Michael Giacchino

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Michael Giacchino
Born Michael Giacchino
1967
Riverside Township, New Jersey, United States
Occupation Film score composer
Years active 1997-Present
Official website

Michael Giacchino (Italian Pronunciation [dʒaˈkkino]) (born 1967,[1] Riverside Township, New Jersey) is an Academy Award-nominated American soundtrack composer who has composed several multi-award winning scores for many popular movies, television series and video games.[2] His scores are notable for their usage of brass. Giacchino grew up in Edgewater Park Township, New Jersey and graduated from Holy Cross High School in Delran, New Jersey. He attended the Evening Division at the Juilliard School; as well as the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he acquired a degree in film production and a minor degree in History.[3][4]

Contents

[edit] Compositions

[edit] In Video Games

Giacchino's first major composition was for the DreamWorks video game adaptation of the 1997 movie, The Lost World: Jurassic Park.[5] The video game was 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, providing full orchestral scores for many of their popular videogames. Giacchino's award-winning compositions covers the first three Medal of Honor series, (Underground, Allied Assault and Frontline, along with the original Medal of Honor), 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.[6] Additionally, Giacchino composed themes for The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, and co-wrote the theme of Black with composer Chris Tilton.[7] He also composed the score for Alias, which was based on the television series of the same name. Michael has not been composing full soundtracks for video games in the past few years, but he is now going back to his roots as he is scheduled to score the music for a brand new world war II video game: Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.[1] And Electronic Arts has announced that Michael has returned to the Medal of Honor franchise as he has composed the music for Medal of Honor: Airborne.[2]

[edit] In Film and Television

Giacchino's work on the various video games led to his first work on television. In 2001, J.J. Abrams, producer of the television series Alias, discovered Giacchino through his work on the video games and tapped Giacchino to provide the new show's soundtrack.[8] The soundtrack featured a mix of full orchestral pieces, often mixed with upbeat electronic music, a departure from much of his previous work. Giacchino would also provide the score for J.J. Abrams's project, the 2004 television series, Lost[9], which was an acclaimed soundtrack that used a unique process of using spare pieces of a plane fuselage for the percussions. His score for Lost is notable for a signature thematic motif - a brass fall-off at the end of certain themes.[10] In 2004, Giacchino was given his first big feature film composition, when he was called on to provide the soundtrack for the Pixar film, The Incredibles.[11] Director Brad Bird had heard Giacchino's work on Alias and asked him to work on the soundtrack for the new movie. The upbeat jazz orchestral sound was a departure in sound not only for Giacchino but for Pixar, who had previously relied on the works of Randy and Thomas Newman for all of their previous films. Brad Bird had originally sought out John Barry, who was best known for composing many of the early James Bond movie soundtracks, to compose the music, but was reportedly unwilling to write music for an animated movie. Giacchino was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2005 for his work The Incredibles: Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media and Best Instrumental Composition.[12] Giacchino also composed scores for the 2005 films, Sky High and The Family Stone, and the television movie, The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. In addition, he wrote the music for Joseph Barbera's final theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoon: The KarateGuard, premiering in Los Angeles theatres on September 27, 2005. Giacchino also composed the score for the movie Mission: Impossible III, directed by J. J. Abrams, which was released on May 5, 2006.[13] Giacchino's latest musical achievement is his Paris-inspired score for the newest Disney-Pixar film, Ratatouille, which includes the theme song, Le Festin performed by French artist Camille. He has received his first Academy Award nomination for this score. His next soundtrack is for the upcoming Speed Racer remake, set for a theatrical May 9, 2008 release.

Giacchino has continued his collaboration with J. J. Abrams. He wrote an homage to Japanese monster scores in an overture entitled "ROAR!" which played over the credits of the Abrams-produced monster movie Cloverfield. It was the only original music for the entire film. Giacchino is also scheduled to score Abrams' upcoming Star Trek film.

[edit] 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 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland.[14] 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.

[edit] Awards, Nominations and Recognition

[edit] Awards

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Recognition

  • Cited by the New Yorker music critic Alex Ross as "some of the most compelling film music of the past year,"[15]

[edit] Partial composer filmography

 Audio samples composed by Michael Giacchino:
Album Year Medium
Star Trek 2009 Film
Speed Racer 2008 Film
Cloverfield 2008 Film
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty 2007 Video game
Medal of Honor: Airborne 2007 Video game
Ratatouille 2007 Film
Lifted 2006 Short film
Black 2006 Video game
Mission: Impossible III 2006 Film
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World 2006 Film
One Man Band 2005 Short film
The Family Stone 2005 Film
Space Mountain 2005 Theme park attraction
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz 2005 Television movie
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction 2005 Video game
Call of Duty: Finest Hour 2004 Video game
The Incredibles 2004 Film
The Incredibles Game 2004 Video game
Lost 2004 - present Television series
Secret Weapons Over Normandy 2003 Video game
Call of Duty 2003 Video game
Medal of Honor: Frontline 2002 Video game
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault 2002 Video game
Alias 2001 - 2006 Television series
Medal of Honor: Underground 2000 Video game
My Brother the Pig 1999 Film
Medal of Honor 1999 Video game
Warpath: Jurassic Park 1999 Video game
T'ai Fu Wrath of the Tiger 1999 Video game
Chaos Island 1997 Video game
The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997 Video game

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jon Burlingame, "Tunes for Toons", Daily Variety, Dec. 8, 2004
  2. ^ IMDB.com - Michael Giacchino
  3. ^ Burlingame, Jon. "Michael Giacchino's Mission: Make the Old Music New", The New York Times, May 7, 2006. 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 U.C.L.A."
  4. ^ Mackie.com
  5. ^ Michael Giacchino.com -Biography
  6. ^ Michael Giacchino.com - Works
  7. ^ Chris Tilton.com - Black
  8. ^ IMDB.com - Alias - Full Credits
  9. ^ Amazon - Lost Soundtrack
  10. ^ The Log Book - Lost
  11. ^ Cinemusic - The Incredibles
  12. ^ Grammy Nominations 2005 - PDF
  13. ^ CDUniverse - M:I - III
  14. ^ Space Mountain
  15. ^ NewYorker.com - SOUND AND VISION

[edit] External links