WRITING
Jadea Kelly is a Canadian songwriter now living in Los Angeles. Her latest EP, MWI – the official soundtrack for the
documentary film Met While Incarcerated – is available now and was recently awarded Best Score and Music at the
Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards. www.darthjadea.com.
By Jadea Kelly
Stepping into Film Scoring
C
omposing the score for Met While
Incarcerated was an incredible
experience. It unfolded organically
and opened my eyes to the world
of cinematic scoring. Met While Incarcerated, or
MWI, is a documentary that follows the lives of
three prison inmates, one of whom is on death
row, and their partners in the outside world.
These couples are unique because they met
during one partner’s incarceration.
Development
In the world of publishing and sync place-
ments, a director or publishing company will
often source songs for TV/film that are already
recorded from a number of different artists,
but this experience was different; I was ap-
proached directly by director Catherine Legge
to compose the entirety of the film based on
a simple synopsis, unreleased footage, and
actual love letters between the inmates and
prison wives. Catherine had heard me on CBC
Radio and had been following my career for
several years. Very random and unplanned but
I’m still very grateful.
Prior to this I had been working solely in
the Canadian folk music circuit, performing at
various folk festivals and soft-seat theatres and
planning writing trips to American hubs like
Nashville and L.A. I now live in L.A. and am still
in complete awe of its opportunity and wealth
of talent.
Met While Incarcerated aired on the Doc-
umentary Channel on March 31, 2019, and I
have since been awarded Best Score and Mu-
sic by the Hollywood International Indepen-
dent Documentary Awards. It also premiered
at a number of North American film festivals,
including the LA Femme Film Festival in Los
58 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
Angeles, Hamilton Film Festival in Hamilton,
ON, and the New Hope Film Festival in New
Hope, PA.
Production
What I enjoyed most about composing
the MWI soundtrack was the creative and
financial freedom it provided. Much of the
documentary was funded through gov-
ernment grants, which allowed me to hire
producers and musicians based in Nashville,
L.A., and Toronto.
For example, the director requested a
version of “Amazing Grace” to score the open-
ing montage. At the time, I was writing in
Nashville, so I approached a fellow Nashville-
based Canadian, David Kalmusky, about the
idea. We decided to go above and beyond
and track four versions of the song, each with
its own aesthetic.
The first version, for example, was the
“1940s version,” which was tracked with
an old resonator guitar and recorded to
an actual vinyl cutter. The end result was
timeless.
As for the other songs, “Bad Like Me” was
written in Nashville with Robby Hecht. We
wrote the song with the documentary in
mind but it also came from a personal ex-
perience. On the other hand, “Make Peace
with It” was not written with the film in
mind. After I wrote the song with Garrison
Starr and Tim Abraham in L.A., I sent the
director the demo version from my phone.
For her, the song spoke candidly of the film
and the characters’ attempt to “make peace”
with their partners’ imprisonment and the
judgement they faced from their communi-
ty and workplace.
Post-Release
Since the release of these singles, I have ex-
perienced such positive feedback and online
streaming improvement. Had it not been for
the film, I may have set these songs aside.
Scoring for TV/film is a great way to widen
your audience. Had this film been picked
up by Netflix, that would have exposed my
soundtrack to millions of viewers across
the world – an invaluable promotion. Still,
airing on the CBC documentary channel has
presented my music to a national audience.
It has increased my social media following
considerably.
Overall, this project truly lifted my sails. It
provided an opportunity to write outside of
my own personal experiences and form an
opinion on the North American prison system.
This documentary provides a glimpse into the
day-to-day life of an incarcerated inmate and
the sometimes torturous reality for a partner in
the outside world.
If you are a songwriter and interested in
composing for film, I highly recommend the
Canadian Film Centre’s composer residency,
also called the Slaight Family Music Lab at the
Canadian Film Centre. Several of my friends
have taken part in this and now work in Los
Angeles as film composers for Netflix original
productions like Jessica Jones. There are also a
number of composer-related courses offered
at institutions like Humber College in Toronto.
That’s a great way to meet like-minded artists
and build a community.
Lastly, I encourage all aspiring artists and/
or composers to network amongst all creative
groups. Co-writing, for example, introduces
you to unexpected lyrical content but also
widens your network in different cities.