VANESSA-MAE: THE MAKING OF ME

A report on the BBC show aired on August 7, 2008

Introduction
BBC television aired the past weeks a series of programs in 3 episodes in which famous British icons investigated the roots of their talents and personalities. The series started in half of July with Dr Who actor John Bowden who tried the find out the reasons why he is gay. In the second episode, athlete Colin Jackson, Hurdle specialist, world champion and multi-medal winner, found answers to the question why he was fastest in his discipline. Last Thursday, August 7, Vanessa-Mae investigated the origin of her skills on the violin and her musicality. The basic question in all episodes was whether nature or nurture determines who you are and what your talents are. The programs followed a popularised (semi) scientific approach in the quests of all 3 for answers about their origins. According to the Guardian, the show with Vanessa-Mae last Thursday scored14 % in attracting 2.9 million viewers. VMSPOS website observed a enormous increase in visitors shortly before and immediately after the program was aired. We recorded the show on a hard disc and can make a file available for sharing on special request made by email.

For the real fans, Vanessa-Mae's quest turned out to be a very interesting because the show was more than just an attempt to define the origins of her talents and musicality, but developed into a description of her personality and became psychological and very personal in nature when Vanessa-Mae tried to re-establish contact with her mother Pamela with whom she goes to a troubled and complicated relationship after she had split with mother professionally as manager on the day of her 21st birthday in 1999. They lost contact because Pamela was not able to see Vanessa-Mae as only her daughter; at least this is how Vanessa-Mae sees it, as she explained that her mother always said to her when she was a child: 'I will always love you because you are my daughter, but you are only special to me when you play the violin, so when you play the violin, you are special to me.' It must have very sad and disappointing to Vanessa-Mae when her mother simple refused to co-operate with the show, stating in an email to the BBC: 'my daughter is almost 30 now, I fulfilled my mother duties. That part of my life is over now.' At the end of the show when Vanessa-Mae discusses with the psychologist the results of the personality test, she was surprised when she was told that her mother had agreed to do the same detailed test and that the out come was their scores in the test show great resemblance on all parameters. So, it is obvious now form where Vanessa-Mae's talents come from. The show started with Vanessa-Mae saying that she expected her talents and musicality to have a 75 % score on the nature versus nurture scale, but at the end in her concluding remarks she switched to 50-50 balance.

The Chapters
To describe the contents of the documentary, we divided the show in several chapters. We will describe in summery what happens in each chapter and illustrate this with 140 screen captures that are presented in chronological order. The chapters are defined as follows:

1 Intro
2 Coordination
3 Practice in number of hours
4 A colleague prodigy
5 Prof Felix Andrievsky
6 Child Play
7 Hearing ability
8 The twin test
9 With her father Graham
10 Derek
11 Family intermezzo 1
12 Return to school
13 Family intermezzo 2
14 The brain scan 1
15 Family intermezzo 3
16 The brain scan 2
17 The psychologist
18 Transformation
19 The race track
20 So mother, so daughter
21 Vanessa-Mae's concluding remarks

Throughout the whole documentary, Vanessa-Mae used many different outfits and clothes for the various scenes. Also, her face is always perfect, nicely done some beautiful make-up just so to retain natural looks, but providing her classy dignity in presentation.

Description of the chapters

1 Intro
The program opens with images of Vanessa-Mae during one of her concerts playing Storm - see captures 1 and 2. A voice over introduces Vanessa-Mae as one of Britain's leading musicians with an estimated fortune of well over £ 30 million. Then Vanessa-Mae appears holding her Guadagnini violin and explaining what the instrument means to her, saying that she has a history with it and that it shaped and formed her life - see captures 3 and 4. Here, Vanessa-Mae is dressed in a red vest zipped up front over a white T-shirt.

