his team here to Google New York. You all may know him

from his Emmy award winning show No Reservations where he

pretty much does everybody's dream job including mine. Of traveling the world and eating whatever

the hell he wants. Including some things that there's no way

you could pay me enough, I think, that you actually

eat. There you go. He has a second show debuting on the

travel channel in November called The Layover, which is

described as a high octane travel series that follows him to cities around the world as

he gives viewers the inside scoop on where to eat, where to drink,

and what to do on the 24-hour layover. He has written several books including

Kitchen Confidential, A Cook's Tour, and Medium Raw,

which I see a lot of you guys have in the audience. These are

books that made many people, including myself, decided

never to eat fish again on a Monday. In case you don't know why, it's because apparently

that's where all the crap from the week before goes to the Monday specials, so don't eat

it. He's joined today by his Emmy award winning team from No Reservations and the Layover.

We have, starting right here, Tom Vitale, an Emmy nominee,

producer director of No Reservations and on the Layover. Zach Zamboni, to his right is

a two time Emmy winning director of

photography for No Reservation and also the director of photography for the Layover. And

obviously Chef Anthony Bourdain is right next to him in case you

don't know who that is. [audience chuckles] And Todd Liebler

to his right who is a two time Emmy winning director of photography of No

Reservations. So we've asked Chef Bourdain to run the discussion here today so I have

no idea what they are going to talk about but I have a feeling it's going to involve

food and travel, and possibly his girlfriend, Paula Deen I don't know; we'll see. [audience

laughs] Thanks >> Chef Bourdain: Now there's an idea. Thank-you.

So what we'd like to talk about today is making things. We make things and with

the people on this stage make -- along with a much larger

group of people, equally hard-working, make No Reservations

and the new series. I guess why it's us up here rather

than Lydia Tenaglia or Chris Collins or Sandy,

or Eleanor or all the people in post production, editing, sound,

color correction or all these other incredibly [chuckles] vital

components of the show. The reason these guys are up here is

because we spend -- we just talked about -- we spend

about 200 days a year with each other on the road. We're

the principal road team for No Reservations. We spend a

lot of miles, a lot of time, a lot of drinks, a lot of poop

jokes. [laughter] And so, I thought we'd talk today about how we

do what we do. And really, why -- you know, I joke about

it, but I mean it. For me, the worst thing about the show

-- in a perfect world, I would not be on it. I would

not be on No R You see the world as I see it. I would

go. I would see it. I would narrate the show and it

would be told through my point of view , but I would really not

like to not see my stupid face up there. If you imagine

the show without me in it, I think it would still be the

best God damned travel and food show on travel television ever. [audience cheers]

And so, the question of the day is, how come it's just so

fucking good? [laughter] Tom Vitale, producer, director, perhaps you

can explain like the process. How does it all begin?

Like, a typical show such a thing exists. >> Tom: Tony is picking on me because he knows

I'm terrified of public speaking. [laughter] How does it

all begin. We start about a month before we go out.

>> Anthony: Generally I'll pick a spot.

>>Tom: Tony picks a spot. You have an idea sometimes a film that reminds

you of a place. You give us some direction and we go

out find interesting locations, interesting people,

interesting things to do and the rest sort of takes care of

itself in a strange way >>Tony: Really so anybody can do it?

>>Tom: Yes. [laughter]

>> Tony: you can follow Tom Vitale, at TV superstar. That's his Twitter feed, by

the way. At Zach Zamboni.

>>Zach: Yes, Tony. >>Tony: Surely it's not that simple. Come

on, the show looks amazing. Look at all the other shows

that try to be like us; they suck. The meal scenes,

they're all sitting there like mummies. Welcome to my home. Guy. Please

enjoy our food. [laughter] You know, they're the photography

is ugly, the lighting if any seems spectacularly inept. There's no human dimension. It's all

happy horse shit. Everything's great . Please help me understand, why are we so damn good

Zach Zamboni.

>>Zach: We got heart, man, we got heart. That's you, me,

these guys, post people, editors -- everybody involved's got heart. We try to do something

good, you know, and we've got skills -- yeah, for

sure. [laughter] But I think -- I do think we got heart. We're

trying to do something. >> Tony: Heart explains why, I think, why

particularly, you know, meal scenes with people seem

to work a little bit better. You know what? I've

often said, you know, we -- that we take the time --

you know, we drink with people. You know, that

we're not alcoholics -- we're television professionals. [Zach clears throat] [laughter]

Drinking with our subjects and the people who host us on the show certainly helps.

But I think it's a function of -- we spend the

time with the people. We're not just gang rushing some

poor rice farmer. You know, and saying, "Okay,

the scene's starting now. Get Tony out of the

trailer. I go in. I sit down, I take a couple of bites. "Mmm, good" and back to the trailer.

The 4-minute scene represents about how long, what do you think?.

Typically Laos show for instance. Maybe it's a four, five, six

minute meal scene. How long did it take you guys

to get those shots, and how much do you shoot between your two or three cameras

because you operate a camera as well for a show

like that. >>Todd: We're probably there two to

three hours before you're even there, because we're

shooting the prep with the food which is actually a

great way to get involved with the family. Because

you know, as a lot of you probably know, a lot of

stuff happens in the kitchen. You know, that's where the hearth is. So we go in there and

have a relationship often incredibly nonverbal, right?

