Welcome Remarks

Keynote Conversation - Making Movie Music: The Composer & The Engineer

We are in the middle of a creative Renaissance in music for film and television. Right now. The imaginative use of a single instrument. Rhythmic effects. Ethnic flavors. Bursts of energy. Modern-classical. Neo-synth. Tonal shifts. Integrated sound design. Orchestra moving in and out of pop songs. A healthy dose of traditional Hollywood score. And yet each and every film and television score—or score/soundtrack—begins with an idea in someone’s head and a recording that brings that idea to the audience.

Sound Reel Showcase

The Mix Panel Series - Score + Song + Source: The Creative Explosion in Film and Television Music

There’s been a subtle, yet pronounced, decades-long shift in how music works with picture, both films and television. The days of opening theme songs and daylong sessions with a 100-piece orchestra are increasingly rare; while the innovative infusion and integration of sound design, industrial rhythms, distorted first-gen samples, stripped-down orchestral sections, world beats, virtual instruments, solo strings, manipulated vocals—not to mention the weaving in  and out of pop and rock songs—these are all in. Here we talk with leading music supervisors, music editors, music re-recording mixers and supervising sound editors about the changing shape, and creation, of the modern music soundtrack.

The Mix Panel Series - The Sound of Mission: Impossible: A Legacy of Adrenaline-Fueled Effects and Classic, Tension-Filled Music

Hearing those first four notes of the late Lalo Schifrin’s iconic opening theme, following the signature line “...This message will self-destruct in five seconds,” well, you know right where you are. Since its debut on the small screen in the Fall of 1967, through its resuscitation as a film franchise by Tom Cruise and director Brian De Palma in 1996, all the way up to the May 2025 premiere of Final Reckoning, Mission: Impossible has become something of a cultural touchstone, synonymous with gripping, over-the-top action scenes coupled with big, big music and explosive, unrelenting, yet always tasty, sound effects. In this special panel, we sit down with an alumni group of top sound and music editors and mixers to discuss the artistic, adventurous use of sound and music to tell the Mission: Impossible stories.

Closing Remarks