Freelance Storyteller & Content Creator in London

We make spectacles in King's Cross. Not just design them here. We mill, shape, polish, glaze, fit, repair and renew them here too. Which means something worth telling happens on this floor most days, and nobody's job is to notice. That's half the job. The other half is everything outside this building. Spectacles are one of the few things people wear on their face every day for decades, and they carry design history, portraiture, film, subculture, class, medicine and vanity with them. There's an enormous amount of story in that, and very little of it told well.

So we're looking for a freelance storyteller: someone who can find what's worth telling in the workshop, and who equally reads, digs and comes back with ideas from the wider world of spectacles. This isn't a content calendar to fill. Anyone can film a machine running — the skill we're after is knowing which two minutes of it matter, whose hands should be in the shot, and what you're left with once it stops. The same goes for a cultural story: knowing why it's interesting, and finding the way in.

The role

• You’ll work across social, editorial and longer-form channels. Some of it planned around launches and collections. Most of the good work will come from noticing something and knowing it's worth capturing.
• Finding stories — at the bench, in fittings, on the workshop floor — and judging which are worth telling.
• Researching and developing cultural and editorial stories, not only workshop ones.
• Deciding what shape each one takes: fifteen seconds or fifteen minutes, one frame or one person.
• Shooting and editing short-form video for Instagram, TikTok and elsewhere, where a story lands in the first second or not at all.
• Creating hero product films, styling content and behind-the-bench pieces, and longer-form films and YouTube content where there's room to let something breathe.
• Photographing frames, people and processes, where one image carries the whole story.
• Helping shape shoots, including models, locations and studios where needed.
• Explaining how and why we make things — and why most eyewear isn't made this way.
• Building recurring formats people come back for, and looking at what landed so the next one's better.

About you

You don't need a particular job title. Filmmaker, photographer, content creator, or somewhere between all three. What matters is that you notice what other people walk past, and can make good work out of it. You should be as comfortable chasing a story through an archive, a book or a conversation as shooting one at the bench.

You'll have a strong visual eye and be comfortable shooting and editing video yourself. You understand pacing, framing, sound and what stops someone scrolling but you're equally interested in work with more depth than whatever's trending.

You should be comfortable working independently, taking something from a loose conversation through to a finished piece. Photography skills are important; longer-form or YouTube experience is a bonus.

Most importantly, you should be curious. About design, craft, materials, people and how things are made. Curiosity finds the story. The rest is technique.

The setup

This is a freelance role, working closely with our team at the Cubitt’s workshop in King's Cross. A lot of the stories are here — at the bench, in fittings, on the workshop floor — so we're after someone who can spend time with us in person rather than work entirely remotely.

We'd like an ongoing relationship with the right person rather than isolated commissions. Day rate and rhythm of work to be agreed together, based on experience.