"That was really the goal from Day 1, to anchor it where it was born and yet take it somewhere, hopefully, very fun and new and different." His appreciation of 60's action-adventure music made him an obvious choice for "Mission: Impossible III." "It has one foot in the 60's and one foot in the 21st century," Mr. The music for "Lost" has since won him an Emmy. Giacchino was nominated for a Grammy and won the music prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Giacchino's debut feature, Pixar's much-admired, high-grossing animated film "The Incredibles." For its retro James Bond-meets-the-Jetsons score, Mr. Giacchino, 38, was in Edgewater Park, N.J., where he grew up watching - and listening to - Hanna-Barbera cartoons, "The A-Team" and reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York, but, as music became his main interest, he took classes at Juilliard and, later, film-music extension courses at U.C.L.A.Ī period in the late 90's creating music for video games ("The Lost World," "Medal of Honor") led to a call from Mr. The composer Michael Giacchino, right, with the director J. Giacchino added: "not just me, but his editors, the writers, the production designer." Abrams has been allowed to use his team, Mr. Giacchino said midway through an afternoon of music-mixing at Warner Brothers 12 days later. "The studio gave us everything we needed," Mr. He's running back and forth across town to fine-tune the editing, supervise final visual effects, oversee the dubbing (combining dialogue, sound effects and music) and attend to myriad other last-minute details. The mood is buoyant, studio executives aren't around to monitor progress, and even Mr.
THE fact that "Mission: Impossible III," which opened in theaters on Friday, is a $150 million picture and Paramount's big summer tent-pole movie doesn't seem to faze anyone. Four minutes of music down, another 90-plus to go. By 11:10 a.m., Take 4 has been recorded and deemed the best. " 'Mission: Impossible III,' 2M1, Take 1," announces an assistant in the booth. "We'll get your drink orders in five minutes," Mr. The timpani at 104? That should be really quiet."Īnother rehearsal and a few minutes later, the lights are dimmed and six bare red bulbs around the stage flash on. In 64, maybe we should just have trumpets there.
Giacchino says: "Everyone at 46, decrescendo into 47. Identifying the musical bars by number, Mr. Simonec, who listens through headphones from the podium.
Giacchino discusses possible changes by intercom with Mr. Schifrin's most widely regarded scores in the 1960's and 70's, including those for "Bullitt" and "Dirty Harry."Īfter the initial run-through, Mr. At the mixing console is Dan Wallin, a veteran engineer who recorded many of Mr. Giacchino, seated beside him, studies a fully orchestrated score, circling passages that may require modification. Abrams watches on a television monitor in the booth while Mr. Cruise, as the American agent Ethan Hunt, races to rescue a kidnapped member of his team. It is an hommage to the original "Mission: Impossible" composer Lalo Schifrin's military-style theme "The Plot," which drove the action in many episodes of the series.Ī giant movie screen behind the musicians displays the scene being scored: a suspense-with-action sequence in which Mr. As the conductor, Tim Simonec, begins the rehearsal, a handful of observers in the booth smile and nod as they recognize the music. Abrams retire to the booth, the large glassed-in area behind the cavernous soundstage where, when MGM owned the lot, the music for "The Wizard of Oz" and "Singin' in the Rain" was recorded.Īt 4 minutes and 20 seconds, 2M1 is one of the longest pieces in the film. The orchestra applauds, then tunes up for an initial rehearsal of cue 2M1, "Factory Rescue." Mr. Abrams tells the orchestra, confessing that he is a film-score fan for whom "movie music was always 51 percent of the movie."
"The work that you guys do makes movies and TV shows as emotional and exciting as they can be," Mr. Abrams's first stint as a feature film director. Abrams, his longtime collaborator (from "Alias" and "Lost" on television). The composer Michael Giacchino is on the podium and has just introduced J. One hundred and eleven musicians are about to spend eight days recording the music for "Mission: Impossible III," starring Tom Cruise in the latest big-screen adaptation of the 1966-73 television spy series. on a Monday in late February on the scoring stage of Sony Pictures.