The Art of Warwick
If Vanessa Warwick wrote an autobiography, The Art of Warwick could be a title to rival Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. When Vanessa worked for a TV company called North One from June 2000 to August 2006, her profile bio stated: “Vanessa started her TV career in 1989, when she joined a fledgling channel called MTV as a Production Assistant. Two years later, she became Associate Producer and Presenter of one of MTV’s most successful weekly shows where she interviewed many of the world’s most successful artists, in different locations around the world. Over the course of seven years, Vanessa continued to present the show and also took on more challenging roles as both a Producer and Director. One of the shows she regularly directed, Select MTV, was a daily live interactive show where viewers called in and requested videos. In 1997, Vanessa left MTV having achieved the position of Series Producer/Director. Shortly afterwards, Simon and Schuster published a book Vanessa had co-written with Steve Beebee called Chaos A.D.: A Guide To Rock in the Nineties.”
“Having set up her own production company, Vanessa’s first client was Sony Music who asked her to produce an EPK to launch the career of Ricky Martin on an international level. The EPK profiled Ricky’s breakthrough album, for which he won a Grammy Award with Livin’ La Vida Loca. Following that high-profile success, Vanessa went on to work with many top artists, creating profiles or documentaries. In August 1999, Vanessa established the Special Music Projects Dept. at Chrysalis TV (now North One TV). A few months later she conceived, co-produced, and directed a major Latin pop music special for Channel 4 called Latino Loco. The programme profiled the wave of Latino artists storming the charts and included Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Carlos Santana, Enrique Iglesias, and a then unheard of Shakira. The programme was presented from Miami by Julio Iglesias Jnr.”
“Vanessa also continued with her record company projects directing EPK’s for such artists as ColdPlay, David Gray, Craig David, Kylie Minogue, and Pavarotti. She also branched into directing music videos and has directed approx. 12 videos for various artists including Motorhead and Hayley Westenra. In 2001, Vanessa directed Motorhead’s 25th Anniversary concert at Brixton Academy for DVD, which has since gone on to be one of SPV’s best selling releases. Most recently, Vanessa has worked with Dido, The Rasmus, and Rod Stewart. She also realised a life-time ambition to work with the true queen of pop, Madonna.”
When I was browsing the Google-archived version of the nineties Usenet groups for info on Vanessa Warwick, I happened upon a newsgroup called alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death where a man named Adriano Estevez posted a comment about censorship on November 27, 1996. A metal band called Moonspell got into a bit of hot bother in the previous week for a video. As Vanessa mentioned in an e-mail to Adriano: “The Independent Television Commission, the body that governs broadcasts out of the U.K. (therefore MTV) has deemed that the “Opium” video shows Class A drug abuse, in a narrative way i.e. without any worthy message against drugs. Regardless of the creative of the video, this has been found by the ITC to be unacceptable for broadcast at any time. Therefore it is NOT MTV banning the video, but the organisation that determines moral values/good taste for programmes broacast out of the U.K. That is why viewers may have seen the video in other countries, as they have different regulations. I hope that explains the situation to Moonspell fans, and if they watch HBB this Thursday, they will have an explanation in full and also the chance to hear the band’s response. Plus they can watch “Opium” live. Hope this is all cleared up now. Thanx. Vanessa.”
Back to the Chaos A.D. book, she had an important message to relay in the foreword: “Despite what people say, there are lots of opportunities, and having the right attitude is vital not only to your work, but to life in general. I can honestly say that I love every minute of my job. To me, there isn’t a negative side to it. People often think that I don’t know how lucky I am, but believe me, I do. I count my blessings every single day. I suppose the only vaguely bad thing is that I do get exceedingly over-tired, usually when I’ve got to work after an eleven-hour flight.”
As a journalist, she wrote for two metal magazines of polar opposite popularity: Metal Hammer and Metal Forces. She has also worked for several record companies operating freelance promotions, press and marketing. One example of both situations colliding was when she among a panel of judges for an unsigned band competition held by Kerrang in 1994. The finals were held at Terminal Studios in South London on Thursday, July 28. Four bands were to play a full production standard showcase in front of A&R staffers from U.K. labels. There were 400 entrants that had been narrowed down to four by not only Vanessa but radio producers and Kerrang journalists. I would like to know what the gender ratio was like.
Pertaining to gender, Vanessa said in the aforementioned foreword of the 1997 book: “I certainly preceive myself as a presenter, and not a VJ. VJs are often ex-models who say, “Look at me, I’m attractive, I’m fashionable, and I’m saying something that perhaps may be of interest to you.” That’s not where I’m coming from. I believe that the bands should be the stars of the show, and they don’t need some silly bimbo flirting with them and trying to steal their limelight. If people like the way I look, then fine, but I always approach my work from a journalistic point of view. Women were seen either as groupies, hangers-on, or as people to look sexy in videos. A lot of bands, like Vixen, played on their looks too much and they actually didn’t need to, because they were really very good musicians. Eventually, they were a casualty of that. Grunge killed them off. Now women are coming forward in rock with their own look, personality and musical style, and are achieving credibility via that route. Believe in yourself, make contacts and learn from others. There are some very positive role models around now who make it easier for other women in rock to be taken seriously.”