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Then the title page appears as shown in capture 5 below. Next, Vanessa-Mae appears playing Paganini on the violin dressed in a fine orange gown - see captures 6-8. The voice-over narrates biographical facts about Vanessa-Mae, then asking the question what caused her to change from a traditional classical violinist into the adventurous musician as we know her today who adopts and combines various styles of music with an easy that left audiences with awe. Then the camera moves to a domestic scene showing Vanessa-Mae in her red vest and white T-shirt, together with her father Graham and her grand-mother, going through family albums, reminiscing the old days - see captures 9 to 15 and 18. The voice-over tells that her father Graham and her grandmother always silently supported her but it was her mother who actively pushed her forward into thousands of hours practicing. Vanessa-Mae says that she wrote one day in her diary that she felt so proud because she practised 7 hours that particular day. Vanessa-Mae here also says that the words her mother Pamela used to motivate here were often quite cool!! She then says she made a decision on her 21st birthday to split with her mother professionally, unfortunately, Vanessa-Mae explains, Pamela wasn't able to be a mother without being a manager and as result they hardly met the past 8 years or so - see captures 16 and 17.

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2 Coordination
Vanessa-Mae went through several test in order to find out whether her talents are determined by nature and nurture. In the car towards her first appointment, she describes that she was left alone with her violin and practicing first because both her parents were full time lawyers and had absolutely no time nor interests in her progress, She was basically left on herself the first couple of years and Vanessa-Mae argues that it must have been nature that till the age of 8 brought to where she was then. T the time being, she sets the balance to 75 % in favour of nature over nurture - see capture 19. The voice-over states that the violin is the most toughest instrument to handle and that perfection demands utmost coordination between mind and body. The questions arises why is it that some are better in this than others. She meets in a hospital with a neuroscientist who will do some freak experiments with Vanessa-Mae's brains. Vanessa-Mae receives a magnet around here had through which electric currents will be zapped. With this experiment, the scientist will try to show what communication takes place inside her brains between parts that control emotion and motion. Vanessa-Mae has to write down her name several times during this experiments and the effect of the magnetic field is that the control over her movements of her arms are influenced and hampered. The result is that her ability to write down her name is disrupted shortly. Vanessa-Mae shows great fun with hilarious laughs when she undergoes the experiments. She says: 'this is so funny, can we do it again?' - see captures 20 to 24.The neuroscientist illustrates the results with a model of the human brains. The results of the test show that the area in Vanessa-Mae's brains that control motion and emotion and that are essential for her to function as a top-class musician show great sensibility by outside stimulus  - see capture 25. The conclusion by the neuroscientist is that these areas in Vanessa-Mae's brains are developed to degree well above for the average person. Of course, this rises the question whether this is the result of intense training or of genetics. During this meeting, Vanessa-Mae was dressed in a bright purple T-shirt. Noticeable are Vanessa-Mae's lashes that individually countable because of the large amount of black mascara used in her make-up - see captures 20 and 24.

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3 Practice in number of hours
In her rehearsal room, Vanessa-Mae receives visits from Professor John Sloboda, one of Britain's leading experts on musical ability and psychology - see capture 26. He is a firm believer that practice goes above genetics in musicality and making and child prodigy. He asks Vanessa-Mae to do an experiment and try to workout the number of hours that she practice and played between the age  when she started to play the violin and 16. Vanessa-Mae sets herself down with a calculator, paper and pencil - captures 27 to 29. Eventually after deep thinking over all she did - capture 29 - she comes with an estimation of 7107 hours: 'that is not too bad, is it,' she says - see capture 30. John Sloboda tells her that this number fits well in the middle of estimates of how many hours of practice it takes a child prodigy to develop into a professional musician. Then Vanessa-Mae argues against the views of John Sloboda that musicality and interpretation can't be trained but must be genetically inherited, according to her views. Sloboda answers that he believes we all have these capacities and that somehow only a few mange to unlock these. He estimates nurture and training to be 75 % over nature. Vanessa-Mae rejects, saying that music is about emotion and that we are not robots, she says: 'I think it is belittling that a player is here, only because of the hours spent practicing.'

