I officially joined Lasell’s TV club, LCTV, during my sophomore year. I worked on a couple of productions during the year, including one filming for Culinary College, the cooking show on campus. I knew that I wanted to one day run the show when the former showrunner graduated, so I knew I had to soak up knowledge on how to run a show while I was just a member of the team.
I was officially confirmed to run Culinary College at the beginning of this school year. I was so excited! I couldn’t wait to get into the kitchen and begin filming. However, I had only been to one Culinary College shoot last year. I didn’t know how to set up cameras or assign roles to a crew. I wasn’t completely prepared.
Before filming, I didn’t know the first thing about working professional cameras. I could only work with a phone camera. I have yet to take video production (and that’s definitely a class I will be taking soon!), so I had to get taught how to set up two cameras beforehand – one handheld camera for b-roll shots and one that would stand on a tripod.
All while the knowledge I received went in one ear, stayed for about…ten minutes or so, and then out the other ear, I felt anxious. I was dreading the long walk from the library across campus to the dorm where I’d be filming. Normally, it would’ve been manageable to walk across campus because of how small it is, but I was carrying a large load. I had to push a heavy cart that held a tripod, two cameras, and my bag of groceries. Let’s just say, that was my workout for the day.
For my first episode, I made three different kinds of mug cakes: chocolate, cookies ‘n cream, and maple cinnamon. Hours before filming, I collected all my ingredients from home. I also brought measuring equipment from home just in case the kitchen we were filming in didn’t have any.
I was correct to bring measuring equipment, because the kitchen had absolutely nothing in its cabinets. I needed napkins to clean up any spills from the batter, spoons to mix each batter together, and forks to taste each cake. The kitchen didn’t have any of the items I needed. Even during filming, after I said it was time to microwave the cakes, I turned around and came face-to-face with a full-on oven…not a microwave. Shoutout to the club’s president, Emily, for letting me borrow her microwave halfway through filming!
Finally, after microwaving the mug cakes (thankfully, I looked in my grocery bag and saw I had three napkins that I placed in between each mug while traveling so they didn’t break. The cakes didn’t explode!), they were all either burnt on the sides and undercooked in the middle, or completely undercooked. They were all inedible. I did try each cake, just for fun, and they all had potential to be great. I just forgot to look up a common time to cook each cake for, which was me being unprepared once again.
The cakes not turning out the way I wanted them to was the cherry on top of a crazy Thursday afternoon. Once the cameras stopped rolling, I had a moment where I put my face down on a counter over my arms and said, “Whyyy?!” while laughing.
Further, I also didn’t buy my own memory cards to plug into the cameras so I could properly have the footage. Shoutout to Emily again, and board member Sasia, for letting me borrow theirs! However, the handheld camera footage was lost. The whole shoot didn’t go my way, so it’s likely this episode will not go public.
Lessons were learned that day. I needed to do a lot more prep than I originally thought. Next time I film (which will hopefully be next week), I know I need to bring more materials, and maybe try a different kitchen – with a microwave!