Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino
Giacchino in September 2017
Background information
Born (1967-10-10) October 10, 1967
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 American composer of music for films, television and video games. He 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.

Giacchino has received an Emmy Award and multiple Grammy Awards, as well as a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for his work on Up.

Early life

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

Video games

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

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

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

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]

Style

Giacchino is noted for using humorous titles filled with puns on his soundtrack albums.[26][27] 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".[28] 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 recognition

Awards

Nominations

Recognition

  • 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."[30]

Discography

Films

Year Title Director Notes
1997 Legal Deceit Monika Harris N/A
1999 My Brother the Pig Erik Fleming N/A
2001 The Trouble With Lou Gregor Joackim N/A
2003 Sin Michael Stevens N/A
2004 The Incredibles Brad Bird Nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album
Nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition
First collaboration with Brad Bird
2005 Sky High Mike Mitchell N/A
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz Kirk Thatcher TV Movie
The Family Stone Thomas Bezucha First collaboration with Thomas Bezucha
2006 Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World Albert Brooks N/A
Mission: Impossible III J.J. Abrams First film collaboration with J.J. Abrams
2007 Ratatouille Brad Bird Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album
Nominated for a Academy Award for Best Original Score
Second collaboration with Brad Bird
2008 Cloverfield Matt Reeves Credited as "Written by"
Only composed "Roar!" for ending credits
First collaboration with Matt Reeves
Speed Racer The Wachowskis First collaboration with The Wachowskis
2009 Star Trek J.J. Abrams Nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album
Second collaboration with J.J. Abrams
Up Pete Docter Academy Award for Best Original Score
BAFTA Award for Best Music
Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score – Up
First collaboration with Pete Docter
Land of the Lost Brad Silberling N/A
Earth Days Robert Stone Documentary Film
2010 Let Me In Matt Reeves Second collaboration with Matt Reeves
2011 Cars 2 John Lasseter N/A
Super 8 J.J. Abrams Third collaboration with J.J. Abrams
Monte Carlo Thomas Bezucha Second collaboration with Thomas Bezucha
50/50 Jonathan Levine N/A
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Brad Bird Third collaboration with Brad Bird
2012 John Carter Andrew Stanton N/A
2013 Star Trek Into Darkness J.J. Abrams Fourth collaboration with J.J. Abrams
2014 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes[31] Matt Reeves Third collaboration with Matt Reeves
This Is Where I Leave You Shawn Levy N/A
2015 Jupiter Ascending[32] The Wachowskis Second collaboration with The Wachowskis
Tomorrowland[32] Brad Bird Fourth collaboration with Brad Bird
Jurassic World[28] Colin Trevorrow First collaboration with Colin Trevorrow
Inside Out Pete Docter Second collaboration with Pete Docter
2016 Zootopia Byron Howard
Rich Moore		 N/A
Star Trek Beyond[33] Justin Lin N/A
Doctor Strange[34] Scott Derrickson N/A
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story[35] Gareth Edwards Replaced Alexandre Desplat
2017 The Book of Henry[36] Colin Trevorrow Second collaboration with Colin Trevorrow
Spider-Man: Homecoming[37] Jon Watts N/A
War for the Planet of the Apes Matt Reeves Fourth collaboration with Matt Reeves
Coco Lee Unkrich N/A
2018 Incredibles 2[38] Brad Bird Fifth collaboration with Brad Bird
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom[39] J. A. Bayona N/A
Bad Times at the El Royale[40] Drew Goddard N/A
2019 Spider-Man: Far From Home[41] Jon Watts Second collaboration with Jon Watts

TV series

TitleYearNotes
Alias2001–2006Bad Robot Productions
Lost2004–2010
Six Degrees2006–2007
Fringe2008 (co-composer of the first season with Chris Tilton and Chad Seiter)
Undercovers2010 (Pilot only)
Alcatraz2012 (Pilot only)

