A dash of technology, a mountain of fire and flames – how we created an artsy burger commercial

We feel like doing something new. We want to stage a burger in a short commercial... with basically no budget and a very modest studio. The end result is supposed to be dynamic. We’re thinking a juicy patty on the grill, fresh ingredients... and we want it all to combine into one beautiful burger – as if by magic. Challenge accepted.

In the coronavirus slowdown, my roommate Luca and I find time to implement our plan. It’s a project meant to show us that doing something like this is actually possible. We’re working with a burger from Migros' V-Love line. Just a few fresh ingredients and the burger is set, right? Wrong. It’s actually a ton of work to get it right. First off, we have to recreate the set about 10 times (not every scene made it into the finished commercial). And we have to re-grill and reassemble the entire burger a total of three times. And even once the filming is done and over with, we still have to cut and edit the video.

Time flies

We meet up at 8:00 a.m. We start off by planning an approximate shooting schedule, going shopping and setting up. We want to show the ingredients, the formation of the burger, the grilling process and the finished burger in our commercial. All of this will be edited down to a few seconds. Three hours pass before the first shot is a wrap. It feels like we haven't done anything yet, and ten more hours pass before the last shot is also done. That’s a lot of effort for a few seconds of film.

The real star on the set, besides the burger, is the Venus Optics lens. That unusual rod thing is a macro wide-angle lens. It makes small objects look larger than life.

The elongated design means little light reaches the sensor; the aperture can only be set to a maximum of f/14. So, we need a lot of extra light. To get the lighting we need, we use the Aputure C120D II LED video light and some cheap China lights from previous, private purchases. In addition, we use several of the portable, battery-powered RGB Nanlites. The small, mobile RGB lights prove invaluable when we get to the grilling part. They have various modes we can use to simulate fire, for example, so we can «grill» in our living room. Throw in some real fire from a gas cartridge and the illusion is perfect.

We decided to use a TV screen as the background. The advantage is that we can use it to display any colour we please for the background. The downside is that at 46 inches, the TV is too small and the lights reflect strongly on the glossy surface. This restricts our freedom of movement. Whenever we move the lights around, we have meticulously make sure that they don't reflect off the TV. We don't have much room to manoeuvre, because otherwise the white wall will be visible instead of the TV background. Some might say, «Eh, we’ll fix it in post-production.» We’ll see about that.

Fix it in post-editing?

At 8:00 p.m., it’s a wrap on the last shots. The camera's SSD is filled with 177 GB of data. Did we really get all the footage we need? We’ll find out in the cutting stage.

In Adobe After Effects, I mask out distracting areas, replace backgrounds, and remove the wooden sticks holding the burger together. It’s a lengthy and complex process. You can see exactly how we shot it in the video at the top of the page.

Since only the centre of the image is interesting to me, I mask out all the distracting elements. I add a green backdrop to the program. I now have the burger in front of the blue TV screen. I remove the blue background using the «Keylight (1.2)» tool. Because the blue is quite uniform, I can do this in just a few clicks.

Then, I use the «CC Wire Removal Tool» to remove the wooden stick, creating the illusion that the burger and its ingredients are floating. To make the effect work, I readjust the position of the CC Wire Removal Tool frame by frame. A Sisyphean task. Back in Adobe Premiere Pro, I run the clip a little faster so that the burger collapses in a split second and it looks like all the pieces are floating in the air. That's the magic behind it!

In some of the footage, I struggle with the small TV. When we flip the burger, the camera follows it. The white wall quickly appears in the background. I cover the white with a backdrop in the colour of the next frame. Again, I have to adjust the size and position of the green backdrop frame by frame. Since this clip also runs at a higher speed, you can’t see the con job that the green backdrop is.

Success!

We managed to produce a respectable little commercial with the few resources we had. With more budget, time and an appropriate studio (or the largest TV digitec currently has in stock), the result would be even better, of course. In post-production, we can tweak quite a few unwanted details so that they’re no longer noticeable. For example, the fact that we used a TV screen as a background. Where do you still see potential for improvement? And do you think this commercial is something Migros could actually use?

Update

Many of you have asked questions about our budget. With all the technology used, all the time spent working, etc., the amounts add up quickly. To produce a proper commercial that can then be aired at the movies, on TV, and so on, it takes a bit more than just a camera, a great lens, and two creative minds. Here’s a video showing how things are done on a real set for food commercials: