Here's How Bobby And Giada Filmed Those Driving Scenes In Italy
Out of the four exclusive episodes of "Bobby and Giada in Italy", one scene seems to stand out the most to fans of the show. It's the opening scene of Episode Three, where the two chefs drive through the rolling hills of Tuscany in an Alfa Romeo convertible. Leaving behind the cobblestone streets of Rome eager to swap their plates of pasta alla carbonara for glasses of Tuscan wine, this picturesque moment embodies the spirit of authentic Italian cooking as Bobby and Giada take the audience along for the ride.
If it feels like it's straight out of a movie, that's because it's exactly the approach that the show's Director of Photography, Petr Cikhart, took while filming, according to a behind-the-scenes feature on Bobby Flay's blog. Though the opening scene only lasts a few minutes and appears to be just a carefree snapshot of Bobby and Giada's 2019 Italian adventure, Cikhart said it required several hours and several cameras to nail the visual Flay had in mind. "I think there were around eight or nine camera set ups for the scene," Cikhart recalled.
The convertible setup was complicated
Though this isn't the first time we've seen a red convertible going down a highway on a cooking show — every episode of "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives", to be specific — it is the first time a wide lens has been used for one, and it's what Cikhart credits to the magic of this scene. "It was shot with a wide angle lens called Zeiss Ultraprime 8R, which we used a lot and I think was quite original for it to be used for a food show," Cikhart explained (via Bobby Flay's blog).
Two of the cameras were attached directly onto the side and hood of the convertible, while Cikhart was sitting on the top of the car, making it especially challenging for Flay as the driver. "Can you imagine driving a car with cameras strapped onto it??" Flay captioned his Instagram post. But despite the setup being exceedingly more complicated than a dashcam, it resulted in quite possibly the most cinematic way to introduce countryside cooking and eating through Tuscany.