Video games

TitleYearNotes
Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse1994Additional compositions
Gargoyles1995N/A
Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow1995N/A
The Lost World: Jurassic Park1997N/A
Chaos Island1997N/A
Small Soldiers1998N/A
T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger1999N/A
Warpath: Jurassic Park1999N/A
Medal of Honor1999N/A
Muppet Monster Adventure2000N/A
Medal of Honor: Underground2000N/A
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault2002N/A
Medal of Honor: Frontline2002N/A
Call of Duty2003N/A
Secret Weapons Over Normandy2003N/A
Call of Duty: United Offensive2004Expansion pack
Call of Duty: Finest Hour2004N/A
Alias2004N/A
The Incredibles2004Console/PC versions only, composed with Chris Tilton
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction2005Composed with Chris Tilton
The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer2005Composed with Chris Tilton
Black2006Main theme co-composed with Chris Tilton, original score by Chris Tilton
Medal of Honor: Vanguard2007N/A
Medal of Honor: Airborne2007N/A
Medal of Honor: Heroes 22007N/A
Lost: Via Domus2008N/A
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty2008N/A
Fracture2008Only producer - Music composed by Chris Tilton and Chad Seiter
Up2009N/A
Lego The Incredibles2018Composed with Rob Westwood and Ian Livingstone

Short films and holiday specials

TitleYearNotes
No Salida1998Short film
String Of The Kite2003Short film
The Karate Guard2005Short film
One Man Band2005Short film
Jack-Jack Attack2005Short film
Lifted2006Short film
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater2007Short film
Partly Cloudy2009Short film
Dug's Special Mission2009Short film (edited from Up)
Prep & Landing2009TV Christmas Special
Day & Night2010Short film
Prep & Landing: Operation: Secret Santa2010Short film
The Ballad of Nessie2011Short film
Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice2011TV Christmas special
La Luna2011Short film
Toy Story of Terror!2013TV Halloween special
Toy Story That Time Forgot2014TV Christmas special
Riley's First Date?2015Short film
Dante's Lunch[42]2017Short film

Theme park attractions

TitleYearNotes
Space Mountain at Disneyland 2005Theme park attraction
Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland2005Theme park attraction
Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris2005Theme Park attraction
Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom2010Theme park attraction
Star Tours: The Adventures Continue at Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios2011Theme park attraction
Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy at Walt Disney Studios Park and Epcot2014Theme park attraction
Incredicoaster at Disney California Adventure2018Theme park attraction

