The professional knife manufacturer Wüsthof created a specialist live streaming series relying on URSA Mini Pro G2, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and ATEM Television Studio Pro HD to reach fans across the globe during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Delivered from inception by production agency HerzbergMedia, the thirteen part Cutting Academy helped viewers develop their kitchen knife skills. Each show featured celebrity guest chef René Steinbach, who delivered live practical demonstrations, as well as Viola Wüsthof of the Wüsthof family. The content was available through Facebook Live and the brand’s YouTube channel, with audiences encouraged to comment and ask questions.

“The lockdown kickstarted a massive surge in the number of brands streaming content online. Although there were lots of cookery shows, we hadn’t seen anyone taking on practical cutting skills. With 200 years of experience, we knew Wüsthof was in the perfect position to share its expertise,” explains Jens Harald Herzberg, owner of HerzbergMedia. “We developed the premise of the series, then worked with the Wüsthof family to get production up and running.”

To date, the series has generated more than 600K views across Wüsthof’s social media channels, which massively exceeded the team’s initial estimations. “We’d been discussing the concept of live streaming for a long time, but we were always cautious about the costs and resource involved,” concludes Jens Harald. “The engagement and excitement for the Wüsthof Cutting Academy demonstrated that there is a demand for this type of insightful, detailed content, and the Blackmagic Design workflow has proved itself as a reliable and effective foundation on which we can develop more programming formats across our client base.”