Behind the scenes - rescoring mission impossible | João Moreira

I spent today working on a new rescore of a scene from Mission: Impossible (1996). The cue isn't quite finished yet, but I thought it would be fun to share a little behind-the-scenes look at the process. One thing that quickly became apparent is just how difficult it is to rescore a film with such an iconic musical identity. Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme is one of the most memorable themes ever written for film and television. Creating a completely new musical direction that still feels worthy of the scene—without simply imitating the original or sounding out of place—is a fascinating creative challenge. In this video, I walk through some of the creative decisions involved in scoring to picture, including: • Finding and creating hit points • Building thematic ideas and variations • Orchestration choices • Synchronizing the music with the action and pacing on screen A quick apology in advance: I accidentally left a gate on my microphone while recording the commentary, so the audio cuts in and out a little in places. I'll definitely make sure that doesn't happen next time! I'd love to hear how other composers approach rescoring scenes with such iconic scores. Do you try to move in a completely different direction, or do you embrace elements of the original while still making it your own? Mission: Impossible is owned by its respective copyright holders. This rescore is created purely for educational and portfolio purposes, and no copyright infringement is intended.