I started a cooking series with my Mom a few years back. It was all recorded and edited. This series has garnered millions of views and reached a global audience, thanks to my avid followers.
In the past two months, we tried going LIVE on Facebook. Amazingly, the reach and the concurrent audience was significant! I used a single phone device, and it looked authentic. But there are things I didn't know that could affect the pace, technical requirement and quality. So here are some tips when doing live for cooking shows:
NEVER NEVER go close to capture the closeup while cooking! My iPhone overheated, and it stopped the live broadcast! Use the zoom function.
Get high-quality recording post live by using Switcher Studio. Facebook records SD quality as an archive for live transmission, so I decided to use Switcher Studio as they have an HD recording option, and it records HD simultaneously. You can transfer this recording to your phone gallery later. I usually repurpose this HD recording for youtube and Instagram.
Prepare the flow of your cooking show and let your guests and co-host know how you are going to capture the angle. It is essential to discuss the flow as you don't want to get stuck during live transmission in a problematic situation, and the device could not capture what you intend to do.
As I didn't use any professional lights, I placed all ingredients and food tasting segments in front of a window to capture natural light.
Prepare conversation points so you can fill up waiting time while the food is cooking. Sometimes food requires more than 10 to 15 minutes to cook, so you need exciting dialogue and pointers to fill up airtime. Your audience will not leave you!
My Mom chose to pre-prepare items requiring overnight marination or even prolonged cutting and mincing - it saves time, and the audience does not have to wait. I guess it is similar to a -prerecorded cooking show.
It will be good to have another device (laptop, another mobile phone or a tablet) to check your comments and transmission quality. Depending on your wifi at home, the live-streaming rate may drop, so you need to check constantly.
Live engagement for Facebook can be unique if you do it consistently. I will write another blog about that. I will be writing about using multi-device for livestreaming very soon. So please keep coming back to my blog space.
Oh by the way, we have a recipe book out! 50 recipe written in English and Malay. There’s a QR code to link back to the video version. You can purchase it here.
Here are some cooking videos recorded live on my Iphone for your reference.