CANADA CREATES

A Passion for Fashion

Tai Aladejebi has some cinematic tricks up his sleeve.

Name: Tai Aladejebi
Creative medium: Fashion videography
App highlights: TouchRetouch, FiLMiC Pro suite, Video Star

Ontarian, fashion videographer, and master of the jump cut, Tai Aladejebi has turned his hobby into an art form that has garnered over 480K followers and more than 9 million likes on TikTok.

“I thought using special effects to clone myself would spice things up a bit,” he says, “What if you saw two of me, walking around in different outfits and showing off my style that way?” The idea became a sensation.

The Outfit Walk Challenge is Aladejebi’s most popular video.

Only a few years prior, Aladejebi—known as @definitelytai on TikTok—was drawn into the world of visual effects. “I would start by searching how to edit, and through that I slowly built up knowledge bit by bit, teaching myself the Adobe Creative Suite and Final Cut Pro X on macOS, and researching interesting topics like masking and compositing,” he says.

Aladejebi began incorporating what he was learning into his TikTok videos, and with each project he completed, his skills improved. “It got to a point where you watch one of my videos and wouldn’t be able to tell what’s going on; you’d be moving your eyes around the whole frame, interested in the action—and that felt great to see,” he recalls.

We chatted to Aladejebi about the apps he uses daily at his studio, his relationship with other creators, and what advice he’d share with creatives who are just starting out.

Making Light Work of Editing

“My workflow in my studio is pretty straightforward,” Aladejebi says. “I use the features in the native Camera app on my iPhone—Apple ProRes and Apple ProRAW are neatly integrated into my phone and that makes things easier.” He splits his workflow into two streams: photo and video.

He’s a fan of Adobe Lightroom for completing his photo edits: “It’s transformed photo editing for me. I love how extremely fast it is to edit directly on my iPhone. And sometimes if I’m in a really challenging lighting environment, I can open the image on the macOS version of Lightroom to refine it.”

For quick corrections, TouchRetouch is his go-to tool. A simple tap is all it takes to get rid of a zit or other blemish.

Aladejebi uses the Colors tab in Lightroom to modify specific hues in his photos.

Videos Worthy of a Cinema Screen

Discussing creative tools with other creators helped Aladejebi discover FiLMiC Pro, a cinematography app that gives you full manual control of your iPhone camera, enabling the creation of professional-grade shots for your video projects. Perfect for innovative content creators like him, Aladejebi loves FiLMiC Pro for its ability to adjust ISO (which helps your camera shoot better in darker environments) and shutter speed, allowing for better control over the desired look. “FiLMiC is great for taking things beyond quick adjustments—I heard about it through the creative community on YouTube and decided to give it a try for myself.”

In FiLMiC Pro, it’s easy to adjust exposure and focus with the circular and rectangular icons, respectively.

It’s All About Transitions

Transitions bring lots of character to a video sequence, and for Aladejebi, Video Star makes the process easy. “On TikTok right now, there’s this trend where you take a bunch of images of an outfit and morph it into a super-quick rapid-fire compilation,” he says. “Video Star has this feature where you throw your clips in and it blends them up and makes the motion blurs for you—I love that it’s so easy and I don’t have to do it manually.”

I got so lucky in that I found a pretty great hobby that I enjoy. I picked up something that I knew I would still love later down the line, and that’s fashion.

—Tai Aladejebi, fashion videographer

Aladejebi says that the relationship between creators on platforms like TikTok is reciprocal; people on the same wavelength inspire and respect each other for their work. “When I find someone that inspires me, I try to figure out how they pulled off their effects,” he explains. “There’s a magic to it—I have a few how-to videos on my own feed that explain each step of my process, and I want to make more of them at some point for my audience.”

What piece of advice would Aladejebi give to anyone who wants to explore their own creativity? “Don’t be scared, and just do it. I taught myself how to edit, building up my knowledge bit by bit over time until I mastered the topic. Whatever you’re doing, just start!”

Tai Aladejebi is a fashion videographer with a wealth of experience in the digital effects space that has led him to work with top fashion brands and modelling agencies. He is also part of the educational program TikTok Creator Class, sharing his expertise with creators around Canada. His most popular video on TikTok, the mesmerizing Outfit Walk Challenge, has amassed over 7 million views and inspired many videographers to try the technique for themselves.