CLINTON SHORTER

        Clinton Shorter was hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the "Young Composers to Watch." His original music to the block buster, "District 9" is described by film critic Kirk Honeycutt as a "magnificent score." Shorter has worked on over 500 episodes for television, numerous commercials, indie films and original music for the Olympics.

        The Award winning Vancouver native, developed a love for music at a young age. While in high school, he was granted a transfer to another school with a music studio where he spent all his free time honing his skills writing and mixing in the studio. Clinton entered college as a music major specializing in Jazz Studies, but left to pursue writing music with an experimental rock trio.

Clinton Shorter said his love for film music began when he heard the score to the film "Never Cry Wolf," scored by Mark Isham. "It changed my life and made me want to go down the road of film scoring." Shorter then reentered college to study music composition and synthesis. His first break came when he landed a job as an assistant to one of the most prolific film and television composers in Canada. It would be several years before he would begin gaining recognition on his own, which occurred when he scored his first feature film, the award winning Come Together.

        Shorter began scoring digital shorts for friend and director Trevor Cawood. Cawood introduced Shorter to a young director named Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp later hired Shorter as his composer for commercials and short films. One of those collaborative projects was the short film, "Alive in Joburg" which was the catalyst for "District 9."

        Academy Award winning director Peter Jackson saw the short and came in as the producer of the feature with Blomkamp set as director. For "District 9," Shorter worked closely with Blomkamp, "I spent the first several weeks experimenting with every African instrument I could think of. We incorporated African male vocals with some percussion from the region combined with other elements to give the film the darkness and edge it required. I knew from the beginning that I was going to go with more of a hybrid score of live and synthesized instruments. Thereʼs a "mutation" of sorts in the film and I wanted to have that mirrored in the music." Peter Jackson referred to Shorterʼs music as a "brilliant score."

        Clinton Shorter and his family currently reside in Los Angeles.