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4 A colleague prodigy
Vanessa-Mae visits Elena, a child prodigy, in Chicago in an attempt to proof that true musicians are born and not made! Elena saw Vanessa-Mae on television and knows all about her. Vanessa-Mae attends a performance by Elena, sitting next to Elena's mother - captures 31 and 32. Vanessa-Mae meets Elena and her mother afterwards and shake hands with them. Vanessa-Mae asks Elena how old she was when she started and whether she needed time to adjust to the violin or whether she felt at ease immediately. Elena tells that she started at the age of 4 and that she was immediately at ease with the violin. Then Vanessa-Mae asks if she likes to practice or whether she sometimes feels not want to practice. Elena answers: 'sometimes, but I like to go out playing with friends, but I always like to practicing.' Her dedicated mother manger smiles when listening to this honest outpouring of her daughter - see captures 32 and 33. Vanessa-Mae concludes she recognises Elena's passion, dedication and ability to concentrate on stage. From observing Elena, Vanessa-Mae is convinced that Elena must have been born with these gifts. Here in Chicago, Vanessa-Mae wears a long dress with round neck and shoulder straps with horizontal black-grey line design. She has a precious stone hanging on a tiny necklace around her neck.

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5 Prof Felix Andrievsky
Back in London, Vanessa-Mae goes to visit an old acquaintance, someone who helped and trained her to master the violin, her former teacher and mentor Professor Felix Andrievsky. After ringing, Felix Andrievsky opens the front door. Vanessa-Mae and Felix Andrievsky greet each other affectionately as long time friends - see captures 34 and 35. Together, Vanessa-Mae and Felix Andrievsky go through the logbook of Vanessa-Mae's lessons - captures 36 to 39. Felix Andrievsky is absolutely certain that Vanessa-Mae's talent and ability are born. He remembers her as a student highly advanced for her years. they read in the logbook that Vanessa-Mae played a Handle Sonata in G-minor at her first lesson. Felix Andrievsky also remembers Vanessa-Mae's extraordinary stamina for her age and that he was often exhausted when she continued to play as fresh as at the start. Felix Andrievsky states: 'you were so dedicated to professional quality, too achieve to unachievable perfection that does not exists.' Vanessa-Mae asks whether he believes it was nature or nurture, he says: 'my great believe straight from the beginning was that you were born with this talent, you are an original , and you went further than what you learnt and I have no doubt that it is talent.' Judging form the smile on her face, Vanessa-Mae is very pleased with the words of her mentor who obviously supports her no matter what. During this visit, Vanessa-Mae is dressed in beige mini skirts over a pair of black tights, and matt silver blue jacket with press buttons.

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6 Child Play
Next a short intermezzo follows and a scenes from family movie are shown in which Vanessa-Mae as a young child (aged about 6) plays with her mother on the piano - captures 40 to 43.

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7 Hearing ability
Next Vanessa-Mae is shown comfortable sitting in a taxi - capture 44 - on the way to the next stop in her quest for answers about the whereabouts of her talents. She explains that to her believes for a musician the ears are the most important of your body. She is on her way to the Royal Academy of Music to test the limits of her hearing abilities. When she steps out of the cab, we see that she is dressed in a complete white outfit of a pair of trousers and a wide shirt. She meets with Dr Claudia Fritz of the University of Cambridge who is an expert on hearing abilities. She designed a test to monitor some ones listening and hearing perception. The experiment  involves that the testee must distinguish between notes in determining which out 3 notes differs from the other tow only in quality. As the test progresses, differences become smaller and smaller till the moment the limits of the hearing ability are established. After Claudia Frits explained the test to Vanessa-Mae - capture 46 -  Vanessa-Mae does the test - capture 47 - and judging her expression towards the end, the finals are challenging and prompt her to full concentration. After finishing, both examine the results and comparing the results for average people and the outcome for Vanessa-Mae, it is obvious that Vanessa-Mae's hearing ability by far is superior to that of average persons, and that she possesses a powerful ability to detect even the smallest differences between notes - capture 50. Vanessa-Mae is know left with one big question: why, is this ability nature or nurture and training?

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8 The twin test
Next, Vanessa-Mae observes a test held in a night club. A skilled female singer will sing in front of an audience of at one side sets of identical twins and on the other side of set of none identical twins. The singer will sing deliberately out of tune and the test is how many of the sets of both the identical twins will notice this. the question to be answered is whether identical twins agree more often than no identical twins. If this is the case, hearing ability is likely to be genetically determined because identical twins have complete identical genes and non identical twins only for 50 %. On the other side, if hearing perception is something that can be learnt, then  no differences should be detectable among the two groups. As the test progresses, it appears that identical twins agree more often indeed. Vanessa-Mae meets with Professor Tim Spector of King's College in London who developed the test. He is convinced that the hearing ability part of musicality is genetically determined. Vanessa-Mae welcomes his conclusions.

