Cooking content has a huge audience but not everyone is a chef. We set out to make cooking more accessible to people who love it but think they may not have any skills to support that love. We wanted to build up the community by showing that even if you have nothing, you can still create something while having fun along the way. This video series shows proof that you can’t be good at everything, but you might surprise yourself and be better than you thought. That’s a mindset to instill in not just cooking but in all things, we try in life.
The underlying theme for the Try Guys content has always been finding the courage to try something new, and whether you succeed or fail is beside the point. The aim is to emerge from the experience a bit wiser and a tad stronger, simply for having been brave enough to try. We started from a place of experimentation thinking “what would a cooking show look like from a fan of the community without the training.” From there we built the format to showcase what it is like to jump in without a safety net and learn from the experience.
In this season of Without a Recipe, the filming took place in the summer of 2022 with original cast members of the Try Guys. The typical challenges of creating this show have always been assembling the crew, scheduling shoots, and most obviously, the contestants creating dishes they have no idea how to create, with a creative and fresh idea on how to do so. The contestants have always pulled together a wonderfully funny array of dishes, leaving the judges sometimes horrified, sometimes delighted, and always entertained.
After filming was already completed, a decision was made within the company to remove a member of the Try Guys team. Given this change, a wrench was certainly thrown into the post-production process that was in motion on all five of the videos in the series. In order to adhere to the concept of the series while also maintaining integrity, editors of 2nd Try LLC went to work on clever and unique ways to remove the departed member. Animation in the first episode released featured the hilarious “elephant in the room,” removing the contestant while keeping the essential comedy of the series. Each following episode featured another fun animal, including a gorilla, turkey, panda, and rooster. Our finishing team in post-production also painstakingly removed all hints of his voice throughout cooking and judging. Despite these challenges in the post department, our editors and post team made it all appear seamless and effortless, keeping all the important storylines and real moments that happened in and out of the kitchen.
This approach resulted in one of our most successful series with an incredibly engaged fan base. It became such a hit that we were able to create a season final episode streamed live for all the fans, where they were able to see the challenge from every angle. Additionally, through all the fun in making the show, judges come back time and again to participate in every season, like a recurring judge, Rosanna Pansino.
