Herumb Khot on what’s next for Invictus Mediaworks: We’re planning historicals, TV content, and short format, OTT and emerging media content as well.
From being a computer engineer, fashion photographer to a director-producer Herumb Khot has come a long way. Coming from a typical Maharashtrian family, engineering was a logical eventuality, but while pursuing his education he realised he is more interested in the world of fashion and photography.
“I am a self-taught photographer and started my career in Advertising and Fashion Photography when digital photography was gaining popularity. Photography is the reason why I started my own creative agency. Through it all, I knew that the internet was the way forward for entertainment and in 2006 came up with Nautanki.tv with two others. We were in the 10 best business ideas in India that year as per leading business magazines. It was a bad partnership, so I walked out and started Sutra.tv. In Sutra, we made multilingual content that received appreciation. These two experiences gave me a new direction and I ended up getting into direction and production of Marathi films. Post that I also dabbled into AD films, Corporate films,” he says, before talking about his association with producer and storyteller Nilanjana Purkayasstha.
Together they decided to get into TV content together with Invictus Mediaworks. Their latest show is Chikoo ki Mummy Durr Ki.
“When I met Nilanjana, we would often discuss content and the potential TV has a medium. So that’s how slowly our collaboration worked out. Another passion of mine is history. I'm a history buff and I am a visiting faculty for a PG program in leadership, politics and governance. I also give a lot of talks in various forums and lit fests about the true history and mainly what we can learn through history. This knowledge of history was a natural progression to the historicals we made for TV. So everything I ever did has led me to the current place that I am today,” he adds.
Herumb then became a director by accident. “My friend Rahul Thackeray and I loved a story that we wanted to produce as a comedy film and along the way we realised that we couldn’t find people to translate what we wanted to create. So, we wrote and directed it together. It was a serious political thriller which we made into a crazy campus comedy that was way ahead of its time. After that I wrote and directed the thriller Game Over,” he says.
Talking about their future plans, Herumb adds, “There are loads that we are working on. We are planning historicals, more TV content, short format content, OTT and emerging media content as well. On a personal front, I am working on my pet project, ‘History Trippin’ that delves into the true history of our great nation and what the next generation can learn and also get to know about our spiritual heritage.”
