Michael Giacchino
Giacchino in September 2017
Background information
Born	(1967-10-10) October 10, 1967 (age 51) Riverside Township, New Jersey, U.S.
Genres	Film score, soundtrack
Occupation(s)	Film, television, and video game score composer
Years active	1994–present

Michael Giacchino (/dʒəˈkiːnoʊ/;^[1] born October 10, 1967) is an Italian-American^[2]composer of music for films, television and video games. He has received various prestigious accolades (including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award (Primetime), and three Grammy Awards).

Giacchino composed the scores to the television series Lost, Alias and Fringe, the video game series Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and many films such as The Incredibles, Mission: Impossible III, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Up, Super 8, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Jurassic World, Inside Out, Zootopia, Star Trek Beyond, Doctor Strange, Rogue One, Spider-Man: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, Coco, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Incredibles 2.

Early life[edit]

Giacchino was born in Riverside Township, New Jersey. His father's ancestors came from Sicily and his mother's ancestors emigrated from Abruzzo in the center of Italy; he holds dual American and Italian citizenship.^[2] Giacchino grew up in Edgewater Park Township, New Jersey.^[3] He graduated from Holy Cross High School in Delran Township, New Jersey in 1986.^[4]

Giacchino began combining images and music at age 10, when he began creating stop-motion animation with homemade soundtracks in his basement. While in high school, an art teacher who mentored Giacchino recommended to his parents that he attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Giacchino describes visiting the school with his parents thus:^[5]

I thought, wow, this is fantastic. They actually have colleges like this? Where I can do the things that I am really interested in doing? That was amazing to me. I loved SVA. I loved the kind of freedom that it provided. It was kind of like this great experiment—okay, you're here because you like something. So let's see how much you like it. We're not going to regulate you too much. We're going to see how passionate and driven you are, and how much you want this thing.^[5]

Giacchino enrolled at SVA, majoring in film production and minoring in history. During his final year at SVA, his instructor in film publicity announced an unpaid internship was available at Universal Pictures. Giacchino, who was the only one interested, obtained the six-month position, which he filled at night while attending school during the day and working at Macy's to pay his rent. He graduated from SVA in 1990 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, after which he took music classes at the Juilliard School.^[5][6][7]

Career[edit]

Video games[edit]

When Giacchino's internship ended, Universal hired him, giving him a job upon graduation from college. He later moved to Disney, and when Disney relocated to Los Angeles, Giacchino moved with them, working in publicity, while taking night classes in instrumentation and orchestration at UCLA. His work for Disney had him interacting with the various personnel who worked in films, such as the producers who hired composers, so when a job at Disney Interactive opened for a producer, Giacchino obtained the job, thinking he could hire himself to write music for the games he produced.^[5][6][7]

Giacchino's composition work for Disney Interactive during the 16-bit era included the Sega Genesis game Gargoyles, the SNES game Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow and the various console versions of The Lion King.^[8] However his first major composition was for the DreamWorks video game adaptation of the 1997 movie, The Lost World: Jurassic Park.^[9] The video game was one of the first PlayStation- (also on Sega Saturn) console title to be recorded with an original live orchestral score. Giacchino has since continued his relationship with DreamWorks which also included composing the score for the Small Soldiers video game in 1998, providing full orchestral scores for many of their popular videogames. He also worked with Pandemic studios to create the theme for Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Giacchino's award-winning compositions covers the first four instalments of the Medal of Honor series, (Medal of Honor, Underground, Allied Assault and Frontline), Heroes: 2, and also the scores for several other World War II-related video games like Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Call of Duty and Call of Duty: Finest Hour.^[10] Additionally, Giacchino composed themes for The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, and co-wrote the theme of Black with composer Chris Tilton.^[11] He also composed the score for Alias, which was based on the television series of the same name. In 2008 Giacchino wrote music for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.^[12] In 2007, he returned to the Medal of Honor franchise as he composed the music for Medal of Honor: Airborne.^[13]

Film and television[edit]

Giacchino's work on various video games led to his entrance into television.

