Background
Burum was born in Dinuba, California, a small Central Valley town near Visalia.
Burum was born in Dinuba, California, a small Central Valley town near Visalia.
He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television in the 1960s, and became an instructor at the same school.
He began his professional filmmaking career working on the Walt Disney anthology television series, and then was drafted into the United States. Army and assigned to the Army Pictorial Center, for whom he shot army training films. He began working on major feature films for Francis Ford Coppola in 1976, shooting the second unit of Apocalypse Now and then The Black Stallion. His first cr as the cinematographer of a major motion picture was foreign
In 2007, Burum returned to University of California, Los Angeles as the Kodak Cinematographer in Residence.