Angelina Jolie, Wyclef Jean & The Girl In The Pink Dress

As I reflect back on January 12, 2010, the earthquake that rocked my beloved, Haiti, has been on been mind every day for three hundred and sixty five days.  I have thought long and hard on how to put my feelings into words.  Instead of my personal reflection of the devastation the nation has seen for the past year, I came across something I wrote on January 12, 2005 (crazy, right?) that I would like to share.
 
Quick background:  Before working for Russell Simmons as his political director and co-President of GlobalGrind, I directed and produced films.  In 2004, I made my first of over thirty trips to Haiti with Wyclef Jean to co-direct a documentary with my long-time friend, Rebecca Chaiklin, about Wyclef’s journey to bring peace to his country.  During the filming process, we were in LA and had the chance to meet Angelina Jolie, who later asked Rebecca and I to be one of the twenty-five camera crews she would send around the world to film the same three minutes in time for a documentary she was directing.  We agreed…a quick side project that sounded like a lot of fun.  The pictures that accompany this story are from a subsequent trip Angelina and Brad Pitt made with us to Haiti in January of 2006.
 

January 12, 2005
 
3 minutes of sunlight behind a girl in a pink dress.
 
It has taken me quite some time to truly reflect on my latest trip to Haiti.  As it was not my first time to Haiti, I expected to experience similar emotions as I did during my first trip with Wyclef Jean in November.  However, this time without Wyclef  for the first few days, our trip felt somehow different.  I was no longer running through the streets trying to catch up with Wyclef; this time I could get the chance to SEE Haiti.
 
As I have never personally met Angelina, I was not sure what to make of this incredible challenge she had decided to undertake with her documentary to film three minutes of the same time in twenty-five different locations around the world.
 
Our location: Port Au Prince, Haiti.  Our time: 7:00 AM – 7:03AM.
 

I awoke at a ridiculous hour, preparing the camera, sound, etc. for the day.  Wyclef was on Jay Leno the night before performing the song from Hotel Rwanda, so everyone in Haiti who has a television stayed up to watch Clef and Jerry Wonder (his producer and cousin) play on Leno.  I came down to the front of the Hotel Montana, where we staying, to meet to find our driver and translator, Rigo and Francoise.  Of course, like on any other good documentary shoot, they showed up thirty five minutes late, 6:35 a.m.  But, here was the catch… Our camera had a clock in it, so we couldn’t cheat…twenty five people all over the world were going to be filming the exact same three minutes, and we didn’t want be the ones to miss it.  The day before Rebecca and I had found an interesting kid who we agreed to meet at 7:00AM, so we could film him preparing for school…but at this point, there was no way were gonna make it to his house.  SCREWED!