AFilm
Brand film
The hero piece. Founder stories, manifesto films, launch films — the one asset everything else gets cut from. Scripted, directed and graded to survive a big screen.
60–180 sec1–3 shoot days
Commercial film · Durban, South Africa
More than a video.
More than an ad.
Visual storytelling anchored in rhythmic movement and dynamic cadence — built around a strategy first, so the film has something to actually carry.
- Director
- Derwent Stopforth
- Discipline
- Strategy, script, shoot, edit
- Based
- Durban · shooting nationally
- Status
- Booking Q4 2026
RecShowreel — 20262.39 : 1
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HeinekenBMWMercedes‑BenzSavannaNiveaJohnson’sVirgin ActiveLEGOJägermeisterCheryMRP CellularSwitch EnergyNawty Water
The position
The video is just proof the strategy worked.
Most production quotes start with a camera. Mine starts with a question: what is this piece of film supposed to move, and for whom? Get that wrong and no amount of grade, gimbal or grain will save it.
So every project opens with a paid discovery — a diagnostic and a creative strategy. We agree what the film has to do before anyone books a call sheet. The edit that lands at the end is the evidence, not the product.
It's one person the whole way through: I run the strategy, write the script, shoot it and cut it. Nothing gets lost in a handover, because there isn't one.
6yrs
Commercial and brand work, from design bench to director's chair
13
National and global brands trusted with their footage
1
Person on strategy, script, camera and edit — no handovers
7
Workshops taught to South African creators and in‑house teams
Selected work
Let's see if there's
a story here.
What I make
Three things,
done properly.
No menu of forty services. If it isn't one of these, I'll tell you and point you somewhere better.
BSocial
Paid social
Built for the feed, not squeezed into it. Hook-first vertical cuts, variant sets for testing, subtitles and sound design that hold up on mute.
6–30 secVariant sets
CPost
Edit & grade
Footage that already exists and isn't working. Recut, colour graded, sound designed, motion graphics and subtitles — DaVinci Resolve end to end.
Day rateResolve
Learn it yourself
Workshops for people
who've plateaued.
Small rooms in KwaZulu‑Natal. Your own laptop, your own footage, and the specific thing that's holding your work back — found and fixed in a day.
01 — Camera · one day
All The Gear No Idea
You haven't shot enough to have made the mistakes yet. Make them here, on my set, instead of on a client's. Eight seats.
From R4 125 ↗
02 — Edit · one day
Make The Cut
Your edits are flat because they have no highs, no lows and no cadence. Empty project at nine, finished film by five.
From R1 995 ↗