Recipe Video Creation for Food Bloggers

Steve and Yvonne posing next to recipe video equipment
Steve and Yvonne create the world’s finest recipe videos for food bloggers!

Hi, it’s Steve here! With hundreds of recipe videos under our apron belts, my wife Yvonne and I have developed a major love for capturing the magic of cooking and baking on camera. In addition to creating numerous videos to help spread the goodness of our own recipes from TriedandTasty.com, We’ve created countless recipe videos for major food brands.

We’re ecstatic to announce that we are now making our recipe video services available to fellow food bloggers!

We’ll take your favorite recipes and transform them into 60 second long bite sized ‘Tasty’ style videos, which are perfect for sharing not only on your own website (reinforcing written content with relevant video can be great for SEO and user experience!), but also on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube & more.

Extensive recipe filming experience has taught us that like any great recipe, a great recipe video requires all the right ingredients, including:

THE PERFECT LIGHTING.

Not too bright, not too dark, and evenly distributed – with zero lighting fluctuations found during the video. After years of experience, trial, and error – We’ve achieved lighting perfection, calibrated to the perfect ‘white balance’.

Natural lighting is wonderful, but natural lighting is very inconsistent – particularly during Winter and Fall. A single passing cloud can turn a bright scene into a dark scene and then back to a bright scene in seconds. This isn’t a major issue during still photography – but when creating a recipe video you want 100% consistent lighting, 100% of the time. This can only be achieved with indoor studio lighting.

The problem is, you can’t just purchase a lighting kit or two from Amazon and expect it to look like the “real thing”.  Harsh shadows, yellow or blue tinting, and uneven exposure are very common issues that come with indoor lighting. Through the years, we’ve spent countless hours experimenting with numerous lighting technologies and placements and have at last arrived at a result that we are completely confident is as brilliant and natural looking as the “real thing” – with none of the inherent limitations and inconsistencies.

It took us more than a hundred hours and a significant financial investment to design and build a completely custom lighting setup that features nearly 100 individual High CRI LED bulbs, strategically placed around the studio for optimal lighting conditions. We’re happy to report that the time and investment was absolutely worth it.

CONSISTENT, CRYSTAL CLEAR CAMERA FOCUS.

How many times have you seen an otherwise good recipe video hindered by inconsistent camera focus where the ingredients or action are in focus one moment, but out of focus the next? We have multiple monitors in our studio and I act as a dedicated video producer to keep a keen eye on every single frame of video, ensuring each shot is crisp and perfectly lined up. Yvonne’s hands are the star of the show as she makes the recipe. Having both of us hard at work in the studio results in a top quality recipe video.

A KNACK FOR VIDEO EDITING.

How do you condense 30-60 minutes of raw footage, captured from two different cameras and angles into a 30-60 second recipe video? Which scenes do you keep, and which do you omit? It may seem counter-intuitive, but creating an effective minute long recipe video is actually far more difficult than creating a 2-3 minute long video – all because of how selective you have to be about which shots to trim and which shots to keep in order to make everything fit within those finely tuned 60 seconds.

THE RIGHT PACING.

As artsy as an up close macro shot of a whisk turning cream into whipped cream might be, no one wants to stare at the same shot for more than a brief moment. Knowing how long to show each ingredient or action sequence in a recipe video is an art that comes only with extensive practice.

THE RIGHT CAMERA EQUIPMENT.

Sure, you could film a recipe video using even the most basic of cameras, or even a smart phone – but would you truly be happy with the resulting quality? Because of how much we enjoy and value recipe videos, we’ve made a substantial investment in top of the line equipment including multiple DSLR cameras, tripods, and a lineup of professional grade lenses.

THE RIGHT PROPS.

What a difference filming on a professionally crafted tabletop (I love Erikson Woodworks!) makes as opposed to filming on any old kitchen table or countertop. We even give you the option to choose the tabletop you’d like us to use in your video!

Similarly, we can’t emphasize enough just how important it is to select plates, bowls, platters, stands, linens, and utensils that have a style, character, and color that compliments the recipe being filmed. It’s all in the details.

PROFESSIONALISM.

Finally, when working with an expert to capture your recipes on video, professionalism is an absolute must. Someone could create the most captivating recipe video in existence, but what good would it be if it was delivered a month past due, and too late for you to incorporate into that huge promotion that you had carefully planned out?

As a food bloggers, we take pride in creating recipe videos that we would be proud to feature on our own website, and to deliver them in a timely manner when they are promised.

As far as rates go, we always strive to strike that perfect balance between what is fair to us, the video creators; and what is fair to you, the recipe blogger.

Please bare in mind that creating a recipe video is a lot of work, with many steps involved. It starts with reading and understanding the recipe. Going shopping for the ingredients (time + expense). Carefully measuring out and organizing ingredients in numerous bowls and vessels. Making and filming the recipe. Doing a sink full of dishes. Editing the recipe video. Uploading the video and sending it to the client. Making any necessary changes based on the client’s feedback. Re-uploading the video, if needed. Sending the client an invoice for the video, and then tracking and following up on payment. Whew!

All that being said, when properly promoted and utilized, a well done recipe video can do wonders for your brand and website! We can’t make specific guarantees, but as a food blogger, incorporating recipe videos may be one of the smartest investments that you can make.

Ready to get the ball rolling on creating mouth watering recipe videos for your favorite recipes?

Send us an email at the following address so that we can get the discussion started, including ideas, rates, and timelines!

Interested in learning more about recipe videos? Be sure to checkout these articles as well!


Here are some real world examples of recipe videos that we’ve created:

For additional examples of my recipe video work, please visit our YouTube portfolio page.