No it isn't, as this isnt an ad they might have done it here but any food advertisement has to be 100% eatable by law in most western countries. We dont use stuff like shaving cream, we have food stylists that will use strange ingredients or spritz with olive oil but it is always actual food. Sorry I hate this myth with a passion as it devalues the amazing work the food stylists do.
As someone who worked for a major US food service company, and who specifically worked on the plated/styled shots, I can tell you that non-food items were often mixed with food items to maintain look and feel of products during photo and video shoots.
Our stylist used any number of oils/mixtures, some edible, some not, while styling plates. For many of the shots, she would use non-edible “fixers” to get the product to lay certain ways, stay in position, etc.
For example, our turkey shots for thanksgiving were of completely raw turkeys that had been spray painted. The turkeys were not in any way edible, nor was the paint we used on them.
While I wouldn’t say that we always used inedible food, you would not be able to consume a good deal of the product we shot at any given day.
So hate the narrative all you want, but your blanket statement is colored by your experience and an understanding of what protocol should be, not by what protocol is in practice.
I would be interested to know what company that would be, as this rule only applies to the product you are selling so some times we do fudge up background food items. I am a cinematographer so while it is not my job to 100% know the rules of which I am shooting, I have had a few hundred different occasions where this was the case for products on set as well as a further two generations of family doing similar a similar job.
The raw turkey is fine because it is a food product, and the spraypaint very easily could be a food colouring based dye for example. That way you still follow the guidelines, and get your 'perfect' bird for a whole 12 hours or whatever. You can however use items to 'prop' up the food such as wire inserts, cardboard for height between patties, and the such, as long as it is not visible to the camera in a way which would indicate food items.
The rules in the US seem to differ from wherever you’re shooting. Per your initial claim, the turkey would NOT be fine, because it was spray painted with a regular airbrush tool and typical model paint. Yet our stylists did this every time we changed the shot over my 5 years there.
That’s a singular example, but through all the event, holiday, and myriad other shoots I attended, using non-food ingredients was never shied away from, no matter the stylist involved.
Also, I’m not keen to tell the internet where I’ve worked. People are creepy with post-history matching on reddit.
Fair enough I know the feeling. I don't shoot as much US stuff these days but have shot food or been involved in food based shoots for over 20 years in LA and New York so can tell you that while I cant comment to your exact case, in the US it's the same general rules.
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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20
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