Very n00b question but im not sure how they do fast cuts in product reviews...
 

Whenever I see videos about product reviews or what not I often notice they have a medium shot of the person and the product in frame and they have a close up shot of the product in frame

my question is this, using just ONE camera (cuz i only have one) how do they cut between the medium and the close shots. I know i can zoom in between both shots, but i dont want to do that, and if i remove the zooms in post, there is nothing there where the person is talking. the only way i can think that this could be overcame (again with ONE camera) is have the person stop talking, zoom in and then resume his dialogue..

is there another way they do this? I am working on a cooking show and i need to have far and close cuts too and this is a major problem for me..

Thanks

They're called cutaways or pickups and they do them afterwards, then edit them in during post. Or sometimes they do tell the person to stop while they get the closeup, then resume.

Real cooking shows use four cameras so sometimes they can get the closeup live, but even then they usually shoot them again afterwards for the "beauty shot." These shows have like ten versions of the dish at various stages, ready to be photographed.

On "Iron Chef America," there's about an hour between the time they stop cooking and the time they start tasting, while they make the dishes all pretty and get nice video of them.

Welcome to the wonderful world of editing. Those commercials you describe set up multiple takes from a wide shot then they do it all again with a medium shot and a close-up and whatever else they need. Then they edit it together. Editing requires that you look for continuity (ex. did the person hold the product with the right or left arm?), also editing on things like matching action and in/out frame help trick the eye/mind to follow along despite there being a cut.

While making a dish on a cooking show looks like it's all done in one take, it's actually done many times over with multiple cameras.