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, U.S.
Genres	Film score contemporary classical jazz rock electronic
Occupation(s)	Film, television, and video game score composer director
Instruments	Piano keyboards guitar
Years active	1994–present

Michael Giacchino (pronounced juh-KEE-noh) is a famous American composer. He writes music for movies, TV shows, and video games. He was born on October 10, 1967.

Michael Giacchino has won many important awards for his music. These include an Academy Award for the movie Up, an Emmy for the TV show Lost, and three Grammy Awards.

He often works with well-known directors like J. J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and Pete Docter. His music can be heard in many popular films. These include movies from the Mission: Impossible series, Jurassic World, and several Marvel Cinematic Universe films. He also composed for the Star Trek reboot movies and eight Pixar Animation Studios films. Other famous works include Rogue One and The Batman.

Beyond movies, Giacchino created music for video games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. He also scored TV series such as Alias, Lost, and Fringe. In recent years, he has also 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 Italian roots, with ancestors from Sicily and Abruzzo, Italy. He grew up in Edgewater Park Township, New Jersey. He finished high school at Holy Cross High School in 1986. Michael Giacchino is a citizen of both America and Italy. His brother, Anthony Giacchino, is a filmmaker who makes documentaries.

Michael Giacchino started mixing pictures and music when he was just 10 years old. He would make stop-motion animation films in his basement. He even created his own soundtracks for them. In high school, an art teacher suggested he go to the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Giacchino loved the idea of a college where he could focus on his interests. He studied film production and history 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.

Music Career

Video Game Music

After his internship, Michael Giacchino got a job at Universal. Later, he moved to Disney. When Disney moved its offices to Los Angeles, he moved with them. He worked in publicity and took night classes to learn more about music. His job at Disney allowed him to meet people who hired composers for films.

When a producer job opened at Disney Interactive, Giacchino took it. He hoped he could then hire himself to write music for the games he produced. His early work for Disney Interactive included music for games like Gargoyles and Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow. He also composed for different versions of The Lion King video game.

His first big project was for the 1997 video game The Lost World: Jurassic Park. This game was one of the first PlayStation games to have a full orchestral score. He continued to work with DreamWorks, composing for games like Small Soldiers in 1998. He also created the main theme for Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.

Giacchino is well-known for his music in the Medal of Honor series. He scored the first four games: Medal of Honor, Underground, Allied Assault, and Frontline. He also composed for other World War II games like Secret Weapons Over Normandy and Call of Duty. In 2007, he returned to the Medal of Honor series for Medal of Honor: Airborne.

Film and Television Music

Michael Giacchino's work in video games helped him get into television. In 2001, director J. J. Abrams discovered Giacchino's music. Abrams asked him to create the soundtrack for his new TV show, Alias. This music combined orchestral pieces with electronic sounds, which was a new style for Giacchino.

In 2004, Giacchino scored J. J. Abrams' TV series Lost. This music was highly praised. He even used parts of a plane fuselage as percussion instruments. The Lost score is famous 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 Giacchino's work on Alias. The upbeat, jazz-inspired orchestral sound was different for both Giacchino and Pixar. Pixar had usually worked with composers Randy and Thomas Newman.

Giacchino was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2005 for The Incredibles. He was recognized for Best Score Soundtrack Album and Best Instrumental Composition.

Michael Giacchino has worked a lot with Disney throughout his career. He composed for updated versions of Space Mountain at Disneyland, Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland.

He also scored the 2005 films Sky High and The Family Stone. He wrote music for the TV movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. Giacchino also composed for the 2006 film Mission: Impossible III, directed by J. J. Abrams.

His music for the Disney-Pixar film Ratatouille was inspired by Paris. It included the song "Le Festin." This score earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He also created the music for Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie.

Giacchino composed the music for the Pixar film Up and its short film Partly Cloudy. This was his first time working with a Pixar director other than Brad Bird. For Up, he won his first Academy Award 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!" that played during the credits. This was the only original music in the film. He also composed for Abrams' 2011 film Super 8.

In 2016, Giacchino composed for the Marvel film Doctor Strange and the Disney film Zootopia. He also created the fanfare for the new Marvel Studios logo. Later in 2016, he was chosen to score the Star Wars film Rogue One. Giacchino 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 to score Coco (2017) and Incredibles 2 (2018). He also composed for Taika Waititi's 2019 film Jojo Rabbit. In 2022, Giacchino composed the music for The Batman and the Pixar film Lightyear.

Directing Work

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

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

Music Style and Titles

Michael Giacchino is known for giving funny, pun-filled titles to the songs on his soundtrack albums. For example, the soundtracks for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World had many ape and dinosaur-related puns. Some titles even refer to his earlier works. For instance, a theme from the Medal of Honor soundtrack appeared in Lost as a submarine theme.

He also has a series of titles that start with "World's Worst." Examples include "World's Worst Beach Party" from Lost and "World's Worst Parking Valet" from Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Other titles in this series are "World's Worst Animal Shelter" from Zootopia and "World's Worst Babysitters" from Incredibles 2. More recently, The Batman score has a track called "World's Worst Translator."

However, he did not use these pun names for the soundtrack of Society of the Snow. This was likely out of respect for the people involved in the real-life disaster 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 J. J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He played this role 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.

Filmography

Television (as director)

Personal Life

Michael Giacchino has a son named Mick Giacchino, who is also a composer.

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