大象传媒

Starting university can be an emotional time that sees you experiencing everything from happiness and excitement about starting, to anxiety and fear of the unknown. Imagine then, setting up your own business while studying on top.

That’s what 22-year-old Ali Rasoul has done, and his successes keep on mounting up. A talented photographer and creative, he is currently studying for a creative business MA at the National Television and Film School.

Balancing his studies with his business, Ali has already worked with some huge names in the industry including Spike Lee, Jordan Peele, Wizkid, Nike and Universal Music Group and Warner Music.

Ali appeared on The Everyday Hustle to talk to Sonya Barlow about where it all began back in 2016 when he was studying for his A-Levels: “It started off as photography at first, I remember we had this family camera lying around the house.”

“With the cheap cameras, you could zoom in to see very sharp detail, so when I started taking pictures, I started off in my garden and noticed ‘Oh my God, I'm zooming into a flower’ and I could see like little insects and elements that you wouldn't normally see with a human eye,” he recalls.

It was the start of something special for Ali, and a feeling he knew he wanted to continue: “It felt like I was some sort of scientist discovering these things, which is definitely something contrasting to what I’m doing today.”

Being creative was a way of changing a troubled path that Ali found himself on at school. He reflects: “I wasn't a very well-behaved student. I was very, very troubled. Creating content, or just photography itself was definitely something that I was doing to avoid the madness, basically.”

Ali recalls a time where he really got into trouble and turned to someone for help: “I got so in trouble that I went to my media teacher, Darren, and I said to him, ‘I need to fix up you know, I need to fully fix up’ so we went online looking at some film related things.”
One of the places Darren and Ali looked at was the BFI, the British Film institute: “I just randomly applied to everything film related on the internet. A few weeks later, I got a reply from the BFI saying that out of 66,000 students in the UK, I'm one of the 60 that got accepted into their three weeks short course.”

It was an offer that changed Ali’s life for the better, but it was still a steep learning curve: “I didn’t know what to expect, my friendship groups weren’t creative. I finished the three weeks and started getting invites to networking sessions and screenings. For the first time in my life, I was going alone, and that journey was very important to me,” he says.

Attending these events allowed Ali to make contacts and broaden his horizons, as he was hungry to try anything and everything. The content he was creating soon went viral, and he realised he could do something with his talent.

Originally working in fashion, he soon moved over to working in the music industry and initially worked for free to build up a portfolio of content as he wanted it so much. By the time he started university Ali had worked with more than 50 clients.

He decided to focus on his business while at university and put his flourishing company first, and often spent a lot of time travelling back and forth from Portsmouth to London. Ali set high standards for himself, and instead of going to after parties he went home to edit the videos.

As time went on, Ali realised he could make some real money from his business by diversifying his offerings even further: “We could actually provide huge value to corporate industries. Our music credibility and entertainment credibility should be the credibility we use to get ourselves into corporate doors. Without that, there is no way I would have secured a corporate client” he says candidly. “By doing those things for free to secure the bag later on, basically.”

He has tips for anyone starting uni who is thinking of setting up their own business.

“My number one advice for university students today is that yes, university is important, yes it will be the gateway for certain things, but - the number one thing to consider - you are not going to graduate by making someone a cup of coffee or tea. Truthfully, we don't want that,” he insists.

“We want to be out there on the actual set, doing things, calling the shots, directing, creating, doing the real thing that we really want to do,” Ali says passionately.

“So I would say, take uni seriously but do not forget and do not underestimate the extracurricular work that you should be doing, or can be doing, while you are at university.”