Are you an aspiring videographer or photographer looking for a blueprint on how to develop and progress your freelance career?

Look no further than Khurum Khan’s freelance journey to date.

Khurum is a London based, award-winning filmmaker who specialises in cinematic videos and photography. 

In this piece, we catch up with this talented freelancer. We delve into his exciting career ascent and find out why communication and creativity have been the driving force behind his success.

Learning and developing his craft

Like many videographers and film-makers, Khurum jumped at every opportunity to develop his skills and gain experience when he first started out in the industry.

“I started off as a runner on film productions and gained experience through that. On the side I was capturing events and making my own short films. This helped me understand how to make cinematic content and how the film industry works.”

Having always wanted to work for himself, Khurum has continued to take on a variety of jobs which have given him plenty of material from which to build his own brand. 

“But I always wanted to be my own boss and start my own company. So doing freelance work like events, films, music videos etc, help me build my own brand. So the past few years I've been doing a lot of lifestyle and travel work.”

Finding success

From films to documentaries, Khurum has applied all of his learnings and experience to create unique pieces of work, some of which have been featured on TV and won prestigious awards. 

His short film 'Musafir', for example, was nominated as Best UK film at the prestigious Raindance film festival in 2012, which is a Bafta recognised festival. 

Over the years Khurum has travelled around the world shooting documentaries. His most notable one being 'Road to Indus Valley', where he travelled through 13 countries by road from England to Pakistan. The documentary was subsequently featured on Sky TV. 

Hoping to inspire young filmmakers, Khurum's currently shooting travel and lifestyle videos of his journey. 

Using communication and creativity to produce work for clients

Upon speaking with Khurum, it’s clear that communication and creativity are at the heart of his process when he’s producing work for clients. 

To illustrate this and further explore his creative process, we asked Khurum about a project that he did for a client called Anastysia Sosis who left a really positive review on his Freelancer Club profile. She was really happy with his work and was particularly impressed by his professionalism and attention to detail. 

Khurum revealed that he really enjoyed working with Anastaysia for whom he created three videos (for Anastysia’s online coaching programme) and captured some headshots.

“It was lovely to work with Anastysia, she was very kind and energetic. You could see she had the passion to create something special and she trusted me to bring her vision to life throughout the videos.”

We’re always fascinated by our members' creative processes and Khurum was no exception. He generously shared with us how exactly he worked with Anastysia to create her content - clear communication and trust combined with passion and bucket loads of creativity were all key to the success of this job.

“We had a phone call and she described her idea to me and sent me some examples of the feeling she wanted to capture. So it was my job to figure out how best we can do this. So, I helped her breakdown the idea and how we can construct this into engaging videos. What made the collabration a success was our passion and clear understanding of the goal we're trying to achieve. I very much enjoyed the work and we had fun on set and made sure we were listening to each other to get the best results from the final videos.”

And that, our good readers, is a stellar example of how successful client freelancer relationships are created.  

Hat tip to Khurum.

We don’t know about you guys, but every time we get to know the inner creative workings of a Freelancer Club member we’re immediately inspired to get our own creative juices flowing. 

Khurum is a great example of a freelancer who is passionate about exploring and developing creative ideas whether they be his own or those of a client. 

If you have an idea that’s been bubbling away, take that step forward and start developing it. If it’s an idea that you're bringing to life for a client, remember that communication coupled with trust and creativity will bring your work and your client freelancer relationships to new heights! 

Check out Khurum's portfolio here. As a photographer in London and videographer in London he covers all bases for clients who want to elevate their brand through thoughtful, creative and engaging content.

Looking for a photographer in London, a videographer in London or more specifically, documentary makers London? Check out Khurum's jam packed portfolio here and see our full lists of talented creatives here. 

Want to get a better idea of rates before looking for a photographer in London, a videographer in London or documentary makers London? Check out these articles FREELANCE RATES FOR FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS 2021 and FREELANCE RATES FOR VIDEOGRAPHERS AND VIDEO PRODUCERS 2021