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Co-ordinator of MA Film and Creative Enterprise.
Deputy director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Digital Humanities
Leader of the Synthetic Media Research Network
Co-lead of the university’s Cine Valley project, working with Shinfield Studios and other partners.
My expertise is in Generative AI in the screen industries. I research and publish in the fields of deepfakes, voice cloning, and text-to-video, with a particular emphasis on the ethics of creativity using AI technologies. My major research has been into deepfakes – the digital replacement of actors’ faces in film using Artificial Intelligence. I was Principal Investigator of the project Virtual Maggie (2019-20), which used a practice research methodology to explore how ‘machine learning’ could be used to digitally resurrect Margaret Thatcher in a contemporary drama. My work also examines the ethics and legal questions arising from deepfakes, and the impact of AI on the performer in screen production. I am interested in the transformative impact of new technologies on the creative process in mainstream production, and on how Generative AI alters audiences’ relationship with screen content.
I lead the Synthetic Media Research Network (SMRN), which brings together UK and international scholars, industry stakeholders and governmental bodies to consider the future of Generative AI technology.
My research is rooted in my professional experience as a director of television drama and independent feature film. This career included directing forty episodes of mainstream drama series broadcast on UK terrestrial channels, as well as writing and directing the award-winning feature, Outlanders (2008). I have also created multimedia screenwork for opera and worked as Associate Producer of political affairs programmes on Channel 4.
As a public-facing academic expert on AI, I have provided expert interviews for television (Sky News, BBC TV News, France24) and newspapers (The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Times). My public speaking on AI includes the Cheltenham Science Festival, industry events, and film festivals in Munich, Sarajevo, Sheffield and Belgrade. I work to counter the negative impact of Generative AI by providing expert comment for fact-checking news organisations (Reuters, Boom Live India), exposing the malicious use of deepfakes in public life. I am the lead writer on AI for the BFI’s Sight & Sound magazine.
From 2023-25 I worked as Specialist Advisor to the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in its inquiry into Film and High-End Television.
I currently supervise PhD projects on:
I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students with interests in fields related to film and television. This might include topics such as: AI in film creativity, aesthetics in screen fiction, digital technologies in the film industries, screenwriting, and television studies. I have experience in practice research and welcome students interested in this methodology.
Much of my teaching draws on my professional experience as a director in film and television drama, as well as my research on theories of film practice. I currently lead and teach in these modules:
My creative work in film has been supported by funding awards from the British Council, the British Film Institute, the UK Film Council and the Senate of Berlin-Brandenburg.
My films have been selected for screening at dozens of international film festivals, including Venice, Edinburgh, Philadelphia and Rio de Janeiro. They have won awards including:
Co-editor of the book series, ‘AI in Film and Media’ (Routledge/Taylor & Francis)
Co-founder and board member of ‘Screen Berkshire’, British Film Institute-funded screen skills training initiative.
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
Directors UK
British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)
Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)
Lees, D. (2025) ‘Artificial Intelligence in documentary filmmaking: the ethics of deepfakes’. In: Piotrowska, A. (ed.) The Ethics of Documentary Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Lees, D. (2023) ‘Deepfakes and documentary film production: images of deception in the representation of the real’, Studies in Documentary Film doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2023.2284680
Lees, D, Bashford-Rogers, T and Keppel-Palmer, M. (2021) ‘The digital resurrection of Margaret Thatcher: creative, technological and legal dilemmas in the use of Deep Fakes in screen drama', Convergence: the International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 27/4, 954-973.
THE BURNING (2016). Short film. Historical drama made as practice-as-research project. Screened at RMIT Melbourne filmmaking research conference, ‘Sightlines’, Dec 2019
OUTLANDERS (2008) UK. Feature film, Sterling Pictures. UK theatrical release by Miracom.