Low Budget TV Show

[Chris Cognac]

If you were given a crew, very little to no budget and had to rely on begging borrowing and stealing....What would you do?....What type of show would you make...travel, cooking,restaurant review? How would you go about it....what would make your show different....I need idea's dammit!

Chris

[Suzanne F]

Cooking show: Call it "Transformational Cooking." For each episode, I'd have people bring me their leftovers, which I would then re-combine into a fabulous new dish and feed back to them. Or to some other poor bastards, who would then have to guess what went into it.

I'll PM you my address so you can send the check.

[Mayhaw Man]

I would collect stock footage of stuff like fairs, food factories, and kitchy restaurants. Next I would get a c-list celeb. (a gabby local weatherman would do the trick) to do voice overs describing these places. I would place the celeb in a cute little soda shop or standing at a major mid western fair in front of a "all American" hot dog, caramel corn, corn dog, funnel cake wagon, for all of the close ups of the host. I would then run these shows on a major cable network that runs this kind of stuff.

It could happen. Someone might be crazy enough to try it.

[Okbrewer]

I'd do a combination travel and food show...with a twist. Get some of my Harley riding friends (who are going to go for rides anyway!) and select various restaurants for the ride destinations. Have someone document the ride to and fro, and the meal, to include prep, presentation and consumption, with feed back from the group. Local 'talent' could be used for the voice over. Could use bike mounted cameras to document the ride or have a passenger shoot the ride or even a camera in the back of a pickemup truck. The restaurants could be local as well as places farther away from home, like enroute to a rally or Sturgis or something.

[tryska]

I would collect stock footage of stuff like fairs, food factories, and kitchy restaurants. Next I would get a c-list celeb. (a gabby local weatherman would do the trick) to do voice overs describing these places. I would place the celeb in a cute little soda shop or standing at a major mid western fair in front of a "all American" hot dog, caramel corn, corn dog, funnel cake wagon, for all of the close ups of the host. I would then run these shows on a major cable network that runs this kind of stuff.

It could happen. Someone might be crazy enough to try it.

you're just wrong! *lol*

[Chris Cognac]

Cooking show: Call it "Transformational Cooking." For each episode, I'd have people bring me their leftovers, which I would then re-combine into a fabulous new dish and feed back to them. Or to some other poor bastards, who would then have to guess what went into it.

I'll PM you my address so you can send the check.

That would be kind fun...I am also thinking of "whats in the bag" cooking challenge...but of course the food in the bag would have to be donated by a market..since there is no budget!

[rich]

Get a corporate food sponsor and get them to give you some money!!!!

[StudentChefEclipse]

I'd do a sort of travel/restaurant review show. But I would feature "The Best Diners in America" and find those spiffy, out of the way places where women have been cooking downhome food forever... the places that have homemade pies and never heard of "beef-like gravy granules" and so on.

(I hear rumors of spots like this from time to time, so it'd also be interesting to see if they really still exist. If you can find 13, you have a TV season's worth of shows.)

[Carolyn Tillie]

I would have a "fly around with Chris Cognac in his helicopter to the hidden gems in Los Angeles" series...."

[jackal10]

You need things that combine embarrassment and idiocy with a small amount of education. Fortunately the public and minor celebs love to be embarrsed on TV, for free, and restaurants love to be on TV for the publicity...

Newbie minor celeb (doing it for free) trying to make it as a line chef in a restaurant kitchen. Restaurant doing it for free for the publicity... GR did this here very sucessfully

The real Naked Chef...as above, but nude

Worst home meals

Worst restaurant kitchens

[tryska]

a show where really bad cooks get an intervention.

think Queer Eye but only with Ted.

families can write in pleading for a Cooking makeover. Ideal candidate does horrible things to vegetables, burns water, basically has no clue how to put ingredients together in order to produce a meal. A chef or a nutritionist can come in and teach the clueless nominee about good food, how to pick produce, how to use a knife.....that sort of stuff. kind of like food 911, but not based on cooking one specific dish. tailor it to the individual. and then have a panel of judges vote on the food, and if they give it the thumbs up, the nominee gets a kitchen remodel.