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9 With her father Graham
Till now, Vanessa-Mae's mother who played a very important role in her life was left out of the discussion. Vanessa-Mae inherited genetically from her mother Pamela. But Pamela also pushed Vanessa-Mae to the limits. Pamela's views on the question of nature versus nurture would be interesting and helpful. Only, Vanessa-Mae has hardly seem and spoken to her mother since Vanessa-Mae decided on a split professionally. Vanessa-Mae has second thoughts about Tim Spectors views. the idea that she is only a result of an arbitrarily reshuffle of genes is not very a appealing and satisfying to her. She thinks that there is nothing more rewarding than to realise that your own blood, sweat and tears brought you somewhere. She wonders about what else than her genes made her successful. For the first time in 8 years, Vanessa-Mae considers a reunion with her mother to talk about her upbringing. She decides to consult her father Graham Nicholson about this issue. Graham asks Vanessa-Mae how she thinks Pamela would react. 'I think she has a lot to think about:' Vanessa-Mae replies. Vanessa-Mae says she wonders about the how much Pamela genetically contributed to her because Pamela's own mother was not musical at all! Vanessa-Mae wants to ask Pamela about the first few years when both Pamela and Graham were full time lawyers and had no time whatsoever to monitor her progress when she was left alone with her own devices and a nanny. Vanessa-Mae considers those years to be very valuable in terms of her training. Graham thinks a meeting would be good for both of them. He says to Vanessa-Mae: 'there is resistance to both sides and you feel you don not need that relationship, and, I think, she feel still quite raw about rejection.'  And Graham then asks Vanessa-Mae whether she sees this film as the possible start of a new relation. Vanessa-Mae answers: 'she is very important to me and if she is up to it, I am too.' Apparently, all scenes with Graham throughout this documentary were filmed at the same day as Vanessa-Mae again wears the red vest and Graham has the same blue polo shirt as well - captures 55 to 59.

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10 Derek
In order to find out how many influences can shape a musician, Vanessa-Mae visits Derek Paravicini, a famous blind pianist who is also mentally disabled with severe learning difficulties. He learnt to play a large repertoire sheer from memory by training due to his long time teacher for many years. Derek is like a jukebox and only needs to hear a new piece of music once to be able play it immediately and and remember it forever. The teacher tells Vanessa-Mae that he is convinced that musicality is a matter of training as Derek trained himself ten thousands of hours. Derek only repeats the music he learnt and he does that extremely well. However, there is hardly interpretation. At her visit to Derek, Vanessa-Mae is dressed casually in a ankle length blue jeans, a blue T-shirt that reveals her belly button and a short grey wool vest.

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11 Family intermezzo 1
The next chapter is a family intermezzo, Vanessa-Mae, in silver blue jacket over white T-shirt, is viewing family movies on her laptop in her own home - capture 64. She see herself playing wearing a white T-shirt when she turns to the camera saying: 'hello, i am Vanessa-Mae. i am 12 years old and i am a concert violinist' - captures 65 and 66. Vanessa-Mae looks at herself with feelings of delight as shown on her face that is made up - see capture 67. Then, in an other movie, Vanessa-Mae at about the same age of 12, is busy in the garden of their family home with an aquarium as her mother enters carrying a dog - capture 68 to 70. Vanessa-Mae tells that according to her mother, the violin was all she needed. Pamela had a fear of Vanessa-Mae being normal. She wanted Vanessa-Mae to be special. Vanessa-Mae tells she had never left the house alone till she was 20, only with a chaperone, a bodyguard. a parent, or someone with whom she worked with.

