Question #1: “What is the biggest hurdle you faced making your first film, and how did you overcome it?”

… Getting it right the First Time…The camera cut, and we had multiple angles which left a margin for error, but this was a razor thin line that on a few occasions we crossed. The picture above was from a particularly good night. I set out to shoot 4 dishes Southern Fried ToFu Will Rise Again, WTF is a Canadle Soup, Mosh-Pit-Tatoes, and Vegetable Medley of HxCx Gaiety plus my favorite party drink Straight Edge Revenge Sangria. All of them came out fucking perfect. Now if that night the technical side had worked as well, then we truly would have shined.Vegan Cooking was shot in 5 nights over a series of weeks in May and June. IF you’ve never been to chicago when its not freezing, or you don’t know shit and are still out on that whole global warming thing, May and June can get sweltering as balls in chicago. Thats when your not in a tight kitchen with a few 1000W lights shining down on you with 4 gas burners going and an oven set at 500 degrees. This makes for an antsy all volunteer crew.Every night we shot was a juggling act, because all the dishes that are featured in the DVD have at least three parts,1.) Prep and show the ingredients2.) Putting all together3.) Final Dish.If we had broken down the lights and cameras to shoot each dish straight, then we would be there all night. Instead, everything was made more or less at the same time. That meant, prep the Tofu, prep the Potatoes, Matza balls ( thats a fucking Canadle you Goey ), and what ever the hell else had to be done on the kitchen counter. I had some tables and stools under the island and would just move the ingredients out of shot. We then set up for anything at the stove top, and adjust lights and cameras. This is when shit got hectic. When you have a HOT pan of oil, next to a steaming pot of soup and $3k borrowed cameras, shit gets real. The oven is also blazing with Mosh-Pit-atoes, and I’ve got just about 15 minutes to shoot three other dishes, or we have to start over. Did i mention Straight Edge Revenge Sangria?Everything came together and we finish each dish on camera. It all comes together as its own little segmented bite-size episode of Vegan Cooking For Animal Lovers.. with The Hardcore Chef… Fucking brilliant… What essentially will take you 5-15 minutes to watch, took a great deal move time, but thats Television for ya right.? Maybe. My Hero and Inspiration ( though be it in a very specific sense) is The French Chef herself, Julia Childs. She might have been an enemy of animals, but her specific charm that i admire is 100% Punk Rock. This bitch basically invented cooking for a remote audience, and on Public Broadcasting no less…Each week, Julia did it up in one-take, two cameras, cuts only from one camera to the other… On an early episode she’s making a Potato Pancake, ( this was no Latke, Hershel ). She flips it in her pan, and the whole thing busts open like a hand grenade in mid-flight. The thing goes everywhere, all over the kitchen, all over her, even gets the camera. “What the Fuck Was That?” she laughs out. And then she slams a bottle of cheri and says, ” Screw this I’ll be in my trailer, get Jim Henson out here, see if i give a fuck.” I wish. She keeps, no apologies. She put the potatoes back together in the pan with the advice if this happens to you fix it and if your snooty ass bridge partner doesn’t like it cut the bitches throat like Mekkie did in Threat.