Michael Giacchino: Talented Composer of Film and TV Musical Scores

Part of the “magic of the movies” is undoubtedly the musical score which swells below the images and heightens our emotional response to the story unfolding on the screen. One of the most talented practitioners of this special art is Michael Giacchino.

Michael Giacchino was born in Riverside Township, New Jersey, on October 10, 1967. His paternal grandparents emigrated from Sicily; his maternal grandparents, from Abruzzo. He holds dual United States and Italian citizenship. Mike began combining images and music at age 10 by creating stop-motion animation with homemade sound tracks in his family’s basement. After he graduated from Holy Cross Catholic High School in Delran Township, New Jersey, in June 1986, he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. He majored in film production and minored in history. During his senior year, he obtained a six-month, unpaid internship in film publicity with Universal Pictures. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from SVA in June 1990, and after his graduation, Universal Pictures hired him. Mike then married. He and his wife have one son, Mick. After a year, Mike moved to Disney to work in publicity while he took night classes in instrumentation and orchestration at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

After graduating from UCLA, Mike transferred to Disney Interactive to produce video games. His music compositions there included the Sega Genesis game Gargoyles, the SNES game Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow, and The Lion King. Mike then moved to Dream Works for which his first major music composition was written for the video game adaptation of the movie, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in 1997. He next composed the music score for the Small Soldiers video game in 1998. Mike then went to work for Pandemic Studios to create music themes for the video games Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Medal of Honor, Underground, Allied Assault, Front Line, Heroes 2, Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Call of Duty, and Finest Hour.

In 2001, Mike was hired by the producer of the new TV series, Alias, to write its sound track. Mike next wrote the music score for another new TV series, Lost, in early 2004. Later that year, Mike obtained his first big feature film commission when he was hired by Pixar to write the sound track for The Incredibles. For this work, Mike was nominated in 2005 for two Grammy Awards for Best Score for a Motion Picture and for Best Instrumental Composition. Later in 2005, he composed the music scores for the movies Sky High and The Family Stone, and for the TV film, The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz. In 2006, he scored the movie, Mission Impossible III. In 2007, he wrote the score for the film, Ratatouille, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. In 2009, he scored the movie, Star Trek. Later that year, he wrote the music for the movie, Up, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2010. In 2011, he composed the score for the film, Super 8. Mike then moved to Marvel Studios. In 2016, he wrote the music for the movies, Doctor Strange and Zootopia. He next scored the movie, Spider Man: Homecoming in 2017. Mike returned to Pixar later in 2017 to score Coco and Incredibles 2 in 2018. Bouncing back to Marvel Studies in 2019, Mike scored Jojo Rabbit and Spider Man: Far from Home. In 2021, he scored Spider Man: No Way Home. In 2022, he was very busy scoring Thor: Love & Thunder, The Batman, and Lightyear.

On October 7, 2022, Marvel Studios released the film, Werewolf by Night, which Mike directed. Mike is continuing in his new role as a director. After his overwhelming contributions as a music composer for first video games, then TV shows and films, what does this talented Abruzzese have planned for us in the future as a movie director? Stay tuned!

Source; (accessed June 9, 2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Giacchino