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12 Return to school
Vanessa-Mae pulled out of school when she was 12 to be home tutored and in order to devote all her time to her career as musician. She returns to The Francis Holland school for girls to breath the atmosphere there - capture 71. She narrates that she went to school when she was 12 only once or twice a month. Her best friend would save her a place next to her for lunch, only never knowing when Vanessa-Mae would show up. In the entrance hall, Vanessa-Mae looks a photo of her year - capture 72 - and she spots 2 of her friends and asking: 'where am I?' Vanessa-Mae also takes a look in the class room where the music lessons took place - captures 73 and 74. At the Holland school, Vanessa-Mae wears the beige mini skirts and matt silver blue jacket.

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13 Family intermezzo 2
There is again a family intermezzo with scenes from family movies. First, Vanessa-Mae is again shown playing at the age of 12 in a white T-shirt - captures 75 to 77. She tells she practices about 4 hours a day - capture 76. Then, also at about age 12 probable, Vanessa-Mae is shown playing with her mother - captures 78 to 81. Vanessa-Mae wears a multi-coloured long dress with a wide bright red blouse over it. Somehow, her face looks as she is wearing full make-up, perhaps in order to learn already aged at 12 not to be distracted by make-up during a performance. Vanessa-Mae tells that she often woke up at 6:30 and went to her mothers room then to start playing early. The voice-over states that Vanessa-Mae's life would have been very different if her mothers role had been less determining.

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14 The brain scan 1
In this chapter, we see Vanessa-Mae travel to Sheffield by train and then from the railway station by cab to the University. Professor Larry Parsons had invited Vanessa-Mae for an experiment during recording of a brain scan - capture 82. Vanessa-Mae has to play her violin in a brain scanner - captures 83 to 86. First, Vanessa-Mae has to play with the fingers of her trained left hand, and then the same piece of music with her untrained right hand. The scanner will record the activity in Vanessa-Mae's brains. Vanessa-Mae has to wait a few days until she can see the results. All data has to be processes by computers first. Here during this experiment, we see Vanessa-Mae wearing a blue jeans and a nice white red spotted sweater and red open high heeled shows.

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15 Family intermezzo 3
The BBC had contacted Pamela with he question whether she would be willing to cooperate with Vanessa-Mae to make the documentary. Vanessa-Mae sits at home when she received the forwarded email message. First we see Vanessa-Ma playing in the living room with her dog Gaspard - capture 87. Then she sits behind a desk reading the email - captures 88 to 90. Pamela basically replies that she feels her mother duties have been fulfilled and that now her daughter is almost 30, that part of her life is over and that she has to move on. Pamela considers the nature versus nurture documentary beyond the call of her mothers duties. Vanessa-Mae comments on the email and she is sure that she can complete this journey by herself - captures 92-92. Vanessa-Mae feels that if her mother, or anyone else, does not appreciate her role a s a mother, then you should not have a child in the first place.

comment by VMSPOS: we can not read the the text of the complete email of Pamela, although Vanessa-Mae reads part of it loudly. However, the conclusions that Vanessa-Mae draws might be a bit too hard. In our mind, it is not too strange that after all these years, Pamela doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of a meeting in the presence of cameras. Perhaps, heeling the wounds need more time and maybe a meeting in a pure private setting will be necessary first to clear the matters. We can only hope that one day, Vanessa-Mae and her mother Pamela will be able to reconcile. Later in this documentary, Vanessa-Mae is surprised with the results of an in-depth personality test that she did when she i told that her mother did agree to do the same test. We assume that Pamela did the test to help Vanessa-Mae, since what is in there for her personally in doing the test as well.

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16 The brain scan 2
Vanessa-Mae hears form professor Parsons that the results of the brain scan are ready for her. She goes to Sheffield again and let Professor Parson explain everything to her. Vanessa-Mae loos to a screen with computer images of her brains. 'Are these my brains?' she asks - captures 93 and 94. The result are revealing. During play with her trained hand, activity in Vanessa-Mae's brains is very limited, as can be monitored by the level of blood transport - captures 95 and 96. This indicates the great ease with which Vanessa-Mae is playing. However, when playing with her untrained hand, brain activity is much larger, as seems logical when you are trying to learn something new - captures 98 and 99. This is an indication that playing with untrained fingers is much more demanding and more blood is needed by the brains to fulfil these tasks. So, here is the difference before and after extensive training visualised. In fact, the scans made when Vanessa-Mae played with the untrained fingers of her right hand mimic how her brain must have functioned when she started to learn to play the violin. Vanessa-Mae then starts to understand the implications of this all when she says: 'to get form there to there must have been all nurture,'  and 'I had n idea that you could get from there to there by just practicing.' During this episode, Vanessa-Mae wears her long dress with round neck and shoulder straps with horizontal black-grey line design. She has her hair tight together in a pony tail on her back. In the conference room with the light dimmed,  while looking at the presented images of her brain, the make-up covering Vanessa-Mae's becomes very visible, especially the liner around her eyes and the excessively use mascara on her lashes in her completely smooth complexion. She looks fantastic in the limited lights.

