Jimmy Barnes & Jane Barnes · YouTubeChargrilled Vegetable Stack
Open project ↗
← All work
National Food and Fundraising Campaign
Plate for a Mate
A multi-year food campaign connecting more than 100 recipe films, a cookbook and a national fundraising effort around the simple act of cooking with a mate.
- Year
- 2020–2023
- Client
- MGI Entertainment
- Location
- Sydney and Melbourne
Published work
Selected recipes
Four films from a campaign that grew to more than 100 edited recipes across three years.
My role
- Cinematographer
- Camera Operator
- Editor
- Cookbook Frame Photographer
Selected credits
- Producer: Michael MacRitchie
- Featuring Mike Reid, Adam D'Sylva, Diana Chan, Jerry Mai, Jimmy Barnes, Luke Hines, Jason Roberts, Chloe Sueee, James Tobin, Tom Walton, Sarah Todd and Adam Goodes
- Campaign partners included OzHarvest and the Black Dog Institute
The project
Plate for a Mate brought chefs, food brands and community organisations together to make approachable meals and create space for conversation. I helped film the campaign from 2020 to 2023, then edited 31 films in its first cycle, 35 in 2022 and 39 in 2023.
The approach
We worked in real kitchens with natural or naturalistic light, keeping the food and each chef's personality at the centre. Shoulder-mounted cameras gave the cooking movement and immediacy, while high-frame-rate capture let key actions settle into smooth, detailed moments. The consistent production format had to remain flexible enough for a different kitchen, recipe and personality every time.
What remained
The campaign helped provide 300,000 meals for Australians experiencing food insecurity and raised more than AUD 150,000 for mental-health research. High-resolution cinema frames also became the still photography for the Plate for a Mate cookbook, extending the moving-image work into print.
Visual gallery
Inside the world
Next project
White Pearl Pizzeria