Kevin Hewitt, who has died of cancer aged 70, made his name by directing music videos for some of British reggae’s finest artists, such as Aswad and Sly and Robbie, as well as Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen and other 1980s acts.
His relationship with Aswad began where they grew up, in the Ladbroke Grove area of west London. He was film editor, a job critical in creating the feel of any production, on two 1981 documentaries shot at the previous year’s Notting Hill Carnival. Both were groundbreaking in reflecting black culture on the streets.
The 18-minute Grove Carnival beautifully captured the combination of relaxed atmosphere and ecstatic rhythm, while the longer Grove Music featured Aswad and other bands, and gave an insight into the prejudice experienced by many in the Caribbean community.
The documentaries were directed by Hewitt’s friend and activist Henry Martin, and financed by the Arts Council. The second was later televised by Channel 4, which opened in 1982 with a remit to provide “alternative” views.
Shortly after editing the Notting Hill films, Hewitt’s career took a curious detour with When Night Comes to Kandahar (1981), a documentary for the ITV current affairs series World in Action showing the first proof of Afghan resistance following the 1979 Russian invasion.
At the time, Hewitt was setting up an independent production company with David Bowen-Jones, a friend who previously worked on the series and was planning a trip to Afghanistan.
The pair, as producer-directors, accompanied by a camera operator, Habib Aziz, succeeded in getting across the border from Pakistan and joining a mujahideen group in a small village where they lived in a tent and were disguised in tribal clothes. For their own safety, the trio were not allowed to be on their own, even accompanied when they “went to the toilet” outside.
After almost a week, Hewitt sneaked out on his own and was kidnapped by rival mujahideen guerrillas who held him in a nearby village. The first group mounted a rescue, smashing down the door of a compound and taking him back.
Unaccustomed to this level of danger, Hewitt decided to return home, driven out of Afghanistan on the back of a 125cc Honda motorcycle, with Russian troops in hot pursuit, and taking several rolls of film with him. Bowen-Jones and Aziz stayed on to film Afghan guerrillas in a dramatic night-time attack on the Russian-held Kandahar, the country’s ancient capital.
Back on the music beat, Hewitt made waves by directing the promotional film for Sly and Robbie’s Make ’Em Move (1985), keeping the pace of the action in tandem with the music. It featured racial tension, gun-toting police officers and a 21-year-old Neneh Cherry as a dancer before her own success as a singer.
The single reached only the lower reaches of the charts after the video was banned by the BBC because of its anti-police tone, but it brought Hewitt to the attention of the advertising industry. Over the next few decades, he made hundreds of commercials for brands ranging from British Airways to Kellogg’s and Guinness.
Kevin was born in Hammersmith, London, to Florence (nee Oldridge) and Charles Hewitt, a construction mechanic, and attended Xaverian college, Brighton.
He learned his craft as a film editor with the director Piers Jessop, working on sponsored documentaries such as Dinner With the Family (1977) and A Family Affair (1979) for British Gas.
In the same capacity, he worked with the director Don Letts on music videos for The Clash’s London Calling (1979) and Musical Youth’s Pass the Dutchie (1982), and others for Public Image Ltd, Bob Marley, the Pretenders, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Elvis Costello.
He was also a film editor on the 1984 Channel 4 documentary Almonds and Raisins, about Yiddish-language films made between the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 and the outbreak of the second world war, with Orson Welles narrating.
He directed the promo film for Get the Balance Right! by Depeche Mode in 1983 and co-directed, with Bill Butt, Echo and the Bunnymen’s 1984 video album Pictures on My Wall.
He and Letts then co-directed promotional films for Big Audio Dynamite, featuring the Clash’s former lead guitarist, Mick Jones; The Bottom Line (1986), shot in Trafalgar Square with Roman soldiers and a tribe of ancient Britons; Medicine Show (1986); C’mon Every Beatbox (1986); and V Thirteen (1987).
Hewitt also directed the music journalist Paul Morley putting Brian Eno in the hot seat for The Thing Is ... An Interview (1992) on Channel 4 and a 1993 documentary on New Order for ITV’s arts programme The South Bank Show, produced by Morley.
His 1991 marriage to the actor Miranda Baker ended in divorce in 2011. He is survived by their children, Henry and Bella, and Jewels Newton, his partner of 10 years.
• Kevin Charles Hewitt, director, born 27 October 1952; died 11 January 2023
