KarlFenton

Karl Fenton: The Food Director Turning Kitchens into Cinematic Laboratories

There’s a moment on a Karl Fenton set when everything goes quiet. The camera is locked on a spinning blender, turnips and liquids flying in controlled chaos. A tiny adjustment to the rig, a fractionally different pour, and suddenly the shot transforms into something unexpectedly beautiful. For Karl, that’s the sweet spot: the intersection of precision engineering and happy accident, where everyday food becomes spectacular.

Karl is part of a new generation of food commercial directors who treat the kitchen like a studio lab. High frame rates, macro lenses, physical rigs and meticulous pre-visualisation all come together in work that feels both playful and obsessively controlled. His goal is simple but ambitious: make audiences feel like anyone can create something mouth-watering, and make it look extraordinary in the process.

From student union rushes to in-camera perfection

Karl’s journey starts at university, lugging a camera through student union events and parties. It was here, shooting in chaotic environments with bad lighting and loud sound, that he began to understand how to “create options in the edit” and avoid endless cleanup work later.

He spent those years trying to build hype in the edit suite, cutting together footage that felt far bigger and more exciting than the rushes suggested. Along the way he picked up some hearing damage and a deep respect for getting things right in-camera. Fixing footage “back then was painful and arduous,” he recalls, so the habit of making the image work on the day (rather than relying on post) became a core principle.

After university he freelanced for pop-up venues and corporate clients, often shooting events that might easily have looked dry and forgettable. Instead, he pushed movement: basic steadicam rigs, jerry-rigged setups and mirrorless cameras used to inject energy into otherwise static scenes. Those early gigs laid the groundwork for one of his trademarks: using camera movement and physical rigs to make even simple actions feel dynamic and cinematic.

Learning from the best – then doing it all

Karl broke into the commercial world with internships and PA roles at top production houses, including time at Somesuch, where he got a close-up view of major campaigns like John Lewis’ “Man on the Moon” Christmas epic, and work for brands such as Adele, Target and Nike. He learned the scale of big-brand storytelling and the sheer amount of craft behind seemingly simple shots.

An internship at Irresistible Studios followed, helping out on projects like Dove’s “Tangles” with director Pierre Luca De Carlo, sourcing props and running on set. From there, he slid into the social-first world with a run of successful Computer Exchange virals. Originally brought in as a one-man band for a one-off gig, he ended up joining permanently as part of Green Bullet’s social wing in 2016.

In that environment, Karl did everything: creative producing, art direction, shooting and editing. It was a proving ground where he developed ideas end-to-end, working his way up into a dedicated director–creative hybrid, increasingly trusted on bigger briefs and more complex jobs.

Chemical experiments and macro worlds

Even before food became the focus, Karl was experimenting with materials that begged to be filmed close-up. After university he spent time mixing chemicals and fluorescent liquids, shooting macro scenes of ferrofluids, magnets and glowing concoctions. Zooming in and slowing things down, he discovered how small changes in ingredients or timing could completely alter the result.

Inspired by abstract German filmmakers like Susi Sie who built title sequences out of pure visual experimentation, Karl began crafting his own miniature visual worlds. One early project was shot on a Sony FS7 at 200fps: fluorescent glow sticks broken into jars, agents mixed in, light disappearing as he pushed into macro territory and then finding ways to make the chemicals glow from within. A second chapter, shot on an Alexa Mini with a Zeiss 100mm Master Macro, honed techniques he still uses today in his food work.

That experimental mindset is now baked into his commercial approach. High frame rate and macro aren’t just stylistic flourishes; they’re tools to reveal new perspectives in ordinary ingredients.

Food as abstract spectacle

Karl traces his obsession with food commercials back to being “mesmerised” by cinematic campaigns from brands like Lurpak and M&S, spots where butter sliding across toast or steam rising from a pan felt almost otherworldly. What fascinated him was the alchemy: creating something abstract and spectacular from everyday kitchen moments.

He talks about each job as a “kitchen odyssey,” where cinematography and performance work together to whet the audience’s appetite. The ambition is to make viewers feel that delicious, impressive meals are within reach, while visually elevating familiar moments, chopping vegetables, flipping a burger, stirring a sauce into something heroically cinematic.

In the kitchen, Karl himself favours throwing things together to see what works. That same freestyle logic informs his filmmaking: a lot of ingredients, a lot of exploration, and a willingness to be surprised by the results.

Precision rigs, happy accidents

On set, his work is defined by a mix of precision engineering and controlled chaos. One telecoms spot, built around a top-down shot of a spinning blender, depended on minuscule rig adjustments. With heavy ingredients like turnips bouncing unpredictably under the force of gravity, there was always an element of chance. Karl leaned into that, fine-tuning setups and repeating takes until the perfect moment of impact and splash.

He often fixes objects directly to the camera or rigs the camera to the product to create visually spectacular moves that would be tough to design in post. Where there’s an obvious way to capture something, he’s drawn instead to the less conventional route — the angle or choreography that can elevate a straightforward food board into something distinctive.

Burger build: Instead of a single, traditional hero shot, Karl presented the burger being constructed layer by layer. Each stage was framed to look as appetising as a pack shot, almost like a stop-frame animation. Only at the end does a hand come in to press down the bun, unleashing a cascade of juices — a moment designed to be as satisfying as it is mouth-watering.

DP World broccoli forest: Asked to create a frozen, wintery landscape from broccoli, he added dry ice to give the “forest” depth and a fog-like atmosphere. Top shots of broccoli stems falling created the sense of the world being built in front of the camera. By maximising frozen particles and glints of ice, he turned a simple vegetable into a textured, fantastical environment.

Previs, AI and the power of planning

For a director so rooted in practical effects, Karl is also a heavy user of AI and previs tools, but with clear boundaries.

In pre-production he uses AI for storyboards, moodboards and animatics, exploring options and giving clients a tactile sense of movement, pacing and transitions. Clients are often able to get behind bolder ideas via his animatics, buying into braver visions that push the boundaries of the imagination having seen exactly how they play out. 

Similarly, on a recent Hellmann’s spot, previs not only reassured stakeholders that the story could be told in a tight run time, but showed how to weave players and human performances into food macro close-ups in a way that felt energetic and social. Where the boards only provided keyframes, the animatics supplied speed, energy and camera language.

Crucially, Karl draws a hard line at using AI for casting or performances. He prefers to shoot real people and real food, using CG and VFX to augment reality rather than replace it, and relying on AI mainly to accelerate painful tasks like roto and cleanup so that more time and energy can go into the creative and controllable aspects of the job. For him, prompts are as important a tool as lenses or lights — another way to guide a vision into focus.

Dream brief: 

Ask Karl about his ideal job and he comes back to where his inspiration began: a Lurpak-style epic. A supermarket or food brand brief that lets him use the full “toolbar of tricks” macro, high speed, practical rigs, chemical textures and VFX to tell a complete odyssey of food and flavour.

The aim is not just to show perfect plates, but to make viewers believe they can be the hero of the moment themselves, the BBQ king, the dinner party star, the person who turns simple ingredients into something unforgettable. That’s the emotional core of his work: demonstrating that feeling through the performances in a way that’s accessible for the audience.
 
Hungry to explore, experiment and finesse, Karl Fenton is carving out his place in the crowded world of food commercials by doing exactly what drew him in at the start, looking at familiar ingredients from new perspectives. And for brands that want their products to feel both magical and attainable, that combination might be the most irresistible ingredient of all.

View Karl's reel here: Reel