Digital News: Cooking Story Example: Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking

How Is This Filmed?

To help us with our cooking story, I've decided to do some research on a up-to-date cooking programme. I've decided to choose the new "Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking" programme, aired on Channel 4. This is mainly because of Gordon's cooking persona for being a very iconic chef, therefore it'll be interesting to see the way his cooking is filmed.

Gordon Ramsay in his home kitchen - allowing the audience to relate

Key Themes

Almost immediately, you can argue that the programme allows the audience to feel very comfortable and relaxed whilst watching. This is because the programme is actually filmed in Gordon's house, where his children even help to cook. This enables families to relate to the programme as well as showing that you can make these 'amazing' meals at home.

The programme is very fast-paced. The steps aren't shown slowly and each recipe is filmed and cooked very quickly. This reinforces my idea on how it keeps the audience on their feet and motivated, which additionally keeps them interested in the programme. The fast-paced is reinforced by how the visuals revolve around the narration: Gordon says the steps which is always shown
through visuals, making each step faster instead of vice versa (works better than showing each step slowly, otherwise the meal may take too long to cook thus loosing interest.

The programme shows him cooking with his children and wife,
which creates a comfortable feel for the programme

The structure and narrative of the programme too is very effective. It covers breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as other light snacks. More importantly, the programme is very relatable for the time of year it is launched. For example, the episode I am watching includes food which are "winter warmers" and "winter comforts". This makes the programme seem much more relatable and helps to set the mood of cooking even more.

In terms of sound, there is a constant soundtrack played, however is reasonably quiet as the audience need to be able to hear Gordon's narration clearly. This helps to reinforce this fast-paced by generally adding more noise to the narrative, as well as acting almost like a bit of motivational music or even relaxing music to reduce the chance of stressing if you try to learn to cook this, or simply if you just want to watch and learn what he is cooking, or watching for fun.

How Is It Filmed Visually?

To me, this programme is filmed in a very effective manor. The camera never stops unless it is showing the final product which too works in a way to keep the audience motivated and 'on their feet'.

As well as this, there is a large variety of camera shots used which helps to give the programme more variety. This mainly includes extreme close ups of the food, acting  in a way to make the audience hungry themselves which in a way helps to get them motivated to try cooking the meal or cooking in general themselves.

Additionally, the camera is also frequently panning and tracking, reinforcing this fast-paced. It has quite a dramatical filming style as we also see lots of quick zooms plus some pull focuses to reinforces this idea of modern filming and to generally help to add more action for the film, keeping this interest and motivation for the audience.

Extreme close up of the final food, reinforcing this idea of
'foodgasm'. This additionally motivates the audience,
hoping to make them cook or at least interested in the programme

What About Editing?

The editing too is very clever and works effectively. At the beginning of the programme we see glimpses of the finished products which will be shown in the episode. This deliberately teases the audience as it keeps them interested and motivated to see how you can make these foods look so nice, thus leading them to learn about how to or trying it for themselves.

As well as this, we also see graphics on screen as well. These are mainly used to say the name of the meals which Gordon is/will be cooking, working to help the audience likely to remember better what it is he is cooking. This even fits in with the wintery feel with the typography which is used.

And of course, the programme also has social interaction endorsement. We see the Twitter hashtag #GordonRamsay appear a couple of times in the episodes which enable the audience to carry on this motivation they've created from the website to comment and tweet about the programme itself. Which, of course, works in a way to help gain attention from other people who may not be watching the programme, due to people often tweeting good things (however people do tweet bad things) about the programme.

Conclusion

All in all, I feel that this programme is very efficient and has taught me quite a lot on how to film for our cooking story. The main visual focus is to keep the camera moving to reinforce this idea of a fast-paced narrative. Extreme close ups and quick camera movements such as quick zoom or pull focus too work in a way and almost gives cooking some 'action' shots, which of course helps to reinforce audience motivation. The idea of relating the programme dependent on the weather too works well as this and having the location at his house and his kitchen himself enable the audience to become comfortable and more importantly relate themselves to Gordon as they are both at home. Therefore, I'll try to keep these techniques in mind when filming our cooking story.