Throughout the four-minute video, Giralt walks through each of the elements used to create the commercial, and explains how all of them came together to create the final project.
The most impressive component was the burger drop scene, which was filmed using a Phantom 4K camera attached to a programmed robotic arm. Working hand in hand with Giralt’s custom-made Precision Arduino Timing Relay Imaging Controller — more affectionately referred to as PATRIC — the pieces came together and managed to capture the perfect burger drop shot on only the third try.
Once composited in with the other shots, what we’re left with is a perfect scene that shows a burger precisely dropping into place one ingredient and condiment at a time.
The amount of effort that went into such a short piece of video is almost beyond belief. It might be easy to skip over that McDonald’s commercial showing a deconstructed Big Mac, but don’t take for granted the amount of work that went into creating it.
