AN award-winning television director who has worked with John Travolta and Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has joined a North-East digital media and film company.

Helen Spencer, who directed the BBC1 show Your Country Needs You, which selected this year’s Eurovision contestant and was hosted by Lord Lloyd Webber and Graham Norton, has become director of creative media at Mere Mortals, based in Newcastle.

Already in talks with some of the UK’s major television networks, Ms Spencer, who comes from the region, hopes to showcase Mere Mortals’ digital technology to a range of sectors, including the arts and broadcast communities.

Ms Spencer won this year’s Royal Television Society Best New Media Production award for her project thebigpix.co.

uk She said: “I have been increasingly interested in multimedia, and Mere Mortals embraces the whole winning package of TV, films, games and web.

“I am aiming to take the company into new fields of work by taking advantage of the unique range of talent available here. We are already offering clients fully integrated digital media services, but with the current pace of change, there is new and exciting opportunities arising every day.

“Working all over the world, I have always kept my base in the North-East. It is fantastic to see Mere Mortals working with the same ideals; you can still be successful without uprooting from your home town.”

Mere Mortals is a multi-disciplined digital media company that has worked on hit films including Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Weeks Later and Sunshine, as well as computer games for the XBox, Wii and PlayStation.