Kommissary

New York Reborn Campaign

During the Pandemic, the food service industry suffered. Food insecurity was rampant across the city, lockdowns shut down once thriving local businesses that relied on foot traffic, entertainment, tourism, and restaurants were facing serious staffing issues. However, New Yorkers are a resilient bunch.

The New York Reborn campaign is a three-part series chronicling a group of restaurateurs as they adapted their businesses to help those in need, partnered with local government officials to change policy, and revitalized their respective communities.

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"Maiden Korea"

Meet the team focused on bringing Koreatown back to life through the founding of Maiden Korea, an outdoor beer garden that Kommissary/Cookspace founded and built with the partnership and collaboration of the local restaurants and the City Council.

"Minji's Story"

Chef, Minji Suh, and the rest of his Team Korilla family were hit hard by the Pandemic. We profiled how he realized his dreams of owning a restaurant through the ghost kitchen listing service, Cookspace.

"Kommissary Kitchens"

What's it like to produce and deliver 30,000 meals a day? This documents that 24-hour process, from sourcing ingredients through the delivery of meals to food insecure residents, featuring some of the hardest working people in New York.

The Electricity of a City Revitalized

When Derek was approached by the Kommissary team about this project, he did not hesitate to lend his services. As an avid foodie and proud supporter of local businesses in his community, he wanted to aid the renaissance of the food industry in New York in any way that he could.

Given the limited budget, Derek went back to his roots, operating as a one-man-band filmmaker for the first time in years to tell these three stories over a couple of days. From the pitch through the delivery of the final files, he didn't lose focus on injecting the piece with what he was feeling while walking through the New York streets every day after the COVID-19 lockdowns were lifted and the city was coming back to life: an electricity only felt in the greatest city in the world.

He relied on handheld camera techniques, authentic locations, specialized lens filters, flamboyant editing style, and a vibrant grade to make every frame burst with colorful excitement. The result: three distinctly different stories all feeling a part of one cohesive campaign chronicling the rebirth of the city that Derek loves.