Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Behind the scenes: CHOPPED!

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey
Rick and me in the pantry on the Chopped set.

Our trip to go into the city for our CHOPPED experience was planned perfectly for the day before our big snow storm. I love driving in to the city over the GW bridge. (That’s what the George Washington bridge is commonly called around here.) Built in 1931, it’s a beautiful bridge. It’s a double-decker bridge and carries a huge number of vehicles across the mighty Hudson with no less than 14 lanes of traffic. I like being on top for the view, but then you have to share the road with all the trucks since they are not allowed on the lower deck.

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

Even more beautiful with it’s lacy trusses, is the Queensboro Bridge. It was completed in 1909. Very grand.

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

But I’m certain you don’t want to hear about the bridges, so I’ll get on with CHOPPED.

Walking up to the studio I saw a man dressed in a suit standing outside. I whispered to Rick “That looks like him, Ted Allen.” And it was. We walked right by him. I was trying hard not to stare so I just cast a furtive glance his way. He looked exactly like he does on TV. Kind of short, slight of build. Also standing around outside on break was one of the contestant chefs. Once inside the building, sitting right there in a chair texting on his phone was one of the judges, Geoffrey Zakarian. At this point I was feeling a little bit star-struck! Geoffrey Zakarian is quite handsome in person!

We had arrived during lunch break (2:30 p.m.) which was good and bad. Good because we got a private tour of the whole set; bad because we only got to see a small portion of the actual filming.

They take over Jerry’s entire studio, bringing a cast and crew of over 70 people with them. Poor Jerry has to rent out a studio across town if he has any commercials to do himself, and he’s relegated to a tiny shared office space. On the way down to Jerry’s office we passed the makeup and wardrobe room and Ted Allen’s dressing room.

So, let the tour begin! And what better place to start than the judge’s table (sans judges of course). I had to be respectful what I snapped photos of, I’m sure you understand.

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

The cooking area.

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey


Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

And just look at all the cameras and lights, both on the floor and in the ceiling!

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey


Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

Looking back toward the cooking and pantry section from the judge’s table.

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

We saw the rooms where they do the little interviews with the contestant chefs which they show throughout the show as insertions. We talked to two of the chefs and asked them how it was going. One said “well at least I made it through the appetizer course and I’m still here!” She looked and sounded familiar with her heavy accent. Hmm… The other chef looked very familiar too, like we had seen him already on the show. I told him I didn’t know how they made anything out of the basket ingredients. He shook his head, smiled and said “it isn’t easy!” We wished them luck and continued on our little tour.

Down in the area where the buffet lunch was set up was Alex Guarnaschelli chatting with some people. She looks exactly like she does on television too.

Also down here is where they photograph the food and the “chopped” plate. Ever wonder why the chefs have to make four plates of food for three judges? Here is the reason: one must be made for the shot.

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

Lunch break was over and we walked right through the set as they were starting back up again. All the judges were seated at their table and we saw the third and final celebrity chef judge, Marc Murphy.  We walked back to Jerry’s office to give them time to get rolling again. I was telling him how two of the contestant chefs looked so familiar to us, so he checked the filming schedule and sure enough they were filming “Winners Week” where previous winners are invited back to compete against each other. I knew I had seen them before and not too long ago either! I’m not sure exactly when the segment we saw will air, but the following day they were doing “Halloween,” so I’m assuming it’s some time in the fall.

After spending some time with Rick and Jerry talking shop (Phantom cameras), we walked up to the control room to watch. The judges were discussing the chef’s dishes and what they liked or didn’t like about them. This was pretty interesting because the cameras were rolling as each judge just talked. They said the same thing about 15 different ways. How many ways of saying the chicken was too salty can you come up with? You’d be surprised! Obviously here is where the magic of editing takes place in choosing which clip with which phrasing goes into the final cut. After they all had their say (again and again) they took another break. They did a lot of that!

It was very interesting being up in the control room with all the monitors showing all the camera angles. Each monitor had the name of the person behind that particular camera and the director would be constantly telling them what to do. Zoom in here, get a close-up of the chefs all waiting to be chopped, show me the plate, etc. How he kept track of everything was pretty impressive.

