On this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, I sit down with David Gelb, the creator of Chef’s Table and director of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, who shares his Five Rules for Creating a Body of Work You Love. We discuss how his early dreams of making sci-fi blockbusters shaped his unique documentary style, how technology shifts helped his early food storytelling, and why his five rules—such as making what you want to watch and surrounding yourself with collaborators you actually like—are essential for any creative looking to go the distance.
It’s always a pleasure catching up with David. He’s someone I’ve known for years and whose work has helped shape how people talk about food on screen. Hearing his insights on how to sustain a long creative career—while staying true to one’s taste and values—is a reminder that the inside track is rarely a straight line. This episode is a great listen for anyone who wants to understand how things get made, what it takes to keep going, and how to build a life around telling the stories that matter to you.
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.
I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.
I’m always excited to sit down with today’s guest, David Gelb, creator of Chef’s Table, who’s here today to share his five rules for creating a body of work you love.
He talks about the importance of making a thing you want to watch to be the base of anything you create, a tactful way to ask for and receive feedback, and that to ensure for a long career, always work with people you like.
It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s starting to think about the projects they want to make, create, or get going this year.
So let’s get into the rules.
David, so good to see you. Congrats on the Chef Table podcast. Always great to see you putting out new work into the world. And thanks for making time for the show.
Of course, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Last time I saw you was at the Chef Conference in LA. We were actually chatting about the projects that— which I’ve seen from so many people these days, whether it’s a newsletter, social series, something like that. What do you think is driving this creative push for people to do their own thing?
Well, I think that a lot of it is a technology thing. It’s sort of like when YouTube first started or whenever something becomes accessible, people are excited to do it. I think that’s great. It’s easy to get a microphone, a headphone. You don’t need to get into this specific studio space or can record nice footage on an iPhone now versus needing to get a big camera per se, or even being able to edit on a computer at home, which was something that was not attainable right before my generation of filmmaking. So I think the technology makes it possible and people have a lot to say. There’s an audience of people that are not watching TV and they’re on the internet.
I know that advancements in technology and cameras has come so far since you started studying film in college. Did you ever think that these changes would allow you to make your first documentary?
I suffered, or in some ways benefited, but mostly suffered from what I like to refer to as film school delusion, which is where you think that you are going to exit film school and then immediately go do a blockbuster, big budget movie, like a Star Wars reboot or Indiana Jones or something like that.
Yeah, of course.
I think it is specifically afflicts those who graduate from USC film school. The NYU kids think they’re going to make the next Goodfellas. I really had no intention of doing documentary. It only popped up when I saw the movie Fog of War, which I absolutely loved. I wanted to make The Matrix. I wanted to do like big action movies, really cool cinematography and all that kind of stuff. But then I could apply that to my doc work and I kind of fell into this niche and I realized I really liked it.
So the opportunity to make Jiro Dreams of Sushi, this was a moment in technology because a new camera called the Red One had just come out that would allow me almost entirely on my own to be able to make it look like planet Earth, to be able to shoot with the shallow focus and have the slow motion without needing a film loader, without needing all that extra stuff. Even when I was making Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I didn’t think that I would still be doing Chef’s Table all these years later. It’s funny how it works out. And sometimes that’s the journey of life is you don’t get exactly what you came in looking for. You get what you actually needed in accepting who you are and the work that you actually do make.
I think having that approach and that understanding of a long, creative, professional life, it comes to you later, not earlier, not when you’re a film student, but much later in life and allows you to just stay open to new ideas and new projects. How do you keep coming up with fresh ideas, how do you keep challenging yourself for the next project, for the next idea, for the next iteration of what you’re making?
It comes from questions. What are the questions that I want answered that I’m curious about? And then how do I want to see it? What do I want it to look like? I have a project right now. It came in one form. And then I was like, oh, this world is actually quite interesting. And then I’ve kind of figured out the version of it that I want to watch. Being able to understand the work that you want to do and the work that resonates with people, having that meet in the center of a Venn diagram, it’s much more unique than I thought it would be when I was getting started as well, which is why I’m so excited for you to be talking about your five rules for creating a body of work you love.
Even though you’ve moved on from the idealistic days of early college you, there is still that core of being creative about following your passion, telling the stories you want to tell, which ties directly into your rule number one.
The first rule is make what you want to watch. That’s why I wanted to make The Matrix. I wanted to make the original Star Wars trilogy or make those things, but those things have already been made. My best work comes from, I’m making exactly the thing that I’m interested in that I want to be making. And I have the freedom and latitude to be able to do that. The good work comes from making it for yourself. And if I’m so lucky that the thing that I want to watch is what other people might want to watch or that somebody wants to pay for, I’m incredibly grateful for that. And that’s why I’m able to continue working. That’s the main first rule is follow your own taste.
Following your own taste is a great way to get projects going and the extra passion that you put into it. But sometimes I have found that when I get fixated on one project, I’m not doing enough of what your second rule encourages.
Number two, I mean, just do a lot of work.
Yes.
And it’s on to the next one because... Jiro Dreams of Sushi was not my first project or attempted a project, but I see people falling into a trap sometimes. And then I hear people, it’s like, oh, I’ve been working on this documentary for 15 years. I think that that is something that can be folly, where you bet everything only on this one thing. And the process of being a creator is you have to make things and then see how they go. And there’s a certain trial and error of creation that requires doing a lot of work.
