I first discovered Kid’s Story, a derivative animation of The Matrix, and was drawn to its plot: a teenager,  guided by Neo  (the  original  film’s  protagonist)  via  a  urgent  phone warning,  escapes Agent pursuit by  leaping  from  a  building  within the  Matrix. At the time  I was  listening to a lot of electronic albums, such as Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin. I felt  the Drum & Bass style of this album fits the action scene very well, so I tried to implement  this idea in this animation score.

I opened with an  808 lo-fi hip-hop drum pattern to  set the tone for the mundane school corridor  scenes,  with   a  cowbell  accent  every  four  bars.   As  the   scene   shifted  to   the classroom—cutting back and forth between close-ups of the teacher writing on the blackboard and  the  boy,  a  sculpture  synth  comes  in.  it  started  with  just  one  note  or  interval,  then gradually added more, building a sense of mystery. When the boy’s phone rang, the drums dropped out entirely—only a sustained Mk I Flanger, tremolo violin, and faint high-pitched melodic fragments remained, exaggerating how the ring tone is standing out from the quiet classroom. Once the boy hung up and the teacher turned back to the blackboard, the drums resumed their original rhythm.

When the phone rang a second time, soft violin tremolo returned. I loaded the cowbell into a quick sampler, transposed it across different notes, and had it play rhythmic phrases when the boy spoke; the drums would then kickback in right as the camera cut back to the teacher. As the cowbell grew more melodically active, it mirrored the boy’s inner fear. Once the Agents appeared, the cowbell evolved into a full melody, punctuated by sharp hits—signaling the boy’s decision to run out of the classroom. On the final cowbell hit, as the boy jumped up and ran across the desks, a bass sample entered, playing an A major chord in the key of C# to evoke that urgent feeling of escape.

As the boy jumped out the window, just before he landed on the corridor floor, I used a reverse cymbal to build tension. The second he touched down, the drums shifted into a full Drum & Bass groove. Two distinct Alchemy bass sounds doubled each other, paired with a bouncy ES2  synth (set to a short attack, no  sustain, and  subtle release) playing a quirky melody. When the boy started skateboarding, this melody was taken over by a bright, high- frequency Alchemy synth. As he leaped over boxes, a delayed triangle-wave sound from the ES2 kicked in—emphasizing the height of his jumps. During this sequence, the basslines and high melody played off each other, ramping up the intensity. After a brief white flash cutting to  the  Agents,  the  drum  groove  slowed  back  to  lo-fi  hip-hop,  anchored  by  a  lingering oscillating sound from the EFM1 synth to keep the tension alive. After he jumps up to the table, I use a sudden tempo change and a modulation of rhythm into a dubstep style groove. The screaming bass conveys the intensity and desperation of his emotions. When he escapes into the girls bathroom, the music stops, and resumes with a scream and the sample  of a glass bottle breaking. The glass sample then turns into a rhythm.

When the boy is climbing up to the roof, only the bass and a few other sounds remains, reflects his loneliness. When he sees the agents, a drone bass comes in, then a five piece string section plays a melody in unison above this drone. As the boy falls to his apparent death,  all  strings hold  one unison note,  separated  in  octaves,  according to the respective instruments. The violin and viola starts to bend micro-tonally, gradually becoming more and more out of tune with the rest of the string section. This gradual progression into dissonance brings a sense of nausea and vertigo. Just as the boy hits the concrete and the scene ends, the strings slowly bends back to the unison pitch, crescendos to a close.