In 2001, J. J. Abrams, producer of the television series Alias, discovered Giacchino through his video game work and asked him to provide the new show's soundtrack. The soundtrack featured a mix of full orchestral pieces frequently intermingled with upbeat electronic music, a departure from much of his previous work. Giacchino would go on to provide the score for J.J. Abrams's 2004 television series Lost,^[14] creating an acclaimed score which employed a unique process of using spare pieces of a plane fuselage for percussion parts. The score for Lost is also notable for a signature thematic motif: a brass fall-off at the end of certain themes.^[15] Just like his counterpart Stu Phillips, he worked with the television show creator Abrams on his shows with his music scores while Abrams supplied the show's main themes on certain series such as Alias.

In 2004, Giacchino received his first big feature film commission. Brad Bird, director of Pixar's The Incredibles, asked Giacchino to provide the soundtrack for the film after having heard his work on Alias.^[16] The upbeat jazz orchestral sound was a departure in style not only for Giacchino but for Pixar, which had previously relied on Randy and Thomas Newman for all of its films. Director Brad Bird had originally sought out John Barry – perhaps best known for his work on the early James Bond films—but Barry was reportedly unwilling to repeat the styles of his earlier works.^[17]

Giacchino was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2005 for The Incredibles: Best Score Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media and Best Instrumental Composition.^[18]

Like his other counterparts Joel McNeely, J. A. C. Redford and Frank DeVol, Giacchino mostly associated with Disney from early in his career up to most recently, ranging from video games such as Mickey Mania and Gargoyles to films such as The Incredibles and eventually collaborated with Walt Disney Imagineering in creating two new soundtracks for the updated versions of Space Mountain at Disneyland, Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland.^[19]

Giacchino also composed scores for the 2005 films Sky High and The Family Stone, and the television movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. Additionally, he wrote the music for Joseph Barbera's final theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoon The Karate Guard, and scored the Abrams-directed 2006 film Mission: Impossible III.^[20] Giacchino's next musical achievement was his Paris-inspired score for the Disney-Pixar film Ratatouille, which includes the theme song "Le Festin", performed by French artist Camille. He received his first Academy Award nomination for this score. He also created the score for Abrams' 2009 Star Trek film.

Giacchino scored the Pixar film Up (and its accompanying animated short Partly Cloudy), for which he collaborated with director Pete Docter. This marked the first time Giacchino worked with a Pixar director other than Brad Bird. This work gained Giacchino his first Academy Award for Best Original Score: the first-ever win for Pixar in that category. Giacchino notes that he won on the same night as his SVA classmate Joel Harlow won for Best Makeup Oscar for Star Trek.^[5]

Giacchino has continued his collaboration with J. J. Abrams. For the Abrams-produced monster film Cloverfield, Giacchino wrote an homage to Japanese monster scores in an overture entitled "ROAR!", which played over the credits, and constituted the only original music for the film. He also composed for the pilot of the Abrams-produced American television series Fringe, after which Giacchino gave scoring duties to his assistant Chad Seiter, who scored the first half of season one. The task was then passed on to Chris Tilton, who scored the latter half of season one and all subsequent seasons.

In 2016, Giacchino composed the score for the Marvel film Doctor Strange, as well as the score for the Disney film Zootopia. Giacchino also composed the fanfare for the new Marvel Studios logo, which debuted with Doctor Strange.^[21] In September 2016, it was announced that Giacchino had been chosen to replace composer Alexandre Desplat as the composer for the Star Wars anthology film Rogue One after Desplat was unavailable following reshoots.^[22] Giacchino then scored another Marvel Studios film, 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming.^[23]

Giacchino returned to Pixar to score Incredibles 2 (2018).^[24]

Additional compositions[edit]

In addition to his long list of soundtracks, in 2005 Giacchino collaborated with Walt Disney Imagineering in creating two new soundtracks for the updated versions of Space Mountain at Disneyland, Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland.^[19] Giacchino was also contracted by Sarah Vowell, who played character Violet in The Incredibles, to compose the score to the audio version of her book Assassination Vacation. Michael Giacchino's music can also be heard in "Star Tours: The Adventure Continues" during the "travel log videos" shown in the queue for both the Disneyland and Walt Disney World versions of the attraction.

