About

Ensom Picture Company

By company founder, Tom Ensom:

Welcome to ensom.com, here's a bit about me...

I love to see an idea come to life and make its way to an audience.  I love to tell stories.  I write, direct, shoot and edit, and I’ve carved out a specialism in designing and running multi-camera systems both in studios and on location.  Naturally that includes audio and lighting, set planning, plus all the gallery kit.

I work with a team of fantastic freelancers as well as some brilliant production companies.  I’m happy jumping into an existing team and getting to know their crew and kit, or putting together the team and equipment myself.

I actually started out in music, first as a drummer and reluctant piano student, then picking up guitar and bass, and ultimately studying Music with Digital Arts Practices at Dartington College of Arts, in the beautiful Devon countryside.  I majored in composition, with a focus on film music as well as song writing, with the digital arts interest coming from a developing passion for photography, and the realisation that the “moving image” was more interesting to me than the still image.  I’m just about old enough to have cut my teeth recording to tape, learning to multitrack as a teenager on a TASCAM 4-track, and my first exposure to video-making was on a handy-cam recording to DV tape.  Thankfully by the time I started doing this stuff professionally digital had taken over. 

After graduating and teaching drums alongside a youthwork job, the “digital arts” side of my degree started to feature more in my early portfolio of work.  In 2011 I was a very small cog in a very big broadcast team, my first exposure to livestreaming, for a major video game premiere watched by millions around the world.

I then took a full-time position for a big church just outside London as their Technical Manager, in charge of live production as well as IT and all things media.  Moving to Southampton in 2014 I began freelancing in video, feeling that it had been the strongest area in my varied role at the church. 

I met the founders of 7 Stream Media (on my stag weekend of all places, it's a good story), who became my most regular client for many years.  With my background in various areas of media technology I took the lead on developing the multi-media systems and livestreaming elements of the business, and in late 2020 was invited to join full-time as Technical Director, later becoming Technical and Creative Director, taking on responsibility for all of the company’s projects and leading the production team.

In summer 2023 I took the decision to leave the full-time role at the company and return to freelancing.  I enjoy the freelance lifestyle, the variety of work and people, and it enables my wife and I to share childcare of our awesome daughter a bit more.

That’s the story so far.  I’m still playing music, mostly just at our church (though if you know of any jazz bands looking for a drummer…)  I love cooking, art and design, old cars, old music, and spending as much time in Cornwall as possible. 

Finally, I'm always looking for new and exciting projects, so if you need a video, a livestream, a team or just a teammate, I'm your guy.  Get in touch!