Mike Cooprider Sound
Secret Kindness Agents
The show opens with a prologue featuring the Secret Kindness Agents deep into a mission. I wanted to make a track with a rhythmic thumping baseline. I added drum sections to give the track some movement and variation. This track was used in stems, taking out and adding in instruments as the scene went on.
The Recon Track underscored a scene of Agents doing reconnoissance around their school looking for missed opportunities of kindness. I liked the idea of taking a minimal approach to this scene. I made an electronic drum beat to give bounce and rhythm to the scene.
Making the training montage, I set out to make a track that felt like something you might work out to. The percussion takes on a kick and snare beat that drives the track while the guitar section provides an overlaying score reminiscent of the spy and action movies of the 80's and 90's. Lastly, the drum fill, to breakup and give some variance for one of the longer scenes of the show.
This track was used to underscore two scenes. In the first scene the Secret Kindness Agents were discreetly placing nice notes in classmates notebooks. The second scene featured a sprat group of agents stealthily picking trash on the school playground. This was chronologically the agents first mission with relatively low stakes. I wanted to create something that was more upbeat and "poppy" but still fell under the musical stylings used in the show.
Pictured above is a screenshot of the multitrack file of the School Hallway track.
Making a world premiere at The Rose Children's Theater in Omaha Nebraska, Secret Kindness Agents was a new work I had the privilege of designing. The show followed four elementary aged students as they went on secret kindness missions to make their school a kinder place. I took the opportunity to compose loopable music to underscore the sections of students sneaking around completing their missions. To add to the world of the play, I made ambience tracks to play when the students missions would be interrupted.
*Costume Design by Zach Kloppenborg
This track underscores two very tumultuous scenes where we see a team of agents unsuccessfully attempt to convince their peers to attend a choir concert, and a second group fails to bring friendship to those who are lonely. The agents' cover almost gets blown multiple times to emphasize the frantic messiness of this I created a track that has a fast pace percussion section. Continuing this idea of a chaotic and frantic score, I made a driving synth track that creates this urgency.
Occasionally, there would be scenes of the agent regrouping at their headquarters. In talking with the director, Matt Gutschick, this "headquarters" is likely a maintenance closet, so I started with the low hum of an HVAC unit. I wanted to find a way to blend the real world with the "secret Agent" world, so I added the sounds of servo motors to make it sound like some gadget or machine was working in the background.
There are two scenes that take place on the school playground. I wanted to create a soundscape for these moments when we are taken out of the spy world. Thinking of recess as a child, I started creating this soundscape with birds chirping and the sound of dogs barking in the distance. I added the sounds of a basketball game being played. I then layered in the sound of midday traffic, the low rumbles of a work truck and the whoosh of wind from a sedan as they drive by. Lastly, I added the sound of a lawn mower to compliment this early spring recess mix.
There are scenes that take place outside of the world of being secret agents. To supplement these scenes and make the world of the school more full, I created a school hallway ambience. I thought back on my middle school days. Hearing the sound of friends filling each other in on the happenings of their days, lockers opening and closing, sometimes a little forcefully, and a school intercom cutting through it all to make announcements.