Food communication in TV

University of Gastronomic Sciences, Colorno, Italy

Lecture 2007 and 2008

This seminar is based on a long experience as a producer and author of documentaries, many about the culture of food and drink. It gives some general knowledge about communication in TV and in particular communication of food in various TV formats as cooking in TV, direct TV, reportage and documentary. We will focus on documentary.

The aim of this seminar is to understand how the culture of food and drink can be communicated in TV, how a certain approach influences the work and which ethical principles have to be respected. An important topic will be the interaction between the different elements of a documentary, such as moving pictures, original sound and interviews, narration and music. The editing as another characteristic of film will also be taken into consideration. The aim is to understand how narration and editing influence the contents and how the effect of a film changes by using different music or sound.

The seminar also gives a general introduction to the creation of a documentary and specifies the three steps of the producer’s work: research, shooting and postproduction. The topics of the seminar will be developed analyzing examples of documentaries concerning the culture of food.