It takes somewhere around 17 hours to tape an entire show, and since we were only there for a few hours we didn’t get to see a lot. We did however see the next chef get CHOPPED! Sorry, I can’t divulge any names! I wish we had seen the actual cooking part, but we didn’t. With any luck we’ll be invited back again in the fall when they are taping again.

And here is Rick pretending he’s being chopped by the door the chefs walk by after they are CHOPPED. On the show the door slides shut as the chef who’s been chopped walks by it. Someone must be on the other side of the door sliding it shut because it’s not an automatic door!

Lynne Robinson, Hewitt, New Jersey

As we were leaving they were on break (again) and Ted Allen was just outside the door. Rick was brave and just stuck out his hand and introduced himself (and me too of course). So, I got to shake Ted Allen’s hand and chat for a few minutes until they were called back in to continue with their taping.

All in all, a very fun day! I have so much more appreciation for what we watch on television as the final product! If you haven’t ever watched the show I encourage you to do so. Maybe I’ve piqued your interest just a little bit?

More...

Comments:

Hob nobbing with celebs!! You have so much fun! I love the pictures of the bridges- they are my favorite part of coming into NYC too. So neat that you met Ted Allen! Now you have to meet Alton Brown!
Glad you had such a great time.

Thanks for the tour, Lynne! That was really neat.

Jessica, it felt strange seeing those people in person! Yes, I do have fun, don’t I? smile So many bridges in NYC and those were just two of them.

Mary, you’re welcome!

I love to watch Chopped - and now I have more info about it so I can appreciate it more.  Thanks Lynne.  With your photos I can “see” it better…Happy Day!

Debra, it’s a fun show! Glad you enjoyed your private tour behind the scenes!

What fun to see things like that for real. I think it is very interesting to see the trickiness they use to bring what we see in living rooms!

This is SO cool! Love the pic of you next to the produce and especially love the great bridge pics.

Becky, it was very much fun! Glad to see the word recognition is working for you!

Reya, I know! I’m sure someone has done a photo book of NYC’s bridges. That would be fun to own.

I haven’t watched that show, but we just got a new cable provider, and not all of the same channels are offered, so we are having to re-work our veiwing habits.  We might have to give it a try!

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.

Next entry: Snow Shadow

Previous entry: What a difference a week makes

Comments

Enter your comments into the form and press "Preview" to preview what your comment will look like on the web site, or "Submit" to go ahead and submit it. Feel free to use Smileys.

Membership

Login  |  Register
March 2024
S M T W T F S
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31            

Search

Recent Comments

  • C, no I did not know you played the organ, let along playing one in…

    Posted to: ‘I Could Have Been A ...’ by Lynne on 11/17/2023

  • Big sis, but so not fair that I got stuck with the organ! :( Please,…

    Posted to: ‘I Could Have Been A ...’ by Lynne on 11/17/2023

  • Interesting! I never wanted to take ballet lessons even though we had a book about…

    Posted to: ‘I Could Have Been A ...’ by Carolyn Clarke on 11/17/2023

  • Yup! Sadly, no ballet for us. My theory is that Mom probably thought since I…

    Posted to: ‘I Could Have Been A ...’ by Bigsis on 11/17/2023

  • I can absolutely see you wallowing in that chair, the color is so warm and…

    Posted to: ‘The Waller [sic] Around Chair’ by Sandy on 10/03/2023

Comment Leaders

  • Lynne - (1554)
  • Carolyn Clarke - (377)
  • Steve - (351)
  • Susan Weyler - (318)
  • Joyce Roberts - (261)
  • Reya Mellicker - (247)
  • Debra - (230)
  • lettuce - (206)
  • Susan in WA - (205)
  • Jan - (185)

Archives

Statistics

  • Page Views: 3202779
  • Page rendered in 0.2569 seconds
  • Total Entries: 2602
  • Total Comments: 6608
  • Most Recent Entry: 11/17/2023 11:01 am
  • Most Recent Comment on: 11/17/2023 04:04 pm
  • Most Recent Visitor on: 03/29/2024 01:46 am
  • Most visitors ever: 373 on 03/13/2020 06:45 am