As conductor

References

  1. ↑ "Composer Michael Giacchino on Star Trek (2009) at the Hollywood Bowl" on YouTube
  2. ↑ "Oscar winners thank Italy – News in English". ANSA.it. Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  3. ↑ Burlingame, Jon. "Michael Giacchino's Mission: Make the Old Music New", The New York Times, May 7, 2006. Accessed February 3, 2013. "The backyard for 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."
  4. ↑ Longsdorf, Amy. "Success sounds great for Giacchino", Courier-Post, February 24, 2008. Accessed February 3, 2013. "Giacchino, a graduate of Holy Cross High School (Class of '86), was scoring video games when Abrams gave him his first big break writing the music for TV's Alias and Lost."
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Lincourt, Carrie. "Q + A". Visual Arts Journal. Volume 19, Number 1. Spring 2011. School of Visual Arts. Pages 46 - 49.
  6. 1 2 Burlingame, Jon (May 7, 2006). "Michael Giacchino's Mission: Make the Old Music New". The New York Times. Accessed November 27, 2007. "The backyard for 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 UCLA"
  7. 1 2 "Michael Giacchino - Scoring for Primetime: ABC's Alias" Archived May 23, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.. Mackie.com. Retrieved on April 14, 2011.
  8. ↑ "Michael Giacchino". MobyGames. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Michael Giacchino.com -Biography". Archived from the original on March 20, 2008.
  10. ↑ "Michael Giacchino.com – Works". Archived from the original on March 30, 2008.
  11. ↑ Chris Tilton.com – Black Archived August 30, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ Michael Giacchino to Score Turning Point: Fall of Liberty Archived January 21, 2013, at WebCite. News.teamxbox.com (June 26, 2007). Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  13. ↑ Goldwasser, Dan (July 10, 2007). "Michael Giacchino scores Medal of Honor: Airborne". Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  14. ↑ Lost Soundtrack. Amazon. Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  15. ↑ The Log Book – Lost Archived March 3, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  16. ↑ "Maintenance - Cinemusic". Cinemusic.
  17. ↑ Message Boards: The Incredibles!. Moviemusic.com. Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  18. ↑ Grammy Nominations 2005 – PDF Archived September 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  19. 1 2 Space Mountain. Allearsnet.com (May 27, 1977). Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  20. ↑ M:I – Iii. CDUniverse (May 9, 2006). Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  21. ↑ Goldberg, Matt (July 24, 2016). "Watch: Marvel Studios Debuts New Logo with Fanfare by Michael Giacchino". Collider. Archived from the original on July 25, 2016. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  22. ↑ "'Star Wars: Rogue One' Replaces Its Composer (Exclusive)".
  23. ↑ "'Spider-Man: Homecoming' to Be Scored by Michael Giacchino". hollywoodreporter.com. November 6, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  24. ↑ "Incredibles 2: Brad Bird Confirms Michael Giacchino Back As Composer". ComicBook.com. October 29, 2015.
  25. ↑ "'Force Awakens' Cameos Revealed". slashfilm.com. December 18, 2015.
  26. ↑ Allison (July 24, 2014). "Michael Giacchino's Strange, Pun-Filled Movie Scores". Archived from the original on January 5, 2016.
  27. ↑ "Composer Michael Giacchino on Star Trek puns and the wrath of Trekkers".
  28. 1 2 Kroll, Laura (June 1, 2015). "The Many Prehistoric Puns on Michael Giacchino's Jurassic World Soundtrack Are Dino-myte". Bradley. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  29. ↑ Critics' Choice Movie Awards | Highlights, Winners, Show Video and Photos. VH1.com. Retrieved on August 21, 2011.
  30. ↑ NewYorker.com – SOUND AND VISION Archived November 10, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
  31. ↑ Matt Reeves [@mattreevesLA] (14 May 2013). "What I can't wait for is to hear a Giacchino Ape Score...!!!  :) RT @m_giacchino @mattreevesLA - can't wait!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  32. 1 2 "Interview mit Michael Giacchino". Owley.ch. April 26, 2012. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
  33. ↑ "Michael Giacchino Talks "Star Trek 3" [UPDATE]". TrekCore. July 11, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2015.
  34. ↑ Michael Giacchino [@m_giacchino] (6 May 2016). "Things are about to get, well... really STRANGE. @scottderrickson @Marvel" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  35. ↑ "'Star Wars: Rogue One' Replaces Its Composer (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  36. ↑ "Michael Giacchino to Score Colin Trevorrow's 'The Book of Henry'". Film Music Reporter. February 16, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  37. ↑ "Michael Giacchino Will Score 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' - Heroic Hollywood". November 5, 2016.
  38. ↑ Davis, Brandon (October 29, 2015). "Incredibles 2: Brad Bird Confirms Michael Giacchnio Back As Composer". Comicbook. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
  39. ↑ "'Rogue One' Composer on Filling John Williams' Shoes, Pleasing Marvel Franchise Fans". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved December 21, 2016.
  40. ↑ "Michael Giacchino to Score Drew Goddard's 'Bad Times at the El Royale'". Retrieved June 7, 2016.
  41. ↑ "Michael Giacchino to Return for 'Spider-Man: Far From Home'". Film Music Reporter. October 10, 2018. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
  42. ↑ Michael Giacchino [@m_giacchino] (15 July 2017). "@Actual_Horse_ - yup" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
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