Edited August 27, 2004 by tryska (log)

[Chris Cognac]

I would have a "fly around with Chris Cognac in his helicopter to the hidden gems in Los Angeles" series...."       

That would be cool...I am going to see if the Chief will go for that...better yet...fly around in other people helicopters and see what they can show me!

Kitchen Remodel......Low...closer to No Budget!! Hell if any kitchen is going to get redone its going to be my vintage 50's kitchen...maybe I have enough money tobring it into the 80's....I would love to see if "Ronco"can send me some products!

Edited August 27, 2004 by Chris Cognac (log)

[Muffin210]

The real Naked Chef...as above, but nude

Ummm...exactly which cable channel are you filming this for, Chris?!?

[NulloModo]

You could do foodblog meets TV:

Have people write in volunteering for you to bring you and your crew for dinner, and come over, document what they do, learn their own special dishes and spins on them, and make show of it.

[purplewiz]

Honestly? I'd probably put together a show called something like "grocery store cooking" - minimal kitchen set (heck, use my kitchen), and ingredients that I bought that day at the local Safeway/King Sooper/whatever. Emphasis on what's in season and what's on sale. No truffle oil, foie gras, haricots verts, Asian chilies, or bok choi - just stuff that the average Joe Schmoe might actually be able to find in a semi-reasonably stocked grocery store. Which is really all you need to make some pretty amazing meals.

Marcia.

[NulloModo]

I like that idea purplewiz, or maybe just an 'anyone can cook good food' style show, where you take letters from volunteers, then randomly show up at their homes unnaounced (well, find out what evening they will be home, but don't tell them exactly what night you will be by) and drop in, and cook a great tasting meal with them with whatever happens to be in their cupboards. Show that there are no excuses for not cooking great food, that something tasty can be made with virtually anything you have laying around.

[Rachel Perlow]

That sounds like Gordon Elliot's "Door Knock Diners" -- I liked that show, too bad they based a Campbell's soup commercial on it. Some network should bring back his Good Day New York barging in antics. That was fun.

[Suzanne F]

The real Naked Chef...as above, but nude

Uh, I noticed something like that on TV in Vancouver, BC a few weeks ago, while channel surfing: a very studly guy in just a little half-apron, and a terribly perky, overly-made-up woman in a tiny bib apron, talking about food. Inserted clips had them more or less fully-clothed, asking people about sexy foods.

Well at least there's no need for a costume budget.

[srhcb]

One tech with a handheld and a good conversationalist go and eat lunch with people.

Factory workers in a lunchroom

Truckers at a truck stop

Lawyers in a trendy bistro

Kids in the school cafeteria

A celebrityin the hospital

Whatever

Just eat and talk about work, lunch life ....

[Chris Cognac]

Honestly? I'd probably put together a show called something like "grocery store cooking" - minimal kitchen set (heck, use my kitchen), and ingredients that I bought that day at the local Safeway/King Sooper/whatever. Emphasis on what's in season and what's on sale. No truffle oil, foie gras, haricots verts, Asian chilies, or bok choi - just stuff that the average Joe Schmoe might actually be able to find in a semi-reasonably stocked grocery store. Which is really all you need to make some pretty amazing meals.

Marcia.

I am working on a store that would want to participate....We have a "Jons" market opening soon and I am going to hit them up....there is quite a large viewing area for this once it gets going...around 1 million people can watch...Maybe I could do a segment only using whats on "sale" as that influences what people buy....I know I buy stuff on sale all the time...oh yea...and local L.A. e gulleter's....get ready for guest role's!

[Jeffy Boy]

Two ideas:

"Goin' to Grandma's" - your twenty-something host follows some (good looking) twenty-something to their grandma's house for dinner, where she still make it the way they made it back in the old country. Play up the great traditional cuisine, and the importance of maintaining connections with your family and heritage. Show always ends with a toast made in the native tongue. Opa!

"It's (Not Quite) a Living" - reality show - follow along for a day with some guy who's life revolves around partying, probably lives at home, and works at a fast food place in order to earn beer money.

[hillvalley]

Two ideas:

"Goin' to Grandma's" - your twenty-something host follows some (good looking) twenty-something to their grandma's house for dinner, where she still make it the way they made it back in the old country.  Play up the great traditional cuisine, and the importance of maintaining connections with your family and heritage.  Show always ends with a toast made in the native tongue.  Opa!

