Jeffrey Hepker, lead composer forZoo Street Music, the Los Angeles based music company, has composed, performed and recorded the score for Jim Wilson's documentary Laffit: All About Winning.
The film produced and directed by Academy Award© winner Jim Wilson (Dances With Wolves), chronicles the inspirational story behind the Panamanian-born, Hall-Of-Fame jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr. Dozens of the world's greatest jockeys, trainers, owners and sportswriters relive forty years of racing history accompanied by Kevin Costner's narration.
The project demanded variety and depth from the score in order to balance the film's many locations with its dramatic emotional elements. The story opens in Panama with images of Laffit as a child, then moves into locales in California and New York including histories most notable horse racing tracks. "Scoring Laffit as a child in Panama required music that first helped establish the location, and second illustrated that this small unassuming boy was destined to become a legend" says Hepker. "To accomplish this, I combined orchestral material with traditional Panamanian instruments then weaved the same indigenous percussion, accordion and Latin guitar throughout the score."
Recalling their collaboration as director and composer on Laffit, Hepker says: "Jim was not only able to relay the feel he needed from the music, but he would often supply me with such succinct notes that I was free to concentrate on other details that help make a great score." Wilson reciprocated the admiration for Jeffrey's work - "Music is an enormous part of any production and the composer, Jeffrey Hepker was up to the task. He produced 50 minutes of very eclectic material, from Panamanian beats to classical numbers.
Jeffrey also had the assistance of Zoo Street's Marc Jackson, who served as Music Supervisor and guitarist on the score.
Laffit: All About Winning is now available on DVD and was produced by Six Furlongs Films and distributed by Genius Entertainment.
Jeffrey Hepker graduated from Berklee in 2000 with a Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring. Jeffrey scored the feature Homecoming (Painkiller films) currently airing on PBS. His recent television scores include Dane Cook's Tourgasm currently airing on HBO and U.S. of ANT now airing on Logo, and Houdini: Unlocking the Mystery (History Channel). Jeffrey has supplied scores & cues for a countless number of film trailers, television specials and DVDs.
Zoo Street Music is a production music company that creates and licenses original compositions for film, television, marketing campaigns and DVD.The company has a growing music library and also specializes in custom music and main title composition. www.zoostreet.com