Silicon Valley’ Had To Make An Insane Number Of Burger King Runs To Shoot This Brilliant Scene

HBO/"Silicon Valley"

Peter Gregory, played by Christopher Evan Welch, contemplates the worth of sesame seeds in episode 3 of HBO's "Silicon Valley."

There's an awesome scene in HBO's "Silicon Valley" when venture capitalist Peter Gregory (played by the late, great Christopher Evan Welch) stares down an array of nearly every product sold by Burger King.

Looking over the mouthwatering display, he draws a conclusion about sesame seeds and makes an investment decision (which may be inspired by a real-life situation involving peas). As explained by PandoDaily:

Gregory concludes that most Burger King sandwiches have sesame seeds. Brazil and Myanmar, which supply much of the world’s sesame seeds, are about to face their worst cicada infestations in two centuries. But Indonesia also grows sesame seeds but has no cicada population. So Gregory buys up a bunch of Indonesian sesame seed futures and gives the founders the loan they need out of the projected profits of this purchase.

What you might not realize while watching this scene is how hard it was to shoot.

Business Insider spoke with "Silicon Valley" production designer Richard Toyon about how exactly those hamburgers remained so fresh looking during the shoot.

"It’s funny, our prop master had to go and wrangle those hamburgers and all those products from Burger King," Toyon explained. "They go bad very quickly, so he would do five to six runs in a day of new Burger King stuff for that shot so that everything looked fresh all the time. Otherwise, the food would dry out and it wouldn’t look right."

And Burger King didn't even have to pay for the endorsement.

"HBO, given that they’re not a commercial platform — meaning they don’t have commercials — advertising is not an issue with them," explained Toyon. "And so we can use products for their intended proper use as long as we’re not disparaging them."

Still, Toyon says, "We get legal clearance with the company before. In that case in Peter Gregory’s office with all of the Burger King stuff, we were using it in a very complementary fashion."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-set-designer-explains-hamburger-scene-2014-5#ixzz32Nk7GoEd