Building Grillmasters.

Ideation and Creative Treatment

Flipping the traditional BBQ narrative focusing on dramatised smoke, sweat and technical grilling, our creative leaned into the opposite approach, effortless mastery. The idea that anyone could become a Grillmaster using Masterbuilt. Utilising irony and dry humour we designed a campaign, almost shameless in it’s confidence, a tone that immediately stands out from traditional BBQ advertising. We positioned Masterbuilt as a BBQ brand built around confidence, keeping your cool whilst producing delicious professional quality food. 

In the ad we deliberately contrasted two completely different worlds. One with a more authentic and perhaps familiar visualisation of BBQ culture, awkward, chaotic and slightly underwhelming with a struggling cook becoming the slapstick visual setup for the joke.

We then cross cut into our Masterbuilt world, a highly stylised, cinematic summer environment where everything feels controlled, polished and effortless. Warm golden lighting, exaggerated saturated colour, perfectly dressed set and relaxed performances helped create a dreamlike, almost surreal atmosphere that intentionally felt like a heightened reality.

The contrast between the two worlds painted the visual message of the campaign. Rather than aiming for strict realism, the Masterbuilt segments leaned into a carefully constructed fantasy version of BBQing. The artificial grass, manicured hedging, saturated styling and pristine lighting all contributed towards making the environment feel intentionally ‘too perfect’ in a way that supported the humour of the concept. Positioning the Masterbuilt user or ‘Grillmaster’ as the aspirational alternative to traditional BBQ culture.

Pre-Production

The team transformed the studio into a fully artificial outdoor set using a variety of props from a parasol to cocktails creating depth and realism on camera. Every element of the set was chosen to help sell the illusion of a warm summer evening despite filming during cold, miserable conditions outside.

Lighting played a significant role in the creative approach. Our gaffers Dan Arkell and Jacob Bacon created a large lighting setup combining tungsten fixtures, SkyPanels and fill lighting designed to replicate soft evening sunlight whilst still allowing flexibility for product shots.

The production was split across two shoot days, allowing the team to focus separately on the altering worlds.

Day One: Set Build, Pre-Light & Exterior Shots

Day one started bright and early, with props and set-build materials being delivered and unloaded before the pre-planned (and perfectly-measured) set was built!

Once the set was built, the team focused on capture a comedic performance by the wonderful actor Peter Halpin, who presented a character struggling with a barbecue in perfectly bleak British weather!  The scene relied heavily on slapstick timing within his performance coincidentally aided by our a custom 3D-printed BBQ lid handle melting halfway through the shoot as we used real charcoal to look as realistic as possible!

Day 2 – Studio Shoot & Cooking Shots

Our Masterbuilt world featured lots of slow tracking Hero shots of our Grillmaster. Director and DoP Sam Gillespie (and Matchbox Film Co founder) directed and filmed this piece on the Canon Cinema EOS C500 Mark II in 6K Cinema RAW Light using Canon CN-E Primes and Tiffen pro-mist filtration, with Ellis Reed 1st AC pulling focus with the Tilta Nucleus-M wireless follow focus system, with client monitoring arranged by Matchbox Film Co by way of a 19″ Atomos Sumo 19SE. Motion was pretty limited apart from some gimbal push in/outs to highlight key moments in the film when the Grillmaster is being applauded by the guests at his BBQ. The gimbal work helped create dynamism whilst still maintaining the polished visual identity we aimed to establish.