Executive Chef Henry Wassink at the pass in the kitchen at Palos Verdes Golf Club, herbs and oils on the counter

A new chef is a reason to come in early.

Palos Verdes Golf Club hired an executive chef. We made the piece that introduced him to the membership — a film, five dishes, and the cut-downs to carry it through the season.

A clubhouse kitchen is an amenity members forget they are paying for. Unless someone introduces it.

The pastrami burger comes with the club’s initials branded into the bun. The chimichurri ribeye cap and the citrus salmon salad are on the clubhouse menu. The fifth dish is arroz caldo — Filipino rice porridge, on the menu of a private golf club, which is exactly the kind of detail a membership tells each other about.

1:42

Introduction film — chef to camera, kitchen, plating, dining room.

5 dishes

Each shot vertical as a standalone piece, not as film offcuts.

One crew

Shot solo and edited in house, so the club booked one person.

Most club food photography is made for the menu. This was made for the feed — vertical from the camera up, so the dish clips post as they were shot rather than being cropped out of a widescreen film afterwards. The introduction film does the slower work: a member who watches it knows who is cooking, and that is the thing that turns a clubhouse kitchen from a facility into a reason to stay for dinner.

Bringing in someone new?

Why make a film about a chef at all?

The dining room is the amenity most members use more often than the course, and a new executive chef is the rare moment when a club has something genuinely new to say about it. A name on a menu insert does not travel. A member who has watched the chef talk about his own food knows who is cooking, and that is what turns a clubhouse kitchen from a facility into a reason to stay for dinner.

Why are the dish clips vertical rather than cut from the film?

Because they are made for the feed. Each dish was shot 9:16 from the camera up, as its own short piece, so it posts exactly as it was framed. Cropping a widescreen film down to vertical afterwards is how you end up with plates half out of frame and a chef with no headroom.

How big is the crew for something like this?

This one was shot solo and edited in house, so the club booked one person and got the film, the dish pieces, the stills and the social cut-downs. Photo-only days are usually solo. A multi-camera video day — a tournament, a gala — runs two videographers plus an editor.

What came out of the day?

A 1:42 introduction film for the club’s site and channels, five dishes each shot as a standalone vertical piece, stills pulled from the dish footage for the club’s feed and print, and a silent montage cut for social. See also the LPGA at Palos Verdes Golf Club.

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