ONAM'23 W/ABIDA

An Onam special built around Abida Rasheed and Sadhya expert Kannan Swamy, made to show a younger audience that the whole spread is within reach. A working kitchen, a lot of dishes, and a schedule set by the food rather than the crew.

I was on associate camera alongside Milan K Manoj on direction and DOP, then took the footage through the edit and built the sound. Kitchens are unforgiving to cut: steam, clatter, overlapping hands, and a host who cannot be asked to repeat a step once the pan is hot.

The sound is doing more work than it looks. Sizzle, pour, chop and the room itself were shaped so the dishes read as appetising rather than noisy, which is most of the difference between a recipe video and something you want to watch.