Ira Glass said it best, doing a huge volume of work because your taste is here, your skill level is only where you started. And so you’re trying to reach this level of taste. People give up because they can’t immediately hit their level of taste or they won’t finish the first project until they feel like it’s that good. But it only gets that good just through the process of making something, seeing, making something and seeing, making something and seeing. And so that’s the whole thing. A lot of work.
Having a lot of bites of the apple really pays off in the end. And sometimes the projects that you thought were nothing or a toss away wind up becoming the big thing, the big opportunity. Sometimes that comes from getting feedback from other people who see something or say you could adjust this little thing and it opens up this whole new creative pathway, which ties directly into your rule number three.
Listen to notes for the symptoms of the problem, but don’t overcorrect. Don’t lead the witness when you’re getting feedback. The audience is the patient and you’re the doctor.
Yes.
The audience is always going to ask for another Vicodin. They want the heavy pills. You cannot let the patient prescribe their own medication. We don’t do it. A lot of people you’ll show things to, this never happens anywhere more than it happens in film school, is everybody thinks that they have such important opinions and they want to solve the problem. What you’re looking for is what did it mean to you? Or did you ever feel confused or lost? But don’t let your audience prescribe the solution for you because you have to do it through your own filter.
Sometimes it’s not just the audience giving you feedback. Sometimes it’s colleagues or the network or the studio.
Oh, absolutely.
And I know that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to take feedback and notes better. In fact, on the last thing that I was working on, my buddy said, it’s not a full teardown, but it needs a lot of work. And he opened up the whole thing for me. That only really comes from when you trust the people in your orbit and you can really be on the same page as them, which is a big part of your rule number four.
Something that really matters is your team and working with people that you like, that you’ve built a bit of trust with. Also an understanding that we’re all making the same thing.
Yes.
I’ve been in this situation where a director sees an opportunity with the producer. Then the director’s like, I’ll just kind of sneak in what I want to do and do what they want. That never works. It’s really about making sure that we’re all unified. We’re on the same page about what is the thing that we’re trying to make and we’re doing it together.
You’re working with people that are happy in their crew positions. You don’t want to be working with a cinematographer that wishes that they were the director. Everybody just needs to have a sense of place and a solid foundation of we’re all here. We know what our roles are and we’re all making the same thing.
Yes. And if I could add one thing, the sooner in the process that you have that conversation on get on the same page, the less pain points they’re going to be down the road.
You don’t want to be having these conversations in post-production.
Oh, of course not.
And one of the big overarching things, and this kind of covers everything, is don’t be a people pleaser.
Yes.
You have to be diplomatic. You’re choosing your battles. You can’t be making core decisions on people. Crew members, edit, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, because you’re trying to make other people happy. It has to come from your own taste and the thing you’re trying to make. So if everybody’s aligned at the top of it, then you’re going to be in good shape. Somebody says something that is not at all what the project is. And then you’re like, oh yeah, well, it could be kind of like that. That’s not a great way to do it. And I’ve made all these mistakes in the past. Everything here is stuff that anyone who’s worked in this field has learned the hard way. And if you’re lucky enough to make something that you want to watch and that there’s an audience for, you’re two thirds of the way there.
And your fifth and final rule touches on the last thing that everyone who’s creative would love to make, but isn’t always guaranteed. What’s your rule number five?
If you want to be a creator and the objective is money, that this is not the best field for you necessarily.
No.
The goal... cannot be making money. Now, if you’re lucky, or it’s like the Venn diagram of thing you are interested in thing that audience wants to see, if those things connect, you might be in a position where you can make money, but that can’t be the thing from the outset. And you can’t be planning a project based on this subject hasn’t been documented and it’s popular unless you also have that interest. There has to be reason beyond cash in this thing. You really want to make money and that’s your goal and your goal is to calculate your box office and whatnot. Then, you know, there are other professions that I think are going to be more satisfying.
James Cameron has the biggest box office. I’m sure he loves having his big box office, but I don’t think that he was in it from the beginning because of box office. I think he genuinely cares about the people of Pandora. Going back to that thing, doing a lot of work, James Cameron wanted to make Avatar in the 90s. And he just couldn’t get the effects and the budget and all the things. If he got stuck on that and he was like, I’m not making another movie until I make Avatar, that would suck. But he took a break on that and then went and took a different path and then came back to it with a whole new level of knowledge and skill. Whether you love Avatar or not, you can’t deny it. It’s a big, cool project that a lot of people did a lot of really cool work on.
David, so great to see you. Congrats on everything. If people want to listen to the podcast or watch the show, follow along. We’ll see what you’re working on next. Where can they go?
Chef’s Table continues on Netflix. Just look up Chef’s Table on Netflix and you’ll see that we have our core show. We have noodles. We have pasta. We have pizza. We got barbecue. We got France.
Yes.
Which not enough people have enjoyed Chef’s Table France, which was an absolute joy to shoot. Chef’s Table Talks can be found on all podcasts and check out the official Chef’s Table Instagram handle for the clips and you can see who’s on each week and the journey continues.
The journey continues.
Thank you so much, Darin.