Because as people on the crew know, my grasp for

foreign languages is incredible [ laughter]. You

know, we go into the kitchen and we are just taking

an interest in what they're doing. And that immediately, I think, just opens them up to

us. And of course we're open to them because we're trying to

just get in there.

>> Tony: I mean, you're in the kitchen often in a very tight space with somebody's

grandma. She's not used to having other people in the

kitchen other than family to start with. She's certainly

not used to this -- especially when you're talking

about the mountains of Laos -- this invading army of

hulking white people from America with cameras. That is a weird and

terrifying thing to people particularly hill tribe

region of Laos. I keep using that as example because that was probably -- I'm trying to

think of where we appeared as most shocking apparitions,

you know? [laughter] So you know you go into a

room with cameras, everything changes. Everybody gets weird.

And I think part of the struggle -- I think one

of the things that you guys particularly do really

really well that makes all the difference is the

time spent to A: let people get over that shock. The

fact that you're in -- it's often you. You're in

the kitchen with grandma. She's bumping you out

of the way. You smiling at each other. You're expressing

willingness to try things. You're open to the

experience. You're clearly appreciative of what's

going on and interested. You know, people are proud

of their food, wherever they are. Just about everywhere in the world, people are proud

of their food. It means something. It reflects their

history, their family history, their ethnic history, often a long

story of struggle and deprivation to arrive at these

dishes. It means a lot. They tend to like it wherever

you go when a guest is willing to smile and try

it and be open to it. But I think the time you put

in with petting the family dog, playing with the kids.

>> Todd: Milking the yaks. >> Drinking the local rot gut.

Because let's face it, a lot of these situations, in almost all of them, somebody is fermenting

or distilling something cloudy in a backyard

somewhere in a 55 gallon drum.

>>Todd: Which they are very proud of >>Tony: The willingness to drink that

makes a big, big difference in how things are going

to go. So there's that. [laughter] You know, I talk about

time. But then again, this is a hand-crafted outfit, you know? This is -- you know, we're

not Target. We're Hermès . It takes a long damn

time to make the bag. [laughter] But at the end

of the day, okay, it's expensive. It's a damn nice bag. [laughter]

>> Zach: Yeah, I think -- I mean, yeah, it's like the Japanese craftsmen that believes

they're part of what they make. I think we go in

like that. We know our signature is on this thing

we're making. We're not -- we're making this thing

that represents us and we put -- we standby it, you

know. >>Tony: You ever watch a show, you ever make

a show, and later -- I mean, to me it's really really

important. Whatever I did yesterday. I know the feeling

of waking up looking in the mirror and going,

"oh, God --," like, whatever I did yesterday was

really, really, shameful and embarrassing. [laughter] Story of a lot

of my life. I guess I determined whenever I decided to go on television to

not be, you know, really I would love to make a joke about

The Chew right now. Should I? No. [chuckles] You

know, I just -- I'm constitutionally unable to wake

up to in the morning. To know that I'm going to

wake up tomorrow morning. "Jesus, God, that show we did

was really cynical, and cheap, and stupid. I don't care if people liked it, it sucked."

Have you ever woken up in the morning after seeing a show that

you made and thought, "oh, man."

>>Tom: I think that's one of the amazing things about working on this show,

we all feel so proud like Zach said. The product

we put out there. I mean, it's just very special.

There's so many other people who work on shows that

you just like you say you don't get to go home and

feel really proud of what you do. It's kind of

awesome. >> Tony: You knew this was coming too?

What about the Romania show, Tom? [laughter] Here's the

problem for me on the show is that, on the one hand,

it's a good thing. Like, if the show goes really

really badly, we tell that story anyway, you know?

And if it goes really badly and it's an utter misery

for me because I found out painfully one of Tom's

early masterpieces, apparently that's pretty damn

entertaining. [laughter] Do you care to tell --. How badly did that shoot go?

>> Tom: It went pretty badly. I can't just any other episode that's gone -- everything

-- it was a perfect storm. Everything was so

bad that it end up being so great in the end. [laughter]

Ultimately, I think it was a fair accurate representation

of our eight or ten days there. Ultimately -- so I can go

to bed at night and sleep with an easy conscience because

again, that's a fair representation of what we saw

during our time there. It may not be all of Romania and we certainly did not go out to

assassinate a country.

>> Zach: We tried to do right. We had the intention of doing right by those people

>> Tony: At the end of the day, that was a funny shit though.

>> Zach: We tried. We tried. I just want to say anecdotally,

this guy, when it starts raining, right? We're in

the middle of nowhere. We got no cover. No trees

no nothing. It starts raining. >> Tony: And I'm always, "this scene is

over. We're screwed. Time to move to plan B."

>> Zach: "shit," and he goes "yes!" >> Tom: Bad weather makes for good TV.

>> Zach: And he's just like as soon as things go off the track naturally "this is

perfect. >> Tony: He starts to smell Emmy.

>> Tom: That's one of the things I learned about this show. There is no script.

We don't do multiple takes of things. If Tony

says something or one of the people we're filming

says something and we didn't catch it for some reason we're

shooting a food insert. We don't ask them to say it

again. I think that's very important. It lends that feeling of immediacy to the show.