Becoming a Food Vlogger

Written By Hans Kang

48 hours into my 3 day fast and TikTok knows that I’m starving. I get served multiple food montages in a row and it gets me thinking: “As someone who eats at least once a day - I could do this”

With reported earnings up to 250,000 a year.

I would never go hungry. I would never not have money or food: the foudnation of mazlow’s hierarchy

I would be free to spend the rest of my life doing anything I wanted (in theory).

Best local and healthy restaurants. I will happily commit $30 dollars per day to becoming a food vlogger.

The Two Paths:

Best Restaurants in Aurora

  • Fishbone Kitchen + Bar

  • Aqua Grill

  • Mine sushi

  • Kababa

  • Dana kebab

  • Noor kebab

  • Wicked Eats

  • Locale

  • Aurora Garden Chinese Food

  • Piazza Italian Eatery

  • Bunchberry Diner

  • Minami Sushi

  • Feedery

  • Hunny Benny Chicken Plus

  • Nick Famous Shawarmas

  • Romy’s Restaurant & Lounge

  • Orchid Thai

  • Kababsara Parya

  • Bijoy’s restaurant

  • Pho 478

  • Shawarmaland

  • The Fry

  • Guac Mexi Grill

  • Noodle Max Restaurant

  • Philthy Philly’s

  • Ala Turkish Cuisine

  • Chicken Plus Aurora

  • Big Trio Wonton Noodle

  • Tirupati Indian Takeout Restaurant

  • Casa carbone Ristorante

  • Thai Villa

  • Irie Bistro Jamaican Food

  • Yunshang Rice Noodle

  • Tina’s Grill

Becoming an online chef

Next Steps:

  • Buy equipment / supplies

  • Clear Phone storage

  • Create recepie list

  • How do the top creators film their shorts?

  • How do the top creators edit their shorts?

    • How long on average before cuts between shots?

    • How are they color graded?

    • How are they shot (cinematography?)

General tips:

  • manual focus > general focus

  • Do a dry run of your recipe

  • Wide shot and tight shot

    • can film in higher resolution for tight shots

  • 45 degree and 90 degree angles are best

  • Rectangular object test for when you want to shoot straight down

  • Gonna need something to be able to clean my phone with after shooting

  • Goal is for the viewer to come away feeling like they themselves have cooked the dish

  • Zoom with your feet, not digitally

  • Lighting is important

  • Movement: is key - cutting to stationary objects is abrupt. Add motion to what you are cutting into to make the transition smoother

  • Rewetting food to make it look nicer on camera

Case studies: what makes each of these three successful? What can I steal from each of them?

  • Sam Way: 10 mil on tiktok, 2 mil on youtube

    • mostly shorts, no music, 45 degree shots only

    • spazzy / adhd editing

    • Extensive cooking processes (makes near everything from scratch)

    • Good audio quality

    • video format:

      • finished product first + audio description / “Let’s to some cooking + finished product” Confident voice

      • Eating reaction

      • Straight into the action

      • Eating reaction at end

      • video length = 1 min

    • monetization:

      • 1 min videos

      • has a cookbook (affiliate link)

  • Nick Digiovanni

  • Butter Hand: 1.2 mil on TT, 100k on youtube

    • shorts only

    • Videos are 10-20 seconds long

    • overhead shots

    • mix of 45 and 90 degree angles

    • link to website for recipes

    • relies on sound quite a lot

    • uses music

  • Primal gourmet

    • mostly videos, channel hasn’t been used for years

Inspiration / Who am I Modelling?

  • Sam Way

  • Owen Han

Content Creation Process:

  • Decide on a recipe

  • Write it up in blog format

    • Description & serving sizes

    • Ingredients

    • Process

  • Make the food, film the process

  • Take 2-3 HQ photos of the finished product

  • Edit the episode

  • Upload the episode on all platforms

  • Upload images to blog post and short form video thumbnails

  • Profit?

My Video Format:

  • 1 minute edits

  • Barely any voiceover, music sometimes

  • Opener: food preview + tagline “Let’s Eat”

  • 45 degree and 90 degree shots mostly or whatever works

    • Each “"thing” is only on camera for 2-6 seconds

    • Each “thing” is cut through multiple times while it is on screen (there is an average of 3 cuts / second. Vary the speed)

    • Flips between ingredients being chopped & it being added to the container, as would be natural

    • Action and movement all the time

  • Description:

    • A little story or context

    • Ingredients

    • Cooking process

  • Hashtags

    • Look up best hashtags for that recipe

My Business Model: How Will I Monetize?

  • Make an account for each short form media website. Post twice a week for the next year.

  • Monetization phase 1:

    • Affiliate links to kitchen equipment and book recommendations

  • Monetization phase 2:

    • Come out with a cookbook amazon + make it my own an affiliate link

Other methods of monetization:

  • Merchandise

  • Brand deals / sponsorships

  • Amazon Storefront with videos

  • Youtube long form content

Short video monetization rules:

  • Tiktok: only open to US residents

  • Youtube: 1,000 subscribers + 10 million short views (1-2 shorts per day). Creators chosen every month

Filming Essentials:

Kitchen Essentials:

  • Knife

  • Cutting board

  • Pot

  • Saucepan

  • Y shaped peeler

  • Food processor

  • Microplane

  • Bench scraper

  • Heat resistant spatula

  • Tweezers

Next Steps:

  • Get one recipe in mind

  • Clean up kitchen

  • Set up angles and see how the footage turns out

  • Film the creation of one recipe

  • Create account for all social media platforms

    • Youtube

    • Tiktok

    • Instagram

    • Twitter

    • Pinterest

    • X

    • Snapchat

  • Come up with some recipes / find recipes online

  • Find out best filming angles for me

  • Create 2 pieces of short form content + 2 blog posts per week for the next year

  • Get a cleaner background

  • Get higher quality audio

  • Get a setup where I can film with the camera facing towards me

My Social Media Bio

  • Links to my website / affiliate links

  • Links to my other social media accounts

Sounds to avoid when filming:

  • ticking clocks

  • barking dogs

  • humming fridges

Hans Kang
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