In 2009, he was asked to conduct the Academy Awards orchestra for the 81st Academy Awards. For this project he rearranged many famous movie themes in different styles, including a 1930s Big Band treatment of Lawrence of Arabia and a bossa nova of Moon River. Giacchino also composed the fanfare for the 100th Anniversary logo for Paramount Pictures.

Acting[edit]

Although he has collaborated frequently with J.J. Abrams, when Abrams was hired to write and direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he opted to have renowned series symphonist John Williams compose the music instead of Giacchino. By way of apology, Abrams cast his friend/collaborator Giacchino as First Order Stormtrooper FN-3181 who, during the raid on Jakku in the opening sequence of the film, throws Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) down to his knees in front of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).^[25] He reprised the role in the 2018 animated film Ralph Breaks the Internet.^[26]

Style[edit]

Giacchino is noted for using humorous titles filled with puns on his soundtrack albums.^[27][28]Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World in particular had many ape- and dinosaur-related double entendres such as "Gorilla Warfare" and "Raptor Your Heart Out".^[29] Many of those have references to previous works of his, both in style and naming. Giacchino used themes from the track "U-Boat" from the Medal of Honor soundtrack in the tracks "Sawyer Jones and the Temple of Boom" and "Sub-Primed" from the 5th and 6th season Lost soundtracks as the submarine motif. In terms of naming, the score for The Incredibles contains a piece named "100 Mile Dash", and subsequently Ratatouille had "100 Rat Dash", Up had "Three Dog Dash", and Coco had "Shrine and Dash". Another series of examples: "World's Worst Beach Party" from the first Lost album, "World's Worst Last 4 Minutes To Live" from the Mission: Impossible III soundtrack, "Galaxy's Worst Sushi Bar" from Star Trek (2010 deluxe release), "World's Worst Landscaping" from the second Lost album, "World's Worst Car Wash" from the soundtrack album Lost: The Final Season, and "World's Worst Field Trip" from the soundtrack of Super 8. The soundtrack for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol also has a track titled "World's Worst Parking Valet", and the score for Zootopia contains a track titled "World's Worst Animal Shelter". Inversely, the score for Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction has a track entitled "World's Best Carpool Lane"; the Speed Racer score has tracks entitled "World's Best Autopia" and "World's Worst Road Rage."

Awards, nominations and recognitions[edit]

	"Oceanic 815" from Lost (2005) Sample of brass fall-off from the first season finale of Lost
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Major Industry Awards[edit]

• Note: "Year" denotes the year of the ceremony.

Academy Awards[edit]

British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards[edit]

Emmy Awards (Primetime)[edit]

Golden Globe Awards[edit]

Grammy Awards[edit]

Other Industry Awards[edit]

• 2001 Interactive Achievement Awards for Original Music Composition – Medal of Honor: Underground
  


• 2003 Game Developers Choice Awards for Excellence in Audio – Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
  


• 2003 Interactive Achievement Awards for Original Music Composition – Medal of Honor: Frontline
  


• 2004 IFMCA Award for Score of the Year – The Incredibles
  


• 2004 IFMCA Award for Composer of the Year


• 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards for Excellence in Audio – Call of Duty
  


• 2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Short Film – Lifted
  


• 2007 StreamingSoundtracks.com Award for Composer of the Year


• 2010 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards for Best Score^[30] – Up
  


• 2012 Saturn Award for Best Music - Super 8
  


• 2015 World Soundtrack Academy Award for Composer of the Year
  

Recognition[edit]

• The score for Season 1 of Lost was cited by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross as "some of the most compelling film music of the past year."^[31]
  

Discography[edit]

Video games[edit]

Films[edit]

Short films and holiday specials[edit]

TV series[edit]

Theme park attractions[edit]

As conductor[edit]

• 
  81st Academy Awards, 2009

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website


• Music By Michael Giacchino Fansite


• 
  Michael Giacchino on IMDb


• Michael Giacchino's score for 'Secret Weapons Over Normandy'


• 
  Michael Giacchino discography at MusicBrainz
  


• SoundtrackNet Interview with Michael Giacchino


• Alan Sepinwall interview with Michael Giacchino on composing for LOST