Food Stylists: Be A Wardrobe Artist For Big Macs, Jack-in-The Box and Cereal

The food you see in commercials is not always what it seems, and rarely looks like the food you buy in stores, fast food chains, or are served in restaurants.  There is a reason for that:  for every food commercial you see, there is a food stylist behind the scenes.  Just as most celebrities are strikingly average looking without their stylists and makeup experts, apparently so is our food.

Here is a transparent example produced by McDonalds:   Behind the Scenes at a McDonald's Photo Shoot a short video that shows how (and why) the ordinary, dripping looking quarterpounder cheeseburger you get at McDonald's gets transformed into the beauty queen burger see in their advertisements.

The demand for food photographers and stylists have spawned companies, like Hollywood Food Styling, a bi-coastal business devoted to the entirely to making food look good.  But food styling is not limited to commercials and still shots.   Food is given "makeovers" in many TV shows as well as in films. If you have watched How I Met Your Mother, Will and Grace, CSI New York, Entourage, or even older shows including The Carol Burnett Show, Larry Sanders, or Love Boat, you have seen the work of food stylist Chris Oliver.