This drone video imagines South Africa as a beautiful, miniature toy set

Drone videos are on the rise on the likes of YouTube and Facebook, with sales of these little winged wonders ever increasing too. But it takes some pretty deft skills to pull off a uniquely quirky drone reel. That’s what drone pilot Luke Bell and video partner Hloni Coleman accomplished with this short flick.

You may remember Bell thanks to this particular video of Cape Town, but his latest clip focuses on South Africa, and the country’s cultural and natural beauty. Well, if South Africa was the coolest toy set imaginable, that is.

“Our home and a wondrous playground for all those who inhabit and visit it. We hope you enjoy your time with us and come back again soon,” Bell explains on the video description.

‘Mini South Africa’ was shot using drone footage from across the country, and took around four days to compile and edit the clip

According to Bell, the video was the result of a South African drone pilot collaboration.

“Each drone pilot was selected from a specific region of South Africa, and we all contributed to the final result,” Bell tells Memeburn.

“In total there was probably around 10 hours of footage to sift through and find the best shots!”

Ultimately, the video took around “four full days” to edit after the content was acquired.

As for the video’s “miniature” feel, Bell explains his editing method:

The first and most important effect is tilt-shift. This essentially blurs out the top and bottom of the video to create the illusion of a depth of field, which would normally only be possible when taking a photo of something much smaller than this. Next, the videos are sped up to about 4-8x speed. Then they are over sharpened and extra contrast and saturation is also added. Finally the video is played back at 10 frames per second as opposed to the normal 24 frames per second. This makes it look more like a stop-motion film than a normal video.

The result is pretty incredible.