A Hot Lead: Original Soundtrack

A Hot Lead: Original Soundtrack is the soundtrack for the 2017 Kidsmakemovies2 film, A Hot Lead, composed by Wesley Davies.

Track Listing

All music composed by Wesley Davies.

Side One - Original Music
No.	Title	Length
1.	"A Hot Lead"	0:58
2.	"Totally not a crescendo"	0:07
3.	"Carter... Devin Carter"	1:01
4.	"Devin gets a door closed in his face"	0:07
5.	"The Informant"	0:16
6.	"Johnny’s Warehouse 1"	2:24
7.	"Johnny’s Warehouse 2"	1:02
8.	"Une Piste Chaud" (Lyrics by Wesley Davies)	4:17
9.	"Johnny’s House"	1:53
10.	"Cluz’s Confession"	0:18
11.	"Cluz... Tom Cluz"	1:05
12.	"Lewis Gets an Office"	0:18
13.	"Lewis... Walter Lewis"	1:02
14.	"Spooky.aif"	0:13
15.	"Action!"	0:24
Total length:		15:25

Disc Two - Additional Music
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Abject Terror" (Performed by Paul Lewis)	1:20
2.	"I Fought the Law" (Performed by The Clash)	2:38
3.	"Wont Get Fooled Again" (Performed by The Who)	8:32
4.	"Water Lily" (Performed by Kevin Macleod)	2:10

Note that track lengths listed for Disc Two denote the length of the full song, not its duration within the film itself.

Other songs were used in the film, such as stock music from Final Cut, which was used for the montage and the credits of the film. Additionally, the song “I am the Chronographer”, also composed by Wesley Davies for The Sequence, is used.

Background

By the time filming was wrapping up at the end of May, Nick had already edited a substantial portion of the film, though in the following days he spent nearly twenty hours working on editing. It was not until this point that Wes and Nick began to focus on music for the film.

Nick gave Wesley no direction when it came to the film's music (much to Wes’s pleasure), so he had to come up with on his own a distinct sound that would fit with the noir parody. He eventually settled forr a synth-heavy jazz sound, primarily inspired by the soundtrack to “Body Heat”. Since filming began, Wes had been actively thinking of possible motifs and thematic elements, but did not write any music until he had received a rough cut of the film. Nick sent a 27:19-long largely incomplete cut to Wes on May 31, 2017. The film’s deadline was approaching fast, which should have given him five days to compose and perform a score. However, Wes was going to be camping from June 2-4, so he was left with a mere two days to create the soundtrack.

On the first day of soundtrack production, Wesley wrote and performed the track, A Hot Lead (which was never used in the film). In Nick’s rough edit, he implemented Ari’s suggestion of playing an Italian opera during the scene in Johnny B. Oy’s. Fearing copyright, however, he opted to put the volume on the track at a minimum. Noting the inaudibility of the opera, Wes asked if he could compose something to take its place. Nick agreed, and Wes set about writinm the track, Une Piste Chaud (originally entitled “Una Pista Caliente”). The song was written in English and carefully translated to Spanish, to be performed and recorded by Crystal Hernandez the following day. Unfortunately, Crystal was unable to perform the song, so Wes was forced to translate the song to French, a language he is well-versed in, and recorded the opera himself.

From 3:00 p.m. on June 1st to 3:00 a.m. the following morning, Wesley wrote and performed every track that appeared in the film. Due to the time constraints, every song was performed using electronic instrumentation through Garageband, with the sole exception of Une Piste Chaud. Wesley's rough cut lacked many scenes that still required music, most notable the final shootout at the lipstick warehouse, resulting in the three looping tracks of Cluz's Confession, Action!, and Spooky.aif.

Reception

The soundtrack was well-received by all. The most popular song is Johnny's Warehouse 1, which is many of the cast's favorite. Joey and Wesley are both fans of the track, A Hot Lead, despite its exclusion from the final version. In an unreleased video in which Lucan Stargiotti reviews the film, he praises the soundtrack as one of the best parts. Wesley is very proud of the soundtrack, especially in being able to produce over 15 minutes of original music in two days. He views a lot of the tracks as rough drafts that he may return to for either a sequel or future projects.

Usage Outside of A Hot Lead

Occasionally, the score for A Hot Lead has been used outside of the film. The track “Spooky.aif” is a prominent part of the sketch The Great Kidnap of ‘43.

Several of the tracks are used in A Very Hot Lead: PWN #13, including “Cluz... Tom Cluz”, “A Hot Lead”, and “Johnny’s Warehouse 1”. The operatic piece, “Une Piste Chaud” is not used, though it is directly discussed.

Trivia

• The entire soundtrack was written in less than two days.
• Devin Carter, Tom Cluz, and Walter Louis each have thematic instruments, being saxophone, oboe, and acoustic guitar, respectively.
• Wesley had never seen the script, so he thought Walter Louis's last name was spelled Lewis when naming his tracks.
• The track "'Totally not a crescendo'" references Nick asking Wesley to write "a crescendo" for the scene. Despite it not being a crescendo, he knew what Nick meant.
• A bonus track, "'Life or Death'", was originally supposed to play instead of "'Johnny's House'", but Wesley scrapped the original version because its melodic line beared too much resemblance to Chicago's "'25 or 6 to 4'"