Food Styling; Why Food Looks So Good On Camera.

     One of my pet peeves is seeing a cheeseburger on T.V. They always look so juicy and delicious, then when they actually make it to your plate they never look half that good. So what's the secret to making food look good on T.V.? Well today we can make people look like they are blue aliens so making a burger look delicious shouldn't be that hard right? Well instead of using digital manipulation lots of companies employ "food stylists" who use lots of old school methods to make food look mmmm good while actually making it completely inedible.

1.) See this delicious juicy burger, doesn't it look shiny and therefore covered with delicious artery clogging goodness. Yea it's actually covered with not delicious everything clogging vaseline. The studio lights reflects off the vaseline and give it that yummy greasy look. Vegetable oil can also be used in some instances for the same purpose.

2.) Have you ever noticed that milk actually looks kind of blue? Under any kind of bright lighting, which is always required to photograph or film something properly, the blue hue in milk really comes out. So to make milk look good on camera you just mix a little real milk with some good old Elmers glue to make sure it's still white as can be. They also use heavy cream which has a whiter color and keeps cereal from getting soggy.

3.) Unfortunately beer can't maintain it's bubbly head forever so food stylists add some dish soap to keep a beer looking foamy. The same trick is also used occasionally on hot chocolate and tea to add bubbles.

4.) Beer isn't the only alcoholic beverage that gets a little help from food stylists. A little aspirin powder added to champagne makes it look fizzier for the camera.

5.) The Thanksgiving or turkey dinner is an essential part of any family fun movie but if you really ate that turkey it would taste pretty gross, because it's covered in wood varnish. The varnish gives it a smoother and more perfect appearance while also making sure it doesn't lose it's coloring over hours of shooting.

6.) The coloring of food is super important so lots of different foods get help with it. Strawberries are colored with lipstick to help them look especially red on camera.

7.) Food always looks best when it's steaming hot, but unfortunately it takes much longer to shoot the food than it takes for the food to cool down. The solution to that is microwaving some cotton balls, soaking them in water and then hiding them strategically around the food . The resulting steam makes the food look piping hot. Some studios even go a step further and buy a steam machine. Here is a link to a much longer and more in depth article about photographing steam.

8.) Ice cream in nearly impossible to photograph. As I mentioned earlier about milk there is lots of lighting involved in photography and filming, this lighting melts ice cream long before any good shots can be taken of it. Usually the ice cream seen in the media is a mixture of shortening, corn syrup, and powdered sugar. For white ice cream supposedly mashed potatoes are sometimes used.



9.) Food is straight up nailed to the table. I found this short but very informative video that shows all the hard work that goes into making that segment of a pizza commercial where a hand pulls a single steaming piece of pizza out of the pie. If you've ever actually eaten pizza you know that when you grab a piece of pizza you take half the cheese and toppings from the rest of the pizza with you. Well there is a lot of time and effort put into making sure that doesn't happen in the commercials as is evidenced in this great video.

Food Styling sounds a little gross, but I think it's really interesting to consider how the way we picture food is so idealized that it takes a ton of time and effort to make the food actually look that way. I suppose it makes sense because we do the same thing to people. If you're still curious about food styling, here are some links to the portfolio's of a few food stylists.

