Dr Catherine Elliott

Dr Catherine Elliott has spent over 25 years working in the British television industry. She has made numerous high-profile documentaries and drama-documentaries, and also worked in drama, children’s and educational programming. Her passion is observational documentary. She is Course Leader for the MA Film and Television Production at ARU.

Email: [email protected]

Background

Catherine moved into academia when she joined Anglia Ruskin in 2012. Up to then she directed and series produced on a broad range of award-winning single films and documentary series for the BBC, Channel Four and Thames Television on flagship strands such as Cutting Edge, Modern Times, Inside Story, Dispatches and Rough Justice. Until 2009 year she was a senior staff producer/director at the BBC’s Documentaries and Specialist Features Department.

Acclaimed work includes two documentaries about Angela Cannings, which gained unprecedented access to a high-profile murder prosecution, and an award-winning drama-documentary, Angel of Death – the Story of Beverly Allitt.

Research interests

• The documentation of social history through film (coupling her documentary film making experience with a return to themes explored in her doctoral thesis)
• The effects of contributing to a television programme
• The issue of ethics and informed consent in film making
• Women in the television industry
• The future of observational documentary

Catherine’s current film work includes:

• filmmaking as a record of change
• researching the role of the interview

Areas of research supervision

• Social history and film
• The documentary
• Gender and television
• Current trends in the British television industry
• The history of educational television

Qualifications

• Bsc Hons, Bristol University
• PGCE (Primary), Bristol University
• DPhil, Oxford University
• PGCE (HE), Anglia Ruskin University

Memberships, editorial boards

• Fellow, the Higher Education Academy
• Member, Directors UK

Selected recent publications

Catherine has made the following documentaries as a producer/director.

'Government Waste', Dispatches, (60’), Channel 4

'Too young to Retire', Money Programme, (30’), BBC2

'Profits of Gloom', Money Programme, (30’), BBC2

'Closing Time: Death of the British Pub', Money Programme, (30’), BBC2

'The Innocents’ Brief', (60’), A Rough Justice Special, BBC1

Angel of Death – The Story of Beverly Allitt, (60’), BBC1

Prisoners’ Families: The Silent Sentence, (60’), BBC2

Angela: The Whole Story, (60’), BBC1

Angela’s Trial, (60’), BBC1

'Anything to be a Mum', Inside Story, (60’), BBC1

The Chief Constable, (60’), BBC1

The Nurse, (60’), BBC1

The GP, (60’), BBC1

'Schoolgirl Mums', Inside Story, (60’), BBC1

'Time of their Lives', Modern Times, (60’), BBC2

'Sexual Harassment, Cutting Edge, (60’), Channel 4

'Billy - A Violent Mind', Modern Times, (60’), BBC2

'Ynys Fechan', Between Ourselves, (30’), BBC2

Lifeschool series, (4 x 30’), BBC2

Eureka, children’s series, (5 x 20’), Channel 4

Owl TV, children’s series, (10 x 30’), Channel 4

Junior Technology, schools series, (5 x 20’) Channel 4