Case study · 2024 · Channel 31
We pitched a documentary about Melbourne kitchens in 2023. Channel 31 commissioned thirteen episodes. The first three we cut the way brand films get cut. The last ten we stopped. The brand work Konquer ships now is downstream of those ten episodes.
The moment that reads true on camera is not the moment you planned. By episode four, Adrian Gardon told me to stop directing the talent. Mike Su and Matt Guanine got there too, different speeds.
We stopped editing for a brief and started waiting for the room. We left the breath in the edit. We watched a chef do what they always do — not what they thought the camera wanted.
That's documentary realism, in practice. It's also the entire reason a Garden State counter regular says "we'll send you something" on camera — because by episode six, we'd worked out you have to be in the room long enough that the regulars stop noticing the camera.
The numbers
13 episodes broadcast on Channel 31
80+ hours of two-camera footage
14 Melbourne kitchens featured
2024 EP credit — Konquer Media
2024 Garden State EP credit (Arman Khan)
The crew
Arman Khan · Mike Su · Adrian Gardon · Matt Guanine
Production partners: Season Zero Media · MANA Media · Foodporn
What it earned
The hospitality clients Konquer ships for now — Garden State, La Calabrese, Crab89, House of Delight, Summers — all came after Inside the Garden. The credit doesn't just prove craft. It earns the venue's trust to leave us in their kitchen for a full service.
The cross-vertical clients — ELYSIUM Real Estate, First Aid Finance, Booran Motors — also came after. A brokerage trusts us with on-camera compliance copy because we've done broadcast. A dealership lets us shoot during trading because we've stayed out of the way of 80+ hours of professional kitchens.
See all the work →