Adam Pearson

Brian Preston-Campbell

Lisa Homa

The Velma/Daphne Conundrum: Intelligent Women in Cartoons

     Kids love television, this is a simple and nearly indisputable fact. Today a lot of people use it as a baby sitter and an educational tool. The problem is that children are really impressionable and we let them consume whatever media they want as long as it is devoid of sex, violence, and profanity. Unfortunately sex, violence, and profanity are not the only harmful things that children can be exposed to by the media. During childhood and pre-adolescence children look to adults and there peers to learn about social interactions, but they also look at what they see on television and in movies. I watch a lot of cartoons and I wanted to talk about them because I think that they can send poor messages to young girls about how they should behave.
   One of my major problems with women in cartoons is there is always the ongoing story of the pretty dumb girl and the smart ugly girl.  Scooby Doo is a classic example of this. Velma is way more intelligent than Daphne and thus way more likely to be able to solve a mystery (in fact she always does). But who does Fred always want to pair up with when the group splits up to go exploring? Apparently Fred isn't as concerned about mystery solving as he pretends to be. Another good example is Johnny Test. Johnny has twin sisters who could probably win a nobel prize if they put any effort into their scientific genius but instead they use their knowledge to unsuccessfully chase a boy who does not find them attractive. On the website for the show Total Drama Island World Tour they describe all of there contestants in three words. The only girl who is described as "beautiful" is also described as an "airhead". This is especially sad to me because I think these shows not only put out the idea that smart women cannot be beautiful but that beautiful women cannot be smart.

     Today there are some smart and strong women in cartoons. One of my favorite examples is Princess Bubblegum in Adventure Time. She is considered by the main characters of the show (Finn and Jake) to be extremely intelligent and is often shown doing various scientific experiments. She also is not afraid to go into battle with the boys and has even rescued them on a few occasions. Although she is smart and tough she is still considered to be very attractive and there are often many jokes made about how Finn has a crush on her. Another good example of a smart attractive female cartoons character is Sandy Cheeks in Spongebob Squarepants. She is a scientist and a thrill seeker who is often shown to be stronger and smarter than most male characters on the show but it is still hinted at times that Spongebob is attracted to her. If you go back a little further 1995's Aaahh!!! Real Monsters featured a female monster named Oblina who was the smartest monster in her class and the leader of her group of male friends.

     Notice the difference between the examples I used above as negative examples of women in cartoons and the examples I used as positive examples of women in cartoons. Adventure Time, Spongebob Squarepants, and Aaahh! Real Monster all feature fictional places and characters that aren't human. It's ok for a monster, a squirrel and...a giant hunk of bubblegum to be intelligent, strong women but when it comes to cartoons based more in reality there are much fewer examples.  Also, each of the strong female characters I mentioned align themselves almost exclusively with male friends. Princess Bubblegum is seen mainly with Finn and Jake or alone, Sandy Cheeks is best friends with Spongebob, Patrick, and on a few occasions is seen with Larry the Lobster, and Oblina's two closest friends are Ickis and Krumm. This suggests that a smart, powerful women might not want to be around other women because she is one of a kind, the exception and not the rule.
     I'm not saying that all young girls will pick up on these things always. I think that a lot of what young girls learn about intelligence and self esteem comes from the people around them. However, kids are perceptive and I think they can pick up on cues like this from cartoons and expect them to apply in real life. If your interested in learning more about women in popular culture this is a good book Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture.

The Ten Best Web Comics Available Today

The Best Web Comics
Sadly, the funny paper's are no longer funny to me. When I was little I used to love reading the newspaper comics with breakfast every morning before school, but now they seem kind of stiff and outdated. Luckily my beau introduced me to the wonderful world of web comic's recently and I have been able to rekindle my romance with the funnies, just in a new medium. So here is a list of some of the best webcomics on the internet (in my opinion).


1.) Axe Cop

This comic is written by a six year old, five when the story began, and illustrated by his thirty year old brother. Few things make me smile more than Axe Cop. It's great to be reminded of what a little kid's imagination is like. One of the characters in the comic is called Sockarang, in case you couldn't garner this from the name his power is too throw his arms which are made of sock's like a boomerang. After this character was introduced my boyfriend said "O man I so get that sock's look like boomerang's". It's not just a creative mish mash though, there is a pretty cohesive, and at times even a little heart warming story line. It's been picked up by Dark Horse comics to be made into a miniseries which is currently on sale. YAY!

