As trends shift and take culinary luxury to new heights, Arnold recently announced a toast campaign, celebrating the details of creating a magical dining experience at the restaurant. The “One of Those Nights” campaign stars Bear’s Matty Matheson and captures an obviously harsh night at Malea, one of New York’s most iconic restaurants.
The experiential spot is supervised by hidden camera expert Sam Cadman and features authentic people who test unsuspecting restaurant staff. They believed that the restaurant agreed to let the camera record the “typical” night of the ordering system. However, this experience led restaurant staff to navigate challenging orders to highlight the appeal of rigorous customers.
“One of those nights” is a humorous and straightforward approach to underrated moments that really make the restaurant shine. LBB’s Lucy Briggs talks about hidden cameras, fast-paced environments and radio frequency adjustments to Director Samkadman.
lbb>sam, you have hidden cameras and tricks to deal with real people. How did you carve this niche?
I took a break as co-creator and director of a prank comedy series called SAM>Trigger Happy TV. As soon as these episodes aired, I was lucky enough to start pitching with the ads. Over the years, some incredible creatives of some great agencies and brands have asked me to continue doing this kind of thing, so any kind of “carved niche” is totally I have to say it’s their fault!
LBB>Please tell us about the use of these techniques in this project. Was that always a plan? What was the pre-production like?
Sam>From the first call, the lovely Lawson Clark and Jude Senese were sure this was a great idea, but they were sure the only way to do it was to prank the flashy real-world restaurants. I totally agreed, and we had so much fun casting the most ridiculous real-life picky guys and creating our own outrageous type. Marea’s super talented head chef, PJ Calapa, is one of only three people in the restaurant we knew we were doing, and even Chuck’s ideas he knew would drive the kitchen crazy. I was doing it. Together, we created a simple premise that all staff are immediately plausible. This means that management agreed to have the toast recorded in implementing an ordering system during typical evening service. The high-tech scouts were hilarious. We all had to talk about it in the code.
lbb>Speaks through 40 year wigs in diner ears using all the radio frequencies available in midtown Manhattan. What was it like to coordinate the entire team in such a high-pressure environment? Please tell us about the logistics of such businesses.
Sam>The sound of this production was epic. As you mentioned, we had 40 arowigs spread across the main diners over at least 50 radio microphones scattered throughout the venue. This could have been crazy for our ears, but the Gotham Sound gang was the best. From the control room hidden in the gut of the building, you will immediately call the table number and then only those microphones will come out, while listening to those diners’ ears, leading and directing the live show. Sounds better than the pictures of this kind of production is important, and often glitches and gremlins get into the system, but this time it won’t.
Have you worked with the LBB> production team to create the perfect fast-paced environment and keep restaurant staff unsuspecting what’s going on?
Sam> A live experience like this is a large team effort. The nearby church hall was making sure each diner knew exactly what to order. In the control room, my tireless DP, Matthew Wolf (yes, lives on Oblivion Fan, that’s really his last name) has to compete for a five-person camera team through Walkie did. These poor operators had to hurry up and find a frame they had when they went from table to table to table without resting all night. As each diner ordered, I would be in my ears at a spontaneous prompt or ALT line based on how the waiter is responding. And in the kitchen, when Matty went to see the chef, I was quietly encouraging him to waste as much of his hardworking staff time as possible.
LBB>What is the editing process and style of such hidden camera work?
SAM> In total, 8 cameras were rolling non-stop for 4 or 5 hours. In my experience, the only way to deal with this amount of material is to sync it all together and look at the split screen at once, skimming something good regardless of coverage. Get the best bit in a dedicated bin and it was to find the right pace and tone. I felt it was important to balance the staff’s reactions with funny orders and when I pushed them to Max, I confirmed their polite frustration and tired surprises. As a director, I loved this part of the process and was enthusiastically emailing notes to Tom Scherma, a very patient Uber-Editor.
LBB>What were the most interesting challenges you faced during production and how did you overcome it?
Sam>We know we could only go one thing to this. It must have been the biggest and most interesting challenge ever that none of the 70 diners had ever walked into a restaurant. But in reality, this just made things more exciting and electrical. In the church hall, we rehearsed with all the diners in the afternoon. Set up the table with a rough approximation of the restaurant’s floor plan, sit in the perfect configuration for the camera and provide the actual menu to order. I then ran through the evening in the same sequence as I designed it – I tried to make this much of this feel as familiar as possible. The patience of all this agency and clients is incredible and you need to make sure you focus on what’s really important when the clock counts down to service and knock it out of the park.
LBB>What was the most interesting thing that happened during filming?
Sam>Matty and Ricky ordered and ate all the dinner before the camera arrived. So the waiter appears to be surprised in the final film.
