At seventeen Heather climbed the first rung of the media ladder as a BBC Local Radio ‘Saturday Girl’ and within her gap year quickly went on to be the Traffic and Travel Presenter, Outside Broadcast Interviewer and then finally Documentary Director/ Producer.  Heather won BBC Young Talent of the Year 1999 for her hour long documentary “Religion on the Road” in which she spent three weeks living with gypsies.

For the following four years Heather completed a Bachelor of Broadcasting at the University of Leeds in which she gained 1:1 for the BBC sponsored ‘Single & Multi Camera Directing Course’.  In her first year Heather also won the Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a contemporary production of “West Side Story” which she produced and directed.  In the second year Heather approached Nicola Schindler of RED Productions in Manchester and started as a script reader working with fantastic writers such as Paul Abbot and Russel T Davies.  It was her first taste of drama and she loved it.  Heather also gained twelve months experience on the TV drama factory floor as a Third AD and Production Co-ordinator on several productions for Granada and Yorkshire Television.

Following her work in radio and television, Heather felt she had earned her stripes and started to knock on the doors of film companies.  After several work experience placements (notably one of them with Nik Powell at Scala Films) Heather decided to pack up and head west.  After two telephone interviews she beat over a hundred applicants to an internship with Laura Bickford Productions (“Traffic”) at Universal Studios in Los Angeles and finally got an office next to Mr Spielberg’s!  It was none stop script/novel reading and evaluations but an absolute thrill to be learning from some of the best cinematic writers in the world.

On returning to the UK Heather worked as a Producers Assistant on several major studio movies including “Vanity Fair” directed by Mira Nair which was a supreme inspiration.  But Heather was tired of always being an assistant and had finally decided that it was time to flex her own creative muscles.  Immediately she started to work on her own short films.

In January 2004 Heather attended Brighton Film School where she met Stuart Reid who produced her first short film “A Lump in the Road” about a mother and daughter whose imaginary car journey to far away places finally brings them closer together.  On completion it was immediately selected for the BBC Young Filmmakers Award Short List where it came 10^th out of 500 films.  “A Lump in the Road is a lovely film.  You managed to get two great performances.  Well done!”  - Jeremy Howe, Head of Short Films, BBC Drama. 

More recently "A Lump in the Road" was shortlisted for the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival 2006 and nominated for the ARRI Media New comer Award.  “Lump” has also reached the official selection for both Leicester Short Film Festival, Mid Ulster Film Festival 2006 and Chilli Short Film Festival 2006 and continues to be entered for competition.  Most recently it was selected by the Jury for the final of the New Producers Alliance Short Film Competition 2006.

“Bill of Mortality” was Heather’s next film which illustrates the pressure on ordinary people living through extraordinary times.   Shooting digitally in order to achieve a very savage quality, the film is an encounter with an estranged couple trapped inside a seventeenth century plague house and was shot on location in July 05.  It is currently in the later stages of post production.

Heather's third short film "TUG" was selected out of 250 applicants for financing under the Digital Shorts Scheme run by Screen South and the UK Film Council.  As part of the scheme Heather was sent to do a short course in directing at the National Film and Television School and worked alongside professional script executives to produce the finished script.  "TUG" has only recently been completed and is already being selected for festivals around the world.  Already it has been officially selected by the Zebra Poetry Film Award 2006 and the Detmold International Short Film Festival 2006.  It lso seems to be going down a storm in America where it has just been selected for the Beverly Hills International Film Festival 2007 and Garden State International Film Festival 2007.