Articles written by Wouter du Toit

I shot and edited a narrative film in the last month. It was a first for me. I had this scene in my mind of a person burying a suitcase or bag in the woods, like it’s something he or she wanted to hide or get away from. I had a second idea about a guy walking down a long passage way and knocking on a door with no one opening for him. I decided these two contrasting visual ideas will be my story.

Takashi Aizu is based in Japan and makes mouthwatering time-lapses of his baking. He sets up his iPhone 6s, and documents the process and reaction of the specific dough to become breads, croissants, or baguettes. We often take the beauty of the croissant we get at Starbucks for granted, but here we can actually see how much knowledge, patience, and effort goes into baking and what the process looks like when you get it fresh and hot out of the oven. It’s a simple process concept, but he has over 25,000 followers on Instagram, and his baking is obviously rated as very good in Japan.

Imagine editing your film and getting to the phase where the production sound needs to be added or perfected. This can be a fun part of editing and getting things together, but it can also be a very time consuming part of the process. If you didn’t have a recording of the live sound, you need to run through the various samples you have available in your library, or get them online, and see which sound works best. If you have the budget, you can add a Foley artist to your team to physically produce the sounds for your video. These sounds must then be edited in for the various sounds you need, be it the footsteps down the alley or the gunshots fired by the assassin that form part of your story. What if this can all be done automatically?

Adobe has launched their latest update to Lightroom and Photoshop in the 2015.1 update. In the Adobe Camera Raw module and Lightroom, they have developed a new feature that is something photographers in the travel, architecture, and cityscape photography industry will really find useful. It can actually change some of your old previously unusable images into great images.

A gimbal is an important piece of technology that makes for some smooth video. It's the device that stabilizes the camera so you can get that cinematic look in your shot. It removes the vibration and shake. The gimbal's motors keep the camera level as the camera operator moves it. Drones use them, the DJI Ronin is basically a large gimbal, and the DJI Osmo is the latest handheld gimbal that DJI brought to market.

Apple has just uploaded ads which will most likely also be broadcast nationally. They consists of videos that were shot using iPhones. To use the tool to make the videos that advertises the tool is a great way to convey a message. It all enhances and forms part of their ecosystem that is the Apple brand. I believe it's well-executed, especially due to the fact that the videos were created by the users, making the products friendler to others.

I attended the Canon Roadshow, held once a year, where Canon gets to show off their latest gear. We got to have lunch with the Canon people, and we also had great keynote speakers who told their story and presented their work and how they do what they do. One of the speakers, Laura McCullagh, shoots live music events. She's shot acts like Die Antwoord and Mumford and Sons, to name a few. We were fortunate to get some pointers from her on how to get great shots.

Just the other day I was thinking about the great footage and images I have that might do well in a stock library. I just didn't know where to go and which site was best. so I closed the folder and let it go. But, here at Fstoppers we get the best news first. Perfect timing for sure. We got a heads-up from Dissolve that they are launching a rights-managed stock library with 50,000 images on June 1st. They also want to open it up to individual photographers to contribute and form part of their premium stock offering.

The DJI OSMO is a great tool for stabilizing your footage in a cinematic way. It is sure to increase your video’s production value. It can shoot 4K at 30fps, and you can even increase the frame rate to slow it down quite considerably. You can also shoot time-lapses or intervals, and if you move through an area while doing so, you will get the a very smooth, esthetically pleasing footage.