Studio

Since October, my friend John Kruusi and I have been running a food blog called Crustcrumbs.  We shoot a variety of different styles of food in the different scenarios in which you would eat it.  Sometimes it’s delicious food, like a big turkey dinner, and sometimes it’s… well, not so delicious.  Like actual recipes straight out of housekeeping magazines from the 70s, made by our favourite local Toronto comedy duo, Terrific Women.  We’re nearing the end of 70s Week on Crustcrumbs, so I thought I would share some behind-the-scenes photos from our shoot.

The Terrific Women are Linda and Joy (Sara Hennessey and Steph Kaliner), two feminists in 1974 who have their own public access cable program.  We wanted to keep up the crappy 70s no-budget look with questionable lighting, too many patterns, and macramé monkeys.  Oh, and the food.

They’re the Terrific Women, and today they’re entertaining.

John did an amazing job finding inspiration for all these (gross) recipes, making everything, and styling the food so it looked like it came straight out of a 1970s clearance bin cookbook.

John in the studio kitchen prepping food for our shoot.

Prepping the sandwiches for “Pineapple-Ham Spread.”

We even had a designer make custom 1970s-style labels for some of the bottles and cans.

Custom designed food labels by Sarah Wright.

Steph & Sara getting ready.

Tristan, John & the Terrific Women.

Our backdrop & counter setup.

Since we were doing two things at once – me shooting stills and Tristan Gough shooting video – we had to figure out the lighting.  We had to decide if we would set up both video lights for filming and strobes for still photography.  Since we weren’t going for a professional, polished look with the photos, ultimately we decided to only light for video, and I took photos behind-the-scenes with my sound blimp like on a film set.  Shooting during filming presents some challenges, but it always makes for some great natural facial expressions:

Cooking with Linda & Joy is always fun.

So far this week, we’ve posted recipes and videos for Mai-Tai Cocktails, Minced Clam Cheese Dip, Pineapple-Ham Spread, and Pepperoni Salad.  If you visit Crustcrumbs tomorrow, you’ll find a classic 70s dessert.  Spoilers:

What goes in here?