Dr Maike Helmers

Maike is the subject area specialist for sound on the BA (Hons) Film Production. As a senior academic with over 25 years’ experience within the university sector, her teaching and research are informed by her practice-based expertise in sound design and editing. Maike’s PhD publication, set within the context of the shifting sands of political and social upheaval during the dying years of the Weimar Republic, focused on the transition from silent to sound film as an evolving cinematic aesthetic .

Maike originally trained as a Film Editor and Sound Designer with the BBC’s Film Department in London. Working with Directors such as Jack Gold, Antonia Fraser, Peter Dale, Beeban Kidron, Sharon Coyne, Andrew Eaton and John Schlesinger, she was able to contribute to a range of award-winning programmes across diverse genres within broadcast, film and theatre settings. Maike’s comprehensive grasp of production and postproduction processes within these industries inform her academic and professional ventures.

Maike has published journal articles as well as book chapters on the confluence of emotive and narrative elements within audio-visual narratives through sound and editing. Having been instrumental in the inception, launch and subsequent leadership of the first master’s degree in sound design, her experience in industry as well as academic roles is wide-ranging, and includes acting as a film festival jury member as well as an external examiner and PhD supervisor. She has been invited to speak at conferences as well as other international events; Maike continues to share her curiosity and enthusiasm for the complex relationship between sound, editing, music and emotion with her BA (Hons) Film Production students.