We’re been working on a secret, not-so-secret project. As soon as we wrapped with filming Season 1 of our online cooking show, we turned right around and starting shooting our Season 1 eCookbook! You know we’ve been hinting at this for the past 6 months and it’s hard to believe that it’s finally done! It took longer to complete than planned, but that’s because we both are our own worst critics and have perfectionist tendencies. Many people have questioned why we didn’t just take screen shots of our videos or recycle images we already had from the blog and put it together into a book.
We totally could’ve done that, and trust me, we were tempted to, but at the end of the day, we care deeply about producing quality work. When we’re filming, we don’t have the time to set up our photograph perfectly with the right styling and props. We’re just worried about getting the video done before we run out of natural sunlight. And unfortunately, we don’t always succeed, so we have to rely on flash and then we’re not that satisfied with our end results because our pictures look flat and dull.
Also, we’re usually too tired at the end of a video shoot to even care to style things correctly for a photograph, so we just do it quickly and hope for the best. With this eCookbook, since we weren’t filming any videos, we could devote our entire energy into the photographs. This enabled us to try new things and shoot the photos in our own unique style.
So I cooked 15 recipes all over again within 10 consecutive days, and it was super tiring! We really wanted our cookbook to include step-by-step photography, so we had to pause between each step to take photos, which delayed our process significantly.
So come behind the scenes with us and watch the process of our preparation and photo shoot for our Bits & Pieces Season 1 eCookbook below:
WATCH THE MAKING OF OUR COOKBOOK VIDEO HERE:
The shoot started out with lots of planning and brainstorming. Before we even attempted to start this thing, we had to know what we wanted to accomplish and what the general layout would be. So this took some researching, doodling, and discussion.
I converted our dining room table into a general pantry where I’d go “shopping” every morning for all the ingredients I would need for the day. I think I picked this up from my professional food styling days because it’s just easier this way when everything is in plain sight.
And then I had to bust out either 1 or 2 recipes a day. It was challenging trying to accomplish this while constantly pausing to take step-by-step photos and then thinking about staging the final “beauty” at the end.
We had to come up with creative ways to try to get overhead shots of me doing certain steps. Most of the time, it resulted in Joe climbing on a ladder behind me and then balancing his camera on my head! After a while, we started getting a little cuckoo, so we tried to have fun in these moments when we could.
You would think shooting an eCookbook would be fairly easy, especially for us. But there were lots of moments where we had to work around problems, such as a family emergency, preparation for a big YouTube event, and figuring out how to crack a coconut!
At the end of every day, we would both collapse on the floor from pure exhaustion, then get up to go wash the mountain of dishes and clean the kitchen to prepare for the next day… haha. But it was all well worth it in the end, because we are so proud of the pictures and the end result. The verbiage and layout is what took us MONTHS to do, but it’s FINALLY done! Hallelujah!
So look out for our official Cookbook Trailer Video that we will be posting next, so you can hear more about this eCookbook. Our official sale date will be on January 14th, 2015 which happens to be my birthday (ahem) . But if you’re an eager beaver and want to pre-order a copy for yourself right now, you can PURCHASE OUR SEASON 1 ECOOKBOOK HERE. You won’t be charged or receive it until January 14th 12 AM EST, but you can still pre-order it now. Since it’s an eCookbook, it will be in the form of a downloadable PDF and will be sent directly to your email.
But if you are a Kickstarter backer who we have promised this book too, we have already contacted you via email with a special link and code you can enter to receive your copy now! We hope we made you proud and that you like it. Thanks for patiently waiting for it!
Can’t wait for you to see it. Thanks for your support in advance!
-Julie & Joe
