Over its 11-plus years, Ottawa’s international food channel has made shows with 71 different hosts. But only three have been locals. I won’t be the fourth.
Imagine getting all stressed out about de-seeding a pomegranate.
It’s no big deal to do it at home, where the worst outcome would be splattering that gorgeous fruit’s juice all over your counter, clothes, or apron.
But it’s another matter to do in a television studio, in front of a camera and crew, while simultaneously trying to be entertaining with a capital E.
So I discovered as I recently (and embarrassingly) went through the audition process to become a food program host at Ottawa-based Gusto TV.
From its Thurston Drive studio in Ottawa’s end, the award-winning international food channel produces content seen on more than 40 platforms in more than 160 countries. At any given time, Gusto TV has 20 shows in various stages of development and is “constantly looking for new talent and new ways to reinvent the genre,” says Chris Knight, its president and CEO.
He invited me to audition — not seriously, I should say. I was given the opportunity so that I could better describe the process for any hopefuls in Ottawa reading this article.
Over its 11-plus years, Gusto TV has made food shows with 71 different hosts, Knight told me. But only three have been from Ottawa.
“Because our business is so global-facing, we tend to keep a low profile here at home. I’d like to change that,” Knight says. Gusto TV is putting out a casting call, exclusive to Ottawa-area foodies, hoping to find two or three new hosts. A host could be paired with an existing show concept, or a show could be tailored to a host’s strengths.
They don’t have to be trained chefs, Knight says. Nor do considerations of age, gender, colour or background matter.
“What we really look for are people who are passionate, fun, articulate and have that certain je ne sais quoi,” he says.
Aspirants should go to gustotv.com, scroll to the bottom, click on the “casting” link and follow the prompts.
Knowing full well that I didn’t measure up, and expecting entirely to suck, I auditioned anyway.
Gusto TV senior producer Keren Jackman sent me two documents to help me prep for the first leg of my tryout.
I was to shoot a video of myself making scrambled eggs at home. Jackman’s first document was a “script” for the video, although it wasn’t dialogue that I had to memorize. It was more of a template consisting of bullet points that I could use to create my egg video.
The second document was Gusto TV’s “general dialogue style guide,” which listed 20-plus bullet points, such as “Action over dialogue,” “First, we entertain, then, we inspire… never teach!” and “Be evangelical and inspirational.”
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Unfortunately, in an epic case of self-sabotage, I didn’t open the second document until after I’d made the egg video. A little too casually, I made this:
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
You can be the judge. Knight certainly was.
“Your audition was fine,” he said. “You made all the civilian mistakes we tried to help you with… Go back and watch it and see how much time you spend not doing something.”
Action over dialogue, remember?
Only because I was to write this story, I graduated to the next phase of auditioning — an in-person tryout in front of the cameras — even if my egg video was rotten.
But before I stepped into Gusto TV’s studio, Knight took me into his office where he and Jackman elaborated on some points in the style guide that I should have studied.
Knight left me thinking that as hard as I thought being a food show host would be, it’s actually harder.
“To make an emotional connection with the viewer is very, very difficult to do,” he said. “I’ve seen people come into an audition with huge personality and suck the oxygen out of the room, but the moment you turn the camera on them, they disappear.”
He rhymed off the limitations of video as a medium, which a host would need to erase. “The sound typically is bad. There’s no depth of field. It’s two-dimensional; it’s not three-dimensional. There’s no smells. We have all of that to overcome and to make that connection.”
He reiterated that I basically shouldn’t just stand there. “The first rule of Gusto is action before dialogue. Always, always, always be doing something. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Always be doing something.”
The corollary to “Always be doing something” struck me as a paradox.
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing,” said Knight, even though that’s what people do in the YouTube videos and Instagram reels that I watch.
“That’s just natural and the easier way to do it. It’s a very hard habit to break,” Jackman conceded. But Gusto TV shows are about entertaining and inspiring, and less so about instructing, especially when viewers can see what’s being demonstrated and then get the recipes via QR codes if they’re sufficiently interested.
“Don’t tell me, ‘I’m now going to cut an onion’ and then say I’ve cut the onion. I could see you cut the onion. I got four cameras on you,” said Knight. “But tell me it’s a Vidalia onion. Tell me it’s sweet. Tell me about the time you went to the Blooming Onion chip truck. Share with me your joy and your passion.”
Knight’s final words of advice were to smile and talk slowly. “If you think you’re talking slowly, you’re not,” he said. “If you think you’re smiling, you’re not.”
Whereas I thought a host was an instructor, tasked with imparting information with authority, elegance and possibly some humour, Knight clarified that he is looking for upbeat performers, as inexperienced as they might be.
“You have no formal training on memorizing scripts, hitting your marks, doing it once and once for tape, right? That’s a professional actor,” said Knight. “We’re constantly looking for ways to draw people out and feel safe and comfortable in our environment so they can give a performance because it is a performance, right? It is a performance and it’s all based on your knowledge and your passion.”
The funny thing is that I am, at times, a performer. But my performances involve playing piano in jazz clubs, not making a pomegranate arugula salad as passionately as possible. I learned the hard way that one skill does not necessarily inform the other.
Very fortunately, there’s the miracle of editing. While a Gusto TV episode lasts about 22 minutes, shooting might last a full day or even longer.
“Overwhelming the majority of it ends up on the cutting room floor. You don’t have to be great all the time,” said Knight. “You’re in a room full of professionals who woke up this morning saying what am I gonna do to make this guy amazing?”
This was a lot for me to wrap my head around. I’m more used, as a pianist, to performing “live off the floor” or “live to tape,” more like a chef demoing a recipe in real time for a daytime TV show host. Performing with the knowledge that there can be do-overs and that innumerable cuts are involved in making the final product definitely does not come naturally.
“It’s scary being on set for the first time,” Knight said. “But if you’re good, and if you like it, we have to drag you off the set at the end of the show because it’s an adrenaline rush. It’s an absolute adrenaline rush.”
About 30 minutes later, I agreed. My heart was beating faster after I’d made my pomegranate arugula salad, even though my best attempt involved numerous cooking blunders, fumbled lines, rambling anecdotes and memory lapses.
“What do you think?” Knight asked me after I’d auditioned.
“I won’t be quitting my day job,” I said.
But maybe you should.
