Michael Giacchino facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Michael Giacchino
Giacchino in 2017
Background information
Born	(1967-10-10) October 10, 1967 (age 57) Riverside Township, New Jersey, United States
Genres	Film score contemporary classical jazz
Occupation(s)	Film, television, and video game score composer director
Instruments	Piano organ guitar cello
Years active	1994–present

Michael Giacchino (born October 10, 1967) is an American composer who creates music for movies, TV shows, and video games. He has won many important awards for his work. These include an Oscar for the movie Up (2009), an Emmy for the TV series Lost (2004), and three Grammy Awards.

Giacchino is famous for working with directors like J. J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and Pete Docter. He has composed music for many popular films. These include movies from the Mission: Impossible series, Jurassic World, and films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He also scored the Star Trek reboot movies and eight Pixar Animation Studios films.

His music can also be heard in video game series like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. For television, he composed for shows such as Alias, Lost, and Fringe. In 2018, he started directing. In 2022, he directed the Marvel Studios special Werewolf by Night for Disney+.

Early Life and Education

Michael Giacchino was born in Riverside Township, New Jersey. His family has roots in Italy, with ancestors from Sicily and Abruzzo. He grew up in Edgewater Park Township, New Jersey. He graduated from Holy Cross High School in 1986.

Giacchino started combining pictures and music when he was just 10 years old. He would make stop-motion animation films with his own homemade soundtracks. In high school, an art teacher encouraged him to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He loved the idea of a college where he could focus on his passion.

He studied film production at the School of Visual Arts. During his last year, he got an unpaid internship at Universal Pictures. He worked there at night while going to school during the day. He also worked at Macy's to pay for his living expenses. After graduating in 1990, he took music classes at the Juilliard School and later at UCLA.

Career in Music

Video Games

After his internship, Giacchino got a job at Universal, then moved to Disney. When Disney moved to Los Angeles, he went with them. He worked in publicity but kept taking music classes at night. He later became a producer at Disney Interactive. He hoped to hire himself to write music for the games he produced.

Giacchino composed music for early Disney games like Gargoyles and Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow. His first big project was for the 1997 video game The Lost World: Jurassic Park. This game was one of the first PlayStation titles to have a live orchestra record its music.

He continued to work with DreamWorks, scoring games like Small Soldiers. Giacchino is well-known for his music in the Medal of Honor series. He also composed for other World War II games like Call of Duty.

Film and Television

Giacchino's work in video games led him to television. In 2001, director J. J. Abrams discovered Giacchino's music. Abrams asked him to create the soundtrack for his new TV series, Alias. The music for Alias combined orchestral sounds with upbeat electronic music.

In 2004, Giacchino scored Abrams' next TV series, Lost. This score was highly praised. He even used parts of a real plane fuselage as percussion instruments. The music for Lost is known for a special brass sound at the end of some themes.

His first major movie project came in 2004. Brad Bird, the director of Pixar's The Incredibles, asked Giacchino to compose the music. Bird had heard his work on Alias. The movie's upbeat jazz orchestra sound was new for both Giacchino and Pixar. This score earned him two Grammy Awards nominations.

Giacchino has a strong connection with Disney. He has composed for many Disney films and video games. He also created new soundtracks for the updated Space Mountain rides at Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.

He scored the 2005 films Sky High and The Family Stone. He also composed for the TV movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. In 2006, he scored Abrams' film Mission: Impossible III. His Paris-inspired music for Disney-Pixar's Ratatouille earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He also composed the music for Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie.

Giacchino scored the Pixar film Up and its short film Partly Cloudy. For Up, he won his first Oscar for Best Original Score. This was the first time Pixar won in that category.

He continued working with J. J. Abrams. For the monster film Cloverfield, Giacchino wrote a special piece called "ROAR!". This music was a tribute to old Japanese monster movie scores. He also composed for the pilot episode of the TV series Fringe.

In 2016, Giacchino composed for the Marvel film Doctor Strange and Disney's Zootopia. He also created the new fanfare for the Marvel Studios logo. Later that year, he took over as composer for the Star Wars film Rogue One. He then scored four more Marvel films: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).

He returned to Pixar for Coco (2017) and Incredibles 2 (2018). In 2019, he scored Taika Waititi's film Jojo Rabbit. More recently, he composed for The Batman and Pixar's Lightyear in 2022.

Directing Work

Michael Giacchino has always loved filmmaking. He made short films when he was young. In 2019, he made his professional directing debut with an episode of Star Trek: Short Treks. In 2020, he directed his own short film called Monster Challenge.

In 2022, Giacchino directed and scored the Marvel Studios Halloween special Werewolf by Night. This special received great reviews. In 2023, it was announced that Giacchino would direct a new movie called Them! for Warner Bros. Pictures. He is also expected to compose the music for this film.

Television (as director)

Musical Style and Humor

Giacchino is known for giving his soundtrack albums funny titles. These titles often include puns, which are playful uses of words. For example, the scores for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World had many ape and dinosaur-related puns. Titles like "Gorilla Warfare" and "Raptor Your Heart Out" are examples.

He also likes to reference his older works in his music and titles. For instance, the track "100 Mile Dash" from The Incredibles led to "100 Rat Dash" in Ratatouille. Other examples include "Three Dog Dash" from Up and "Shrine and Dash" from Coco.

Another running joke in his titles is the "World's Worst" series. Examples include "World's Worst Beach Party" from Lost and "World's Worst Parking Valet" from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. He even used "World's Worst Animal Shelter" for Zootopia and "World's Worst Babysitters" for Incredibles 2.

However, he chose not to use these punny titles for the soundtrack of Society of the Snow. This was likely out of respect for the real-life tragedy the film is about.

Acting Roles

Michael Giacchino has also appeared in a few films. In 2015, he played an It's a Small World operator in the movie Tomorrowland, which he also scored. In the same year, he played a First Order Stormtrooper in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

He played the Stormtrooper again in the 2018 animated film Ralph Breaks the Internet. In 2019, he had a small role as a Sith trooper in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Personal Life

Michael Giacchino has a son named Mick Giacchino [d]. Mick is also a composer, following in his father's footsteps.

See also

In Spanish: Michael Giacchino para niños

• Music of Lost
• Music of Star Wars
• Music of Star Trek
• Music of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
• Music of Batman