Beth Hewitt

As Creative Director in the School of Arts and Media at University of Salford I am responsible for developing strategic industry collaborations and partnerships across media and the creatuve industries. I am baaed in MediaCityUK and work closely with media organisations to enhance and develop our media portfolio and curriculum.

I have worked on a range of postgraduate and undergraduate media programmes. Whilst Programme Leading the MA in Documentary Production and MA in Wildlife Documentary Production I developed key links, partnerships, placements, festivals and events with key industry people and production companies, drawing upon my many years work at ITV Granada and BBC North.

I went onto create and develop the MA in Children’s Digital Media Production, the only one of in the UK and worked closely with industry in developing this programme.

I have taught across all the Media MAs delivering lectures on children’s media, documentary film-making covering all areas of producing and directing along with content creation, narrative structure, storytelling and developing programme ideas, treatments and pitches.

Much of my work at the University is focused around industry engagement and for three years I was Co-director of Exposures Film Festival in collaboration with Cornerhouse (now HOME), Manchester. I worked closely with the Media Festival on this festival as well and producing key collaborations with them.

I engage with industry much of the time and work hard to bring media practitioners into the University of Salford on a regular basis, establishing and building relationships and projects whenever possible. I encourage the students I work with to also engage on a regular basis with industry practitioners and to work at forming relationships that will be supportive throughout their time at the University and onwards too.

I project manage media festivals and events across the Creative media department such as the One World Media Festival last year, working with BBC North, RTS NW, Edinburgh Festival and One World Media.These events and collaborations are student and industry focused, creating working and beneficial links between industry and our emerging talent. They provide platforms for students to meet industry and visa versa, enabling industry networking and the discovery of new emerging talent.