Michael Giacchino

His film scores include several films from the Mission: Impossible, Jurassic World, Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Star Trek franchises, eight Pixar Animation Studios films, multiple Disney films, Rogue One, The Batman, and several other films. Giacchino also composed the score for the video game series Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and the television series Alias, Lost, and Fringe. In 2018, Giacchino ventured into directing, and in 2022, he directed the Marvel Studios Disney+ special Werewolf by Night.

Michael Giacchino studied at Juilliard School, University of California, Los Angeles and School of Visual Arts. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is film score. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are film score. Places of work recorded in the authority are New York City. Residence is recorded at Edgewater Park Township. Works named in the authority record are Space Mountain. Distinctions recorded are Academy Award for Best Original Score, Goya Award for Best Original Score, Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score).

• Name — Michael Giacchino • Born — 10 October 1967 • Birthplace — Riverside Township, New Jersey, U.S. • Occupation — * Film composer • television director • Genre — * Film score • contemporary classical • jazz • rock • electronic • Instruments — * Piano • keyboards • guitar • Years Active — 1994present

Giacchino was born in Riverside Township, New Jersey, to an Italian family. His father's ancestors were from Sicily, and his mother's ancestors emigrated from Abruzzo (in southern Italy as well). Giacchino grew up in Edgewater Park Township, New Jersey, and graduated from Holy Cross High School in Delran Township, New Jersey, in 1986. He holds dual American and Italian citizenship. His brother Anthony Giacchino is a documentary filmmaker. 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: 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. Giacchino enrolled at SVA, majoring in film production and minoring in history. During his final year at SVA, Giacchino's 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. Giacchino graduated from SVA in 1990 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, after which he took music classes at the Juilliard School and then at UCLA.

• Illustration — Giacchino in 2010

When Giacchino's internship ended, Universal hired him, giving him a job upon graduation from college. Giacchino later moved to Disney, and when Disney relocated to Los Angeles, he moved with them, working in publicity while taking night classes in instrumentation and orchestration at UCLA. Giacchino's work for Disney had him interacting with the various personnel who worked in films, such as the producers who hired composers. 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. Giacchino's composition work for Disney Interactive during the 16-bit era included the Sega Genesis games Gargoyles and Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow and the various console versions of The Lion King. However, his first major composition was for the DreamWorks video game adaptation of the 1997 movie, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The video game was one of the first PlayStation (also on Sega Saturn) console titles 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 cover the first four installments 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. Additionally, Giacchino composed themes for The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, and co-wrote the theme of Black with composer Chris Tilton. He also composed the score for Alias, which was based on the television series of the same name. In 2007, he returned to the Medal of Honor franchise as he composed the music for Medal of Honor: Airborne. The following year, Giacchino wrote music for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.

In 2015, Giacchino played an It's a Small World operator in the film Tomorrowland, which he scored. That same year, he played First Order Stormtrooper FN-3181 in J. J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Giacchino reprised the role in the 2018 animated film Ralph Breaks the Internet. In 2019, he cameoed as a Sith trooper in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, also directed by Abrams.

Giacchino grew up with an immense love for filmmaking, often spending time making short films in his youth. Giacchino made his professional directorial debut in 2019 with an episode of Star Trek: Short Treks during its second season. In 2020, Giacchino directed in his own short film, Monster Challenge, starring Patton Oswalt. Two years later, Giacchino directed and scored the Marvel Studios Halloween special Werewolf by Night to critical acclaim. In January 2023, it was announced that Giacchino would make his feature directorial debut with a remake of Them! for Warner Bros. Pictures. He is expected to score the film as well.

• Illustration — Giacchino in 2018 Giacchino is noted for using humorous titles filled with puns on his soundtrack albums. 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". 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". Over a dozen of his scores have a track called "World's Worst X"; such as "World's Worst Beach Party" from the first Lost album, and "World's Worst Parking Valet" from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Notably - this tradition of pun names was omitted from the soundtrack of Society of the Snow, likely out of respect for the victims of the disaster.

• Title — Year — Notes • Monster Challenge — 2018 — Short film • Star Trek: Short Treks — 2019 — Episode: "Ephraim and Dot" • Werewolf by Night — 2022 — Disney+ television special also composer

Giacchino's son, Mick, is also a composer.

Michael Giacchino is recorded as having studied at Juilliard School, University of California, Los Angeles and School of Visual Arts.