Case study / Food & beverage
A restaurant video in a single shoot
Restaurante Martucci · Digitais Studio · Funchal · Madeira
Summary
Martucci needed to show the space, the kitchen and the finished dish without stopping service. Digitais Studio filmed everything in a single session and delivered a video piece with vertical versions for social media.
Context
In a restaurant, production has to happen between services and without disrupting the kitchen. It's small-team work, with fast decisions made on site.
A restaurant sells three things at once: the food, the space and the feeling of being there. Dish photography solves the first. The other two only come across in motion.
The production window was short and wouldn't repeat: between the end of lunch and dinner prep. Anything not filmed in that window would be left out.
The kitchen is a tight, busy space. Any production requiring equipment to be set up in the middle of service is, in practice, impossible.
There was also a question of honesty: a restaurant that looks better than it is creates an expectation the dining room can't meet. The material had to look like the actual place.
And the content had to last. A single session only pays off if it produces posts for weeks, not just one video for launch week.
Approach
How we did it
A single session, planned around the kitchen's schedule, with the shot list locked before we walked in.
The time constraint defined the method: instead of setting up lighting for every shot, we worked with the space's own light and followed service as it happened.
A sequence that follows the customer's journey: entrance, space, kitchen, dish, the same order the experience is lived in.
We also filmed close-up kitchen movements, because that's the material that performs best in vertical format.
Editing produced a main piece and vertical versions for Reels, cut from the same footage.
We filmed in a format that allowed cutting both horizontally and vertically from the same footage, to avoid a second session.
We kept the team down to two people inside the space, so as not to interfere with the flow of the kitchen and dining room.
We photographed the dishes in the same window, using the room's natural light instead of setting up lighting.
What we delivered
Main video of the restaurant
Vertical versions for social media
Dish and space photography
Original files delivered to the restaurant
Result
What changed
The restaurant now has its own material of the space and kitchen, not just dish photography.
The same session now fuels posts for weeks, instead of serving a single campaign.
Communication stopped relying on photos taken on the spot with a team member's phone.
The restaurant's communication now shows the space and the kitchen, not just the dish at the end.
The team has approved material in reserve, which avoids rushed posting on the busiest days.
The restaurant gained a main piece usable beyond social media, on its website and on booking platforms.
This project is mostly Video & Photo work. That page explains what it includes, how it works and what gets delivered.
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Afonso Abreu, Production & video · Updated on 26 August 2026
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