Composer Osei Essed on Will Smith-hosted series ‘Amend: The Fight For America’

As Amend: The Fight For America arrived on Netflix less than a month after US President Joe Biden’s swearing-in, composer Osei Essed feels the timing was just right given the changing socio-political atmosphere.

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The six-part limited series, hosted by Will Smith, follows the history of how the 14th Amendment — a part of the American Constitution still not fully understood by the majority — catalysed freedom fights, from Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr to Gloria Steinem, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and President Barack Obama. Amend also brims with archival footage, photographs, rendered animations and emotive narrations from academics such as historian Christopher Bonner, University of Maryland, and Prof Joanna Grossman, SMU Dedman School of Law.

Scoring for the project proved a complex experience for Essed, whose name is attached to documentaries such as Finders Keepers (2015), Emmy-winning Jim: The James Foley Story (2016), and Peabody-winning True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality (2019).

Over a video call the New York-based composer says, “There were so many moving parts and because there were four producers, there were a lot of conversations. Everyone working on Amend put so much of themselves into it.”

‘Everyone has a stake’

When Essed first signed on, there was talk of Will Smith being involved but as scoring and production progressed, other big names such as Mahershala Ali, Randall Park, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Yara Shahidi and Willow Smith joined the project. “Everyone has a stake in the subject matter and the outcome, especially because the conversation around the 14th Amendment is not done,” he insists. As a composer, he believes within the documentary space, his responsibility goes beyond just scoring — he is a part of the storytelling.

Randall Park on the set of Netflix limited series ‘Amend: The Fight for America’
 
| Photo Credit:
Netflix

Due to the contemplative nature of the show, Essed leveraged restraint as a powerful tool to pull off a score that further immersed audiences. But he says this was liberating and he was able to experiment to stay within the parameters he set for himself. “I just had to react to the dramatic arc of the stories,” he explains, “and we all had strong ideas about creating this in an honest way. I also had to be mindful, given the evolving diversity of America through these years, of how the music suited a certain group being represented, for example, with Operation Wetback [immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing] and the Chinese Exclusion Act, we had to allow for the soundscape to react to these events, but subtly so. It still had to come from an American place which was just more truthful.”

India-made projects

• Essed also pitched in his skills for Academy Award-winning short documentary Period: End Of Sentence (2019). “Seeing that kind of recognition of that scale, and watching the film and how it came together was wonderful,” he comments. “Working a documentary, you don’t get many opportunities to tell joyful stories that don’t end up feeling like a commercial for something. But this is such a joyful story.”

The series comprises a fair bit if source music as well, and Essed had to interact instinctively with these sounds. “The source music has its role, and as we transition through the series, we understand where we have to move on from it while treating those music pieces with respect and gentleness,” he points out.

Sometimes, there is not even any score for certain scenes. “The most effective scores allow plenty of room for silence. There are so many pivots in this score, especially in two-minute sections. Taking breaths in between these dense moments is so important so that things can sink in,” Essed points out.

In Amend, there are rendered animated visuals and scoring for those was an interesting process for Essed, “It was unique to dive into those sections which came later. When you’re scoring for these different mediums (photographs, animations, explainers), you have to see what the filmmaker’s vision is as well. You have to leave room for a lot of openness when you are scoring for something that is developed at the same time as your inputs.”

Composer Osei Essed
 

When it comes to composing for films versus series, Essed says “in a series, there are more bursts and switches between tones in short periods of time. In film, most of the stuff I have done has a bit more space.”

Ask Essed which iconic composer of the past would have been a great composer for a series like Amend and he responds, “From an American point-of-view, it would be interesting to have a blend of Duke Ellington with perhaps Miles Davis. I wouldn’t go back very far because storytelling has changed so much. If they were thrown into the modern day, they would probably ask ‘what is going on?’ But those guys could definitely rock it.”

Essed is thankful that Amend was released on a global OTT platform so that audiences can delve into simultaneous conversations about race, gender, immigration, freedom and more on an international scale. “It’s humbling to know the true reach of it. Watching Amend for the first time as a finished product was amazing. Working in the documentary space, this series has some seriously well-reputed academics who I’ve seen across other works, but here they are in one project,” laughs Essed. Even more so, having been born in South America and being part of an immigrant family, he feels even more connected with the series.