It was a dark and stormy night...
…the night, that is, when Brent and I decided to answer the World’s question of ‘How DO we make the Know Meat Patty?’ – and bring you ‘behind-the-scenes’ at our local Calgary factory that produces the Know Meat from our recipe of 17 natural ingredients…and, no pink slime!
(And, it WAS a dark and stormy night, btw, in February 2022 in Calgary Alberta, hello! It was dark alright. Just about two vaccination rounds in to the end of Covid-19.)
But as the saying goes, “things were opening up.” And, as people’s sense of taste were returning after one of the longest, coldest winter’s in Canadian history, it was the best of times, to meet the makers…and get back to feeding more good people, good people food.
Bringing the Know Meat to the “big screen” was a choice we had to consider deeply, as the recipe does include ‘Mom’s Spices’ …literally, the secret spice – Trademarked by blood. Lol!
With careful consideration and some crafty camera work, the crew managed to deliver the essence of our Know Meat, without revealing it’s secret.
In case you missed it, check it out HERE!
Pre-production
In producing our second video at People Food, after our early 2019 runaway YouTube hit, “Introducing the Know Meat Patty!” we were poised to get back to our roots, with a project that held our company’s values intact and truly brought you, our healthy and loyal customers, the straight goods about how we produce our people food.
Our job seemed pretty easy – to follow the factory production line as it gathered, soaked, stirred, roasted, mashed, mixed and hand-pressed our ingredients into Know Meat Patties…over a two day period. While not getting in the way!
We got to planning and created a storyboard shot list to start, based on our location scout a few weeks earlier, then hashed out our equipment list…what we had, what we needed, what we wanted…and what made sense to rent from a budget perspective. We called out to the best rental places in town (The Camera Store, Vistek) and started wrangling answers to all these questions…
Production
We knew we had to be nimble in production, and a bit “macro” at the same time… “all up in it”, as they say …or as macro as we could get anyway, to capture the creation of the Know Meat, from it’s raw ingredients through to it’s gooey nutritional mass, it’s hand-pressed patty formation and packaging…while staying out of the way, remember. It was a production within a production.
With a 2004 Sony HD XX, 4 x LED lighting kit, a 4ft. camera dolly, tripods and our trusty iPhone 11 with the DJI Gimbal stabilizer…we knew we’d get what we needed. We were one man down, with Brent in a celiac health response and unable to function (poor thing), me and a couple of the guys at Kinnill, our marketing agency, hit the first day of production.
At 630am. #producerlife am I right?
This was the soaking, stirring, roasting and mashing stage of production, which we had our work cut out for us, because there’s not much to watch with bathing Lentils. Or, Yellow Split peas. Or, Brown Rice.
So, our approach was to just catch some candid moments amidst the process, them chilling by the pool, relaxing in their soaking hot baths and conjuring those spa moments we all know and love. But a pulse, brown rice and veggie spa. The sweet potatoes were just busy getting roasted with the carrots.
Hey these guys charge up and generate a lot of life force energy, they deserve a nice break at a spa sometime.
For our second day of shooting, our chilling collection of ingredients needed to get mixed up, portioned-out and then hand-pressed into formation by our lovely staff on board to help feed the people.
At 630am!
We dove into production again and knew it now was all about the process. The turning wheels, the levers, the buttons…the mechanisms that churn out our product. And, the people pulling the levers and pressing those buttons. Packaging OUR product.
What we saw from either behind the cameras or what we managed to capture in front was such passion displayed in our workers, which was infectious for me and the crew. It was an incredibly humbling experience to be apart of. We are inspired knowing the Know Meat Patty comes into the World, from this place. To your plate.
Sure there’s probably a truck involved at some point as well as a stock shelf or two beforehand, maybe an additional car ride home, but ultimately then…your plate.
Post-production
Reliving these moments in post were an experience in and of itself and as arduous a process as editing can be…this was fun! We got to sift through and choose the best footage and compile it together with a fun, laid-back People Food vibe.
I mean that’s how we do it over here. That’s what it’s all about…keepin’ things real, one Know Meat Patty at a time…and, no pink-slime!
