Matt Dennis

My career in the television industry began in 1988 after having studied for a Fine Art Sculpture degree in Newcastle. I had spent the final year of my degree making objects and installations using sound as a key element and had also spent a lot of time working with animation and film students to create sound tracks for a number of short films.

 Moving to London provided me with the opportunity to pursue a career in sound editing, initially working as Assistant Editor on a series of educational animations with Richard Taylor and Bob Godfrey for BBC Enterprises. This led to a number of years at the BBC working on many documentary feature programmes such as Horizon, QED and Arena as an Assistant Editor and later as a Dubbing Editor on a number of BBC dramas (including being part of the BAFTA nominated sound team for the 6 part adaptation of George Elliott's Middlemarch).

During this time I had the opportunity to edit an animated documentary A Is For Autism for Channel 4. It went on to become a multi-award winning documentary and remains one of the films I am most proud of having worked on as well as one of my biggest editing challenges.

After many years working in post-production I was offered a job as a Promotions Producer making promotions and film trailers for channels such as Nickelodeon, Discovery, National Geographic and U>Direct. Latterly I worked as a Promotions Manager for the creative agency Bruce Dunlop and Associates in London heading up a team making all the onscreen promotions, graphics, idents and cross channel promotions for the Hallmark Channel in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia.

During my time in London I was a regular Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, working with post-graduate animation students to edit and post produce their final films - the experience of this has inspired me to pursue teaching as a parallel career and in 2002 I was offered my current post.

Being part time at Teesside University I am also able to continue working in the industry part time as a film editor and much of the professional work I do outside of the University forms an important part of my teaching and the work I do with my students.

I now regularly work as a Film Editor for the Inverness based production company Triple Echo Productions editing documentaries and documentary feature specials for BBC Scotland. I also regularly work for the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle and am currently editing a feature length documentary with Provenance Films about a family of tenant hill farmers in the Peak District, Addicted to Sheep.