"Their voices. Their story. Together for the first time in a groundbreaking documentary and album that will touch hearts around the world... and save lives in Haiti."

"Spirit of Haiti", the ambitious recording project and brainchild of HMMA Best New Composer winner Zain Effendi to raise much needed funds for the devastated island nation, has blossomed into something much, much bigger than originally planned. Acclaimed producer/director Daniel Catullo of DC3 Global Films will be working with Zain to create a documentary on the extrodinary power of music of the island nation.

The HMMA is proud to support and help bring to fruition this truly unique, collaborative effort for such a critical and worthy cause. We will continue to provide updates on this amazing production.

During the summer of 2006, composer Zain Effendi recorded various musical artists in Eastern Haiti.  Initially, the intent was to create a musical score for another documentary. The film had yet to materialize when, unexpectedly, there was a devastating earthquake in January 2010. This event compelled the production to return to its recordings....

The narrative thread of this film will involve following a documentary crew, who had recorded live music performances for another film, returning four years later to Haiti to see if those singers, musicians, and locations have survived the earthquake. The intent would be to interview and record them again. To see how their lives have been affected by the earthquake and how music has helped them survive their new reality. In a perfect world, we would have the opportunity to possibly bring them out of the country for a high profile performance on the world stage, a true triumph of the will. A possible consideration is the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

To give context to the impact of this story, we must understand the country itself.  Already the poorest country in the Americas, this tragedy cost the population nearly 250,000 causalities. Broken politically, economically, and socially, one consistent theme has held the people together: music. It has been said that within a half hour of the quake, singing could be heard in different areas throughout the country. The Haitian culture embraces music as a true voice of expression during times of great emotion and uses it as a foundation for their everyday lives, seen daily in homes, churches and villages.  We look to share this with our audience.

The visual look should be multi-formatted, a mixture of film and video, and colorful, influenced by the intense colors of the Caribbean. A strong element should be integrating "living" portraits of Haitians, showing them living inside the frame of our medium, obviously struggling to survive yet a people with tremendous pride and purity. Their eyes tell a thousand stories every time they look into the lens and we need to capture that. Much of this honesty will come across when coupled with the powerful music we will have. Music and visuals in perfect harmony while we tell the story of the Haitian people who continue to defy the odds in the face of tremendous adversity.

HMMA 2009 award winner for Best Original Score for the film "District 9", Clinton Shorter is enjoying the glow of four oscar nominations for the surprise boxoffice hit film. Clinton is just one of many composers, songwriters and bands that are experiencing the "HMMA effect" from being a part of the awards and conference organization. Emerging and established talents are benifiting from the fresh platform that HMMA provides. Here's a recent press release on the HMMA honored composer and film...

HUMAN COMPOSER SETS TONE FOR THE OSCAR NOMINATED SCI-FI DRAMA "DISTRICT 9"
(Earth - Los Angeles, CA) Film Composer Clinton Shorter scores "District 9" produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film, based on Blomkamp’s short film, Alive in Joburg, centers on the fallout caused by a group of alien refugees stranded on Earth (in Johannesburg) and forced into a segregation camp (the title comes from District 6, a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town infamous for the forced removal of 60,000 residents in the 70s by the Apartheid regime). The Academy Award nominated film blends documentary style with traditional shooting techniques. Shorter, recipient of Best Original Score - Film award at the 2009 Hollywood Music In Media Awards, and named by Hollywood Reporter “Next Generation of Film Composers to Watch,” has worked with the director on several projects. “I had worked with Neill [Blomkamp] over the years on his commercials and short films. When he called in late 2008 and asked me if I'd score his first feature I was all over it.”

For “District 9,” Shorter collaborated closely with Blomkamp, “I spent the first several weeks experimenting with every African instrument I could think of. Neill was really pushing me to give the score an African sound; it was quite a task to maintain an African feel but give the film the darkness and edge it required. We incorporated African male vocals with some percussion from the region combined with other elements. With “District 9,” I knew from the beginning that I was going to go with more of a hybrid score of live and synthesized instruments. Without giving too much away there's a "mutation" of sorts in the film and I wanted to have that mirrored in the music” Shorter also scored the short film which was the impetus of the feature but, as the composer said, “For the short, we hired a singer and used various orchestral libraries. The sound for the feature is quite different.”

I had known Neill for a few years leading up to that short. A friend of mine worked at the same CG house that he was working at, Neill was only 22 at the time but everyone at the office could see the talent and felt one day he would be a super star.
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