I’m Cooper Wright, and my passion for visual storytelling began when I wrote, directed and produced my first movie at age 10.
While producing TV commercials in NYC – for Richard Avedon and brands like L’Oreal – I discovered how much I loved creative problem-solving (e.g. making a Pringles potato chip fly in the days before digital FX).
I then worked in Hong Kong, writing a children’s television series. That experience led to me joining Sesame Workshop, and my career extending Sesame Street throughout the world.
As Executive-in-Charge of International Production, I oversaw teams in more than 35 countries. We adapted a very American concept and American characters to be effective in those cultures by building and empowering local teams, and drawing on local traditions. As one example, we broke new ground with Takalani Sesame, the first non-Eurocentric television series co-produced by South Africans for all South African children.
While Sesame Workshop’s head of International Creative, I led a team that rethought Sesame Workshop’s entire international creative strategy for the transmedia environment, and designed portable content to reach kids on any platform where they consume media. As with television, digital storytelling needs a strong narrative to engage and retain audiences.
During my time at Sesame Workshop, I honed my expertise in facilitating creative brainstorming, solving creative problems, entwining entertainment and education, and advising on road maps for realizing creative goals.
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I expanded my tool kit by getting a Masters in Digital Media Design for Learning from New York University from which I also received a BA in Art History.
Today, through Red Sneaker Productions, I'm an educational media and digital media consultant. I bring my knowledge of children’s media and digital media design together to help my clients amplify the stickiness, reach and impact of their media properties and products.
In addition to consulting, I serve on the Advisory Board of Blue Butterfly Collaborative, a media group that facilitates local production of high-quality educational programming for children around the world, including Lakou Kajou, a series for Haitian children and families, to learn reading, science and problem-solving. I also was a Senior Advisor for User Experience and Creative at Nardagani, an interactive online program that helps struggling readers of all ages learn to read English.
Music has been an important piece of my life. A highlight of my time with Sesame Workshop was witnessing Hugh Masekela, world-renowned trumpeter and composer, play the South African national anthem on Takalani Sesame. My husband and I co-produced the Edisto Island Mostly Bluegrass Festival in South Carolina for several years. And we spend time in New Orleans every year, where I’ve supported the New Orleans Musicians Clinic. Around Mardi Gras, we dance as part of the Amelia EarHawts, “New Orleans’ Most Turbulent Marching Group.”
Learn more about me at LinkedIn.