Cookie Dealerstudio reel
scroll for the storythe brief
Cookie Dealer asked for a 9:16 social reel under ten seconds; a cookie advert built for Instagram and TikTok feeds. The challenge was set out plainly. How do you make food look this good without a kitchen, on a single backdrop, in one shoot day?

the approach
A controlled studio setup. Soft pink seamless paper as the only backdrop. A key-and-fill lighting rig dialled in for the warm tones in the chocolate. The plan mixed practical effects with post-production VFX so the work split cleanly across set and edit, with no reliance on location or food styling.
Slow-motion capture would carry the action; fishing wires would carry the cookie. Everything else was straight macro video production.

the making
Filmed on a single seamless paper backdrop in one shoot day in North Wales. Lit from above with a soft top-light, key-and-fill on the cookie, and a slow shutter to give the ingredient drops their deliberate, gravity-led feel. The opening chocolate-chip-rain shot mixes practical effect (chips actually falling on the take) with post cleanup. Speedramps and a careful colour grade keep the pink reading warm rather than flat.
The fishing-wire rigs that suspended the cookie for the hero motion shots came out in After Effects. Filmed, lit, edited and VFX-finished in-house by Mona Digital.

the outcome
A vertical reel under ten seconds, finished at 9:16 for social media. One shoot day. One backdrop. End-to-end production through to delivery, with the VFX cleanup and grade handled in the same studio that filmed it.

the meaning
Small food brands rarely have a kitchen-and-stylist budget. The exercise here was proving a single backdrop, a tight kit and a careful plan can carry a food ad on its own; and that controlled post is faster than building a full set. The cookie did the work. The studio kept out of the way.

watch the reel
A short-form vertical cut of this project — designed for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
credits
- Director
- Dafydd Weightman
- Camera
- Dafydd Weightman
- Lighting
- Dafydd Weightman
- Editor
- Dafydd Weightman
- VFX
- Dafydd Weightman
- Studio
- Mona Digital