Warburton, who was born in 1964 and raised in Worcestershire, graduated in the mid-1980s from the Tonmeister music and sound recording course at the University of Surrey.
The documentary Artie Shaw - Quest for Perfection, written and presented by Russell Davies and produced by Warburton was shortlisted for a Grierson Award in 2004.
Another joint production with Lewis-Smith, Here's a Piano I Prepared Earlier: Experimental Music in the 1960s achieved Grierson shortlisting in 2005.
He worked on the series of seven occasional documentaries by actor Keith Allen made for Channel 4 Television, either as editor or producer, and is co-producer and editor of Allen's feature-film documentary Unlawful Killing, which has Lewis-Smith as writer and executive producer.
This movie made its debut in the Marché du Film in Cannes in May 2011.