2.) Hark A Vagrant

Reading this comic makes me feel smart. I love to laugh and learn at the same time, what is better than that? Hark a Vagrant is a history comic drawn by Canadian born Kate Beaton. She recently moved to New York and I'm pretty sure she lives off of all her sweet webcomic money, which is pretty awesome. Not all of her jokes are about history, she does a pretty cool series of comics about what she thinks books are about based solely on their covers. Also there's a pretty sweet Murphy Brown joke in there somewhere.

3.) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This one is pretty popular; it has even expanded to include SMBC theatre; a video sketch site. It's consistently funny and random everyday. The jokes bounce between graph jokes, penis jokes, and bad parenting jokes on a daily basis. It's pretty nerdy in a good way and it makes me laugh out loud probably more than any other comic on this list.

4.) The Meek

It's almost unfair to call the Meek a web comic. It bills itself as an online graphic novel, and it's perfectly deserving of that title. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous the story is enthralling and characters are well thought out and relatable. This is one of the few serial comics on this list because I have a short attention span it it's hard for me to remember to keep checking serials and not get bored with their story line, but The Meek has always kept me interested.

5.) Weapon Brown

This comic takes all of the beloved character from the old newspaper funny pages and places them in a hyper violent hyper sexualized post apocalyptic world. If you don't want to check out Weapon Brown after reading that last sentence, there is something seriously wrong with you. The main character is super buff and badass Charlie Brown who begins the story as a mercenary in a post nuclear war U.S.A. He travels where no one else will go and is on the lookout for his missing girlfriend, the red haired girl. It's an original idea with amazing execution. The best thing about it is how it's totally serious and totally hilarious at the same time. While you're looking at Weapon Brown don't mosey over to Jason Yungbluth's other comic, What Is Deep Fried, it is kind of creepy and weird and just trust me you will regret it.

6.) Nedroid

There's just something about Beartato that keeps me coming back to the this comic. It's about two best friends, a potato shaped bear named Beartato and some sort of large birdmanthing name Reginald. They hang out together and have daily misadventures. It's nice to see a buddy comic where the characters take turns being the butt of the jokes. I also love the way the characters take everyday situations and make them bizarre. This comic is a good example of that.

7.) Joe Loves Crappy Movies

I like this comic because I'm a huge movie fan and you don't just get a comic but a movie review as well! The title pretty much says it all with this one. Joe goes to see a crappy movie, and writes a review and a comic based on it. Sometimes they are stereotypically crappy movies like Twilight, or G.I. Joe, and sometimes they are actually decent movies that had a lot of potential to be crappy, like Toy Story 3. Other times he writes about using certain plot devices in movies and such. My one big complaint about Joe Loves Crappy Movies is that it doesn't update often enough. The guy that makes it also does a bunch of other comics, none of which are nearly as good in my opinion. Still Joe Loves Crappy Movies is fun and funny, definitely worth a mention.

8.) Captain Stupendous

This comic is written by the same guy who writes Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. It was originally called Captain Excelsior but they changed it recently when they released it in book form due to a copyrighting issue. It's sort of like The Incredibles meets A Long Days Journey Into Night. If you like silver age comics for their hokey quaintness, then you will love Captain Stupendous.

9.) Boxer Hockey

Boxer Hockey is still trying to find it's legs as a web-comic but it has real potential. It's about a group of friends who play a strange professional sport together that is a combination of street fighting and soccer, which is played in only underwear. Oh, and the ball is a genetically enhanced frog. In the beginning the characters weren't very likable, but the artist seems to have realized that and is remedying the situation by giving them an adorable and funny backstory about their childhood. If you want to check it out this is a good place to start.

10.) His Face All Red

This is a very well written horror story with fairytale feel to it. The artwork is pretty, it's a little like reading a story board for a movie. I especially like that the artist didn't feel confined to panels like so many other web comic artists do. The only reason it is so low on the list is because it's only a few pages long but it's one of my favorites so I had to mention it.

Honorable Mention:

This isn't really a comic but this guy does awesome Tim Burton style pictures of monsters on post it notes. It's pretty nifty. http://johnkenn.blogspot.com/