Behind-the-Scenes Breakdown – OTA: Michael Haskett

At age 16, South Dakota chef and entrepreneur Michael Haskett had a vision. His goal was to provide honest, ingredient-driven food—and have all of those ingredients come from local sources. From starting and growing a community-focused business to starting and growing a family, Michael certainly has a story worth sharing. As part of our OTA Spotlight series of videos, director Wes Eisenhauer had a chance to help Michael tell that story. Here’s what Wes had to say about that process.

What was your thought process going into this piece? How did your expectations change?
Wes: This was literally the first thing that I ever pitched to Joe after I’d just been hired by Passenger, and it was definitely close to home for me. I’m pretty close with a lot of the people that work there and I’m a big supporter of the restaurant myself. My family and I try to eat there once a week, so this one was personal for me. I think that actually made things a little bit more difficult because I didn’t want to disappoint anybody. I mean, I interact with a lot of those people on a weekly basis. So I wanted to get it right. In the end, I had to take a lot of stuff out because I needed to be objective and tell the story from the perspective of someone who wasn’t already familiar with Haskett’s. I think that’s one way my expectations changed.

Ultimately, I truly believe in what Mike is doing with food and how he cares about it, as well as the sense of community you feel in that place. I think some regulars in there take a lot of pride in his ability to renovate this rundown coffee shop and flip it into what it is today. So I wanted to make sure I told that story the right way

.It also took me nine months, so what I knew about video production and directing at the beginning compared to what I knew about video production at the end was basically night and day.

Having a background in food, were there things you felt you had an advantage with as far as knowing what would make for a cool shot or what would stand out?
Maybe. Honestly, a lot of those shots were just ideas I had while we were shooting. I wanted to shoot it overhead and capture those simple tasks. Because that’s what I think is at the heart of their restaurant—simplicity in ingredients—so I wanted to shoot Mike breaking down a chicken or slicing an orange and keep it simple and present it in an interesting way. It was really more of a stylistic choice, but I wanted to showcase the importance of simplicity in good ingredients.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while making this piece?
We talked about the challenge of being familiar with Haskett’s, but also, when I started working for Passenger, they basically just sent me over there with a camera I’d never used before and said, “Go play around.” So from a technical standpoint, I barely knew how to operate the camera. But by the end, I’d learned a lot about shooting and how to use the equipment. So that was a huge challenge, but it also turned into a pretty great outcome in the end. I appreciated that Joe had that trust in me to be creative and make something happen.

What was the best unexpected joy or positive outcome?
The biggest joy was letting it go at the end. I’d worked on it for nine months and I was almost scared to finish it. Because you work on it so long, you start to wonder, Is this thing even good? Even when you’re in there, filming is kind of weird work. People don’t understand how it’s going to look as a finished product. They think, “Why are you filming me filling water glasses, why are you filming me cutting up a vegetable?” and then all they know is that you go into your secret laboratory and do some things and turn it into something complete and it’s only then that everything you were doing kind of becomes clear to them. Just letting it go and letting Mike and his staff see it and give good feedback and, in the end, being really happy with it—that was the best part for me.