Benecol 'Cook With Love, Eat For Life' recipe videos

We’re delighted to present a series of recipe videos from a collaboration between Benecol and HEART UK that we produced in September 2023. They are now featured across their Youtube channel, website and social media.

The Brief 📝

Our task was to film three engaging recipe videos, and provide step-by-step photography for a further five recipe guides, that not only demonstrated the culinary process, but also helped to increased awareness of how cholesterol affects heart health, particularly in relation to Benecol products. All aspects of the shoot would need to be completed over a single day due to cast and crew availability, and a tight deadline to get everything delivered in time for National Cholesterol Month in October. Guiding the audience through this tasty adventure were chef Gabrielle Masefield, since a contestant on Masterchef, and Lynne Garton, the Dietetic Advisor for HEART UK.

The Challenge 🤔

The initial challenge was to identify a chef willing to take on the task, who would be a good fit for Benecol. Once we had Gabi on board, finding a great London-based location available on our shoot dates initially seemed a breeze…until a few days before shooting significant building work started up next door to our studio and we recognised that our audio could be significantly compromised as a result. Cue a swift pivot to a new location and a big sigh of relief from us at Toolebox that we found the perfect spot in First Option Location Studio. Then it was just the simple case of getting everyone to the right place, the studio rigged and eight recipes cooked in just under 10 hours.

The Approach 🎥

To successfully navigate this demanding schedule, we enlisted the support of some great freelance pals of ours: Tom Duffy (Camera Operator), Ian Snape (DoP), Jill Jennings (Photographer), Filipe Pinheiro (Sound) and Emily Dhanjal (MUA), who played a pivotal role in bringing our vision to fruition. With 16:9, 1:1 and 9:16 deliverables, we set up a two-shot as a wide, then cross-shot singles of Gabi and Lynne, as we intended for them to interact and regularly face each other throughout the video. We also rigged an overhead camera to get those classic top-down preparation shots, and had a roaming camera to get tights of the food prep.

A huge thank you to Holly Roper, Sneah Banerjee, Claire Rea and Sarah Franciosi for getting us on board to execute the project.

Producer - Director: Callum O’Toole

Production Assistant: Natalia Tavini

Camera Operators: Tom Duffy and Ian Snape

BTS Camera Operator: Victor Goras

Sound: Filipe Pinheiro

Photography: Jill Jennings

Make-up: Emily Dhanjal