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17 The psychologist
Next, Vanessa-Mae has an appointment with a psychologist Dr. Thomas - capture 102. Vanessa-Mae asks herself the question that if training is so critical, why aren't we all successful musicians? Dr. Thomas thinks the answers are easy to give. He believes it all comes to personality and that personality determines how someone acts under certain conditions. He will put Vanessa-Mae through several tests to define what kind of personality she has. During the personality tests, Vanessa-Mae is dressed in a black pair of trousers and an elegant  V-necked sleeveless shirt in grey with a slight undertone of green that consists of a satin shoulder part and silk to cover her upper body. She has large earrings with green precious stones. Her face looks quite made up.

The first test is to determine whether Vanessa-Mae has an introvert or extrovert personality. Introverts are efficient and suitable for hours of isolation and practicing. Most musician are introvert, which means they are able to concentrate and perform well when the is quietness and silence around them. Extroverts are able to do well under pressurising and demanding  circumstances; they like challenges. For Vanessa-Mae has to read a text and then answer various multiple-choice questions related to the text. First, she sits in complete isolation with only Dr Thomas present to observe her. Obviously, Vanessa-Mae is quite restless and looking around her frequently - captures 103 to 105. It even seems she is having a lot of fun under these conditions - see capture 108 for a smile on her face! Then Dr. Thomas opens the windows to let noise from the street come in, he puts a radio on the table with loud music, and a cleaning ladies is vacuum the carpet. Vanessa-Mae works herself through the list of questions, and despite all the disturbances, she appears to feel at ease and to do well - captures 106 to 108. After completing the test, Vanessa-Mae and Dr Thomas sit down to discuss the results. Surprisingly, Vanessa-Mae turned out to be a real extrovert as she performed much better in a noisy environment. In isolation, she had 4 correct answers out of 10: '4 out of 10, that is real bad,' she says, pulling a face - capture 110. Surprising and in contradiction with many research results, Vanessa-Mae appears to be a real extrovert, whereas most classical musicians are introverts.

Then an other test is presented to challenge Vanessa-Mae - captures 111 and 112. Dr Thomas shows her a fantasy painting of herself playing the violin. Nest to the painting is a incomplete replica of the painting and she needs to finish that in as much detail as possible, as accurate as she can. But their will be a element of competition introduced. She has to compete with her personal assistant Giles and and her make-up designer Jenna. Giles and Jenna stand on the left and right side of Vanessa-Mae. Vanessa-Mae immediately cries out loud: 'I have the best position,' (with respect to the original that they all three have to copy as accurate as possible. Dr. Thomas gives all 3 competitors 20 minutes. Vanessa-Mae has a heart beat counter to monitor her reactions. At the start immediately, Vanessa-Mae grabs the rulers to measure distances between the eyes, she counts the number of lines on the violin and the bow out load. Obviously, Vanessa-Mae has eye for the details of the painting. In the meantime, Vanessa-Mae also start to get irritated because she thinks the pencils are no good. However, after a while, Dr. Thomas enters the room stating that he decided to limit time to no more than 5 minutes left. Now, Vanessa-Mae starts to stress out because she is realising that she has no time enough to complete everything: she starts to hurry and finishing the painting roughly, leaving all details unattended. Vanessa-Mae jokes that she feels cheated and she demand s a replay. But despite her jokes, the heart beat monitor unambiguously shows that she is really agitated since her heart beat rhythm has doubled because of the stress - capture 116 and 117. Then the test is stopped by Dr. Thomas. Then the results of all 3 competitors are shown. Vanessa-Mae makes fun over the drawing made by her make-up designer Jenna - capture 118. Dr. Thomas analyses the results with his observations. his conclusion is that Vanessa-Mae is a sheer perfectionist and that she is very very competitive. Vanessa-Mae admits that, though she didn't succeed in being a perfectionist, she rather does less but to a perfect level than a lot to a lower quality. The aim of the test was to establish whether Vanessa-Mae is a perfectionist with an eye for detail, to see if she is competitive and structured.