I will only fit in the 'twenty something' category for a little while longer but I volunteer my quintessential Jewish Grandma to show you how to make perfect chicken soup with matzo balls and gefilte fish from scratch.

L'Chiam

Edited August 28, 2004 by hillvalley (log)

[Really Nice!]

No offense all, but these sound like recycled "worst of Food Network" ideas: Best of, Top 5, Food 911, Door Knock Dinners, Calling All Cooks, Food Finds, Unwrapped, The Secret Life of...

Personally, I'd like to see a show that interviews chefs in their restaurant. It's part Charlie Rose/The Actor's Studio (without all the pompousness) and part Great Chefs (with all the class and style). Yeah, perhaps this too is recycled, but it hasn't been applied to the food industry.

For example, each episode is divided into three segments, the first two are an interview between the chef and the interviewer sitting at a table in the restaurant. Segment three is the chef in the kitchen preparing his/her most favorite dish on the menu. The dish doesn't have to be the most popular by customer standards, but something that the chef takes great pleasure in creating. Fade to black....

Segment 1 - The Road to Success

Sitting at a table in the restaurant.

When did you (the chef) realize you had the 'passion' for this profession?

How did you get to where you are.

Who were the most influential people to help you achieve your success?

What was your biggest obsticle, how did you over come it?

What sacrifices did you make along the way?

What was your best business decision? What was your worst?

Commercial

Segment 2 - The Chef's Philosophy

Sitting at a table in the restaurant.

What do you look for in a potential employee?

If I were a culinary student applying for a position, what would be the one thing you'd look for that would put me ahead of the competition. (Besides attitude. )

What mood do you like to have in your kitchen?

Typically, as you grow more popular, the demands of the public require that you cook less and less, how do you handle that transition?

What's the most unusual or creative idea you've come up with?

How do you keep your ideas fresh?

How do you measure success?

What's next? What's your next business opportunity (what's on your horizon?)

If you had to do it all over again, would you?

When you go to bed at night, do you reflect on the day, and if so, what do you think about?

Commercial

Segment 3 - The Chef's Favorite Dish

In the restaurant kitchen.

This is where the chef prepares the dish that gives him/her the most pleasure and most satisfaction.

-----------------------------------

If I were in the business, this is the kind of show I'd like to see.

It can be cheaply made because there's no set to maintain or rent, no kitchen equipment to purchase and maintain, there's only a small staff required, and there's no 10+ assistants in the backroom making dishes at various stages of the cooking process.

If properly organized, you can interview 10 to 20 chefs (read 10 to 20 episodes) in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. If all goes according to schedule, you could interview 2 chefs a day, and that would help keep the budget down.

Chef's I'd like to see interviewed include:

Thomas Keller

And then in no particular order...

Alice Waters

Charlie Trotter

Daniel Boulud

Ethan Stowell

Gary Danko

Jaques Pepin

Jean Georges Vongerichten

Jerry Traunfeld

John Ash

Leslie Mackie (Seattle baker/owner for Macrina Bakery & Café)

Paul Bocuse

Paul Prudhomme

Philip Mihalski

Rick Bayless

Thierry Rautureau

Some might not have a restaurant, such as Jaques Pepin, so it would be 'quaint' to interview these folks in their home.

Again, I mean no offense to all of you and your previous suggestions, but for me this would be heaven.

[Chris Cognac]

Low/No Budget folks...all travel will have to be free in exchange for on air recognition...all hotels...same deal!

Hill Valley and I were PM'ing about "Grandma Iron Chef" in which we pit old ladies with major home cooking skills in a battle....Battle Jewish Granma vs Cuban Abuella...Could be classic!

[Suzanne F]

Hill Valley and I were PM'ing about "Grandma Iron Chef" in which we pit old ladies with major home cooking skills in a battle....Battle Jewish Granma vs Cuban Abuella...Could be classic!

YES! that sounds great (although not as good as mine ). Given that there are a zillion ethnicities in your area, that could work for quite a long run.

Are you talking about round robin or single elimination? (RR would result in a longer series )