Vanessa’s Bio:

Vanessa Wells has worked in the arts industry for almost 25 years. She has a long history as a performer with the Court Theatre, and has run her own voice business from her home studio for over 10 years working with clients such as Countdown (NCR), Auckland International Airport, Wellington Rail, and RedSeed among many others.

When Vanessa first started working with cameras in 2007 as a presenter (clocking up over 300 hours of live and pre-recorded broadcasting with regional television station CTV), the experience triggered a passion for human interest stories, and stories from the community. Over the next few years, she progressed to field producing and directing.

Once Vanessa made a shift from in front of the camera to behind, she discovered how much she loved it - although the occasional “stepping back into the lights” pushes her out of the comfort zone and reminds her what a tough job actors have (be nice to actors!).

Over summer 2018/19 Vanessa travelled to Antarctica twice, supported by Antarctica NZ’s Community Engagement Programme. The first trip to the Ice was to create a touring educational children’s play and produce content for Sesame Street. The second trip south resulted in the short documentary “Te Whakairo” which played in many festivals and was used by Maanaki Whenua to help support its RossRAMP work with communities across New Zealand. The Ice has profoundly influenced her work, and Vanessa has a climate change feature documentary "The Climate Canary" in development, and has completed a short film on the same theme for the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch, which plays on a continuous loop in their HD theatre to thousands of visitors. 

She also directed the local social media profile series "Braveheart Christchurch”, has produced 8 more short films for Sesame Street, and is on the board of WIFT NZ (Women in Film and Television).

Vanessa has lived abroad for many years and is a keen runner, biker and hiker. She is also an operational member of LandSAR (Search and Rescue), and is now officially the shortest in her family (not counting the spaniel).