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18 Transformation
Now the question remains how this all influences and explains Vanessa-Mae transition from a promising young traditional classical musician - capture 119 - to a world wide superstar who plays and combines various musical styles and concepts with so much ease  - capture 120. Dr. Thomas thinks there must be something else in Vanessa-Mae personality that can explain her radical transformation.

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19 The race track
To find out how far Vanessa-Mae is willing to push herself. Dr. Thomas wants to know if Vanessa-Mae is a sensation seeker, someone who thrives on danger and new. Was she pushed into her controversial career, or brought her natural character were she is today. Dr. Thomas wants to test Vanessa-Mae's speed on the race track against competition of a selected low sensation seeker, a selected average sensation seeker, and a high sensation seeker. Below, Vanessa-Mae is shown on the race track - captures 121 to 124. An after the test discussing the results with Dr. Thomas - captures 125 to 126. Capture 127 shows Vanessa-Mae walking around reflecting on the results of this day. Now, during the race, Vanessa-Mae appears to do well but would she turn out to be a speed freak or somewhat of a Sunday driver? When asked afterwards about her expectations: 'I think I did Ok basically.' The result is that Vanessa-Mae was fastest by a solid 14 seconds a round. Vanessa-Mae: 'That is so cool, I didn't want to be girlie on this.' Dr. Thomas tells Vanessa-Mae that according her score she is an exceptionally high sensation seeker, even higher than many sportsmen. 'Let me make this clear, this is not only about pace and being fast, it about being fearless!' Dr. Thomas adds. And he explains that classical musicians in general tend to be not very open to experiment, they are interested in art.  Vanessa-Mae concludes for herself - capture 127 - that this somehow reflects who she is. She likes to be different, her whole youth and current living is not very conventional and normal. She guesses that this simple is who I am. She says: 'I don't seek to be controversial, I 'just end up being controversial.'

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20 So mother, so daughter
Dr. Thomas wants a concluding meeting with Vanessa-Mae to discuss once more all the results of her personality test. Vanessa-Mae shows up in a white short sleeved shirt and light red coloured lips - captures 128, 129, 132 and 133. Dr Thomas explains that the results for her tests show that compare to the average population she is higher in extroversion, higher in conciseness, and when it comes to openness to experimenting she strikes far ahead. Moreover, Vanessa-Mae has a dominating personality. Dr. Thomas feels that this combination and her talents explains her successes. Then Dr. Thomas reveals that he also contacted Pamela and that he asked her to do the same extensive personality tests. Pamela agreed to this. 'Oh, that is cool,' Vanessa-Mae replies to this news. Dr. Thomas explains that Pamela's results greatly resemble those of Vanessa-Mae. Both have almost identical profiles. Vanessa-Mae feels good about this as it shows that you are who you are and that you can't change it. She doesn't want to change it because she would be a different person then and she is quite happy things as they are right now in her life.

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21 Vanessa-Mae's concluding remarks
Finally, we see Vanessa-Mae walking in a park dressed in a long sleeved T-shirt with blue and white stripes. She rethinks the outcome and consequences of her search for answers about the origins of her talents and musicality. how much did Pamela contribute to all this. Vanessa-Mae concludes that it wasn't a normal childhood. To be cut off from so many things, made that she didn't know who she really was, and that she didn't had the  opportunities to make her own choices until she was pretty old. Vanessa-Mae concludes that there is nothing to be ashamed of that it was her own sweat and blood that brought her were she is today, even if her mother played an important role too. Vanessa-Mae answers the question again whether it is nature or nurture that made her who she is: this time she sets the balance even with a 50 to 50 split between nature and nurture.
 

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