Michael Giacchino (born October 10, 1967) is an American composer and director who works in films, video games and television, including seven Pixar films. He first gained recognition for The Incredibles.
Won an Academy Award for Up and a Emmy for Lost. Can be seen as a modern-day John Williams, sharing this with fellow composer Joel McNeely (who is now considered to be the Poor Man's Substitute for blockbuster composer Giacchino himself in recent years), whom Giacchino can also be seen as a next-gen Superior Successor to along with the late Frank DeVol due to also their most occasional collaborations with Disney sided with their other film and television works outside of the family-friendly company. He can also be seen as the modern day Stu Phillips in the television business due to scoring episodic music for shows whose theme songs were composed by the show's creators (Glen A. Larson for Phillips and J. J. Abrams for Giacchino). Also known for naming many of his pieces with awful puns and being the usual composer for filmmakers J. J. Abrams, Brad Bird, Matt Reeves and Colin Trevorrow, and for being a frequent composer for projects in the Marvel Cinematic Universenote .
He also created the new fanfare for the 100th anniversary Paramount logo
, along with the fanfare for the new Hammer Films.
Much of his work for Pixar can be found on Pixar's Awesome Music page.
Michael Giacchino has composed for:
Videogames
- Alias (video game)
- Donald in Maui Mallard
- Call of Duty series
- Call of Duty (2003)
- Call of Duty: United Offensive
- Call of Duty: Finest Hour
- Gargoyles (video game)
- The Incredibles (video game)
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park (video game)
- Medal of Honor series
- Mercenaries (with Chris Tilton)
- Mickey Mania (Sega CD and PlayStation)
- Muppet Monster Adventure
- The Simpsons Game ("Medal of Homer" level music)
- Small Soldiers (video game)
- T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger
Live-Action TV
Films
- Phenomenon II
- The Muppets' Wizard of Oz
- Mission: Impossible III
- Cloverfield (the "ROAR" composition heard during the film's credits)
- Speed Racer
- Star Trek (2009)
- Land of the Lost
- Let Me In
- Super 8
- Monte Carlo (2011)
- 50/50 (2011)
- John Carter
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
- This Is Where I Leave You
- Jurassic World
- Tomorrowland
- Jupiter Ascending
- Marvel Cinematic Universe — On top of composing the opening fanfare for the Marvel Studios opening for most Phase 3 and 4 films and shows, Giacchino has composed the following movies:
- Rogue One note
- The Book of Henry
- Bad Times at the El Royale
- Jojo Rabbit
- Let Him Go
- The Batman (2022)
- The Family Stone
- Next Goal Wins (2023)
- Society of the Snow
- IF (2024)
Western Animation
- Disney
- Pixar
- Pixar Shorts
- "One-Man Band"
- "Lifted"
- "Partly Cloudy"
- "Day & Night"
- Tom and Jerry: "The Karateguard"
- Star Trek: Prodigy (theme only)
Other Media
- Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (pre-shows only)
- Space Mountain (California, Hong Kong, and Paris versions)
Giacchino has also directed the following works:
- Star Trek: Discovery (Short episode “Ephram and Dot”)
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Tropes associated with Michael Giacchino include:
- Author Appeal: The man loves his strings and brass sections. Expect to hear one or the other on many of his scores. (Then again, these are pretty much standard issue on most film and TV scores, but Giacchino does admittedly use them more than most).
- He is heavily influenced by the works of John Williams, as can be heard in his use of strong leitmotifs with complex orchestration. It's even apparent in his incidental music, combining strings with small but precise jabs of flutes to raise tension.
-
Breakthrough Hit: It was thanks to his work on the score for The Incredibles that launched his career into what it is today. - Complexity Addiction: All of his music is intricately composed with many many layers being brought together. Listen to his fanfare for Marvel's Phase 3 films and hear just how much is going on in 30 seconds of music.
- Darker and Edgier: His collaborations with Matt Reeves tend to be this compared to the rest of his work, gloomier and quieter than the John Williams-esque scores that he is more famous for. His score for Reeves' The Batman is also this compared to prior Batman film scores, more somber than Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard's themes and comparatively less bombastic than Zimmer and Tom Holkenborg's, while at the same time serve as a companion piece to Jerry Goldsmith's hauntingly harsh and dissonant scores to First Blood and Outland.
- Future Music: Composed the theme for Disneyland's Space Mountain that replaced Dick Dale's original theme in 2005.
- Hurricane of Puns: His tracks have a serious tendency to be punny (virtually every track title in the Star Trek (2009) soundtrack is a pun, usually either on the contents of a scene or on Nero's name). Because of his propensity for punny track names, his soundtracks also tend toward inadvertent spoilers.
- Leitmotif: Giacchino is in love with these. Nearly every score he writes features a few-note theme which plays constantly. In fairness, most film scores are built around leitmotifs, so Giacchino is hardly unusual in that regard.
- Parody Assistance: As the regular composer for Medal of Honor, he also provides the level music for "Medal of Homer" in The Simpsons Game.
- "Psycho" Strings: Used constantly.
- Production Posse:
- He's worked with Chris Tilton (on whom the terrible pun tradition has rubbed off) on both games and television. Inversely he's part of the JJ Abrams and Pixar posses (especially Brad Bird) and used to be part of EA's. Amongst his regular musicians is legendary session bassist Abraham Laboriel Sr.
- He has worked with writer Adam F. Goldberg on the Muppets productions The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (as a composer) and The Muppets Mayhem (producing the score, which was composed by his son Mick).
- Pungeon Master: At least half of his song titles will feature terrible puns. Rare aversions are The Family Stone and Rogue One, whose titles are sober descriptions just like in the scores by John Williams. (Although Giacchino and his team did do some for fun, which appear in the liner notes◊ with a Lampshade Hanging - it may have been at the behest of Lucasfilm).
- Reconstruction: His music is this of the upbeat, exciting Lighter and Softer orchestral music scoring that relates to composers that he grew up with such as John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin, Alan Silvestri and James Horner (right down to using veteran orchestrator Jack Hayes in his past works such as Star Trek (2009) and Up until Hayes' death), especially in the intense, brooding Darker and Edgier Hans Zimmer-dominated movie music world that some audiophile listeners could need a break from. The only difference between Giacchino and the aformentioned upbeat composers is that Giacchino needed another conductor to conduct his music, while the said composers usually conducted their own scores.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Numerous themes get recycled throughout his works, leading to the same theme popping up in Star Trek, LOST, The Incredibles, Up, or Ratatouille with only a slight change to fit the theme.
- Running Gag: "World's Worst..."
- "...Road Trip"
- "...Beach Party"
- "...Landscaping"
- "...Car Crash"
- "...Road Rage"
- "...Last Four Minutes to Live"
- "...Parking Valet"
- "...Curtain Call"
- "...Shop Keepers"
- "...Animal Shelter"
- "...Vacation Destination"
- "...Bedtime Storyteller"
- "...Babysitters"
- "...Water Feature"
- "...Rideshare"
- "...Friendly Neighbor"
- "...Translator"
- "...Self-Destruct Sequence"
- "...Makeover"
- ..."Galaxy's Worst Sushi Bar"
- ..."Scotland’s Worst Cliffhanger"
- ..."Astral World's Worst Killer".
- There are also "World's Best Carpool Lane" ...And
- "World's Best Autopia"
- Superior Successor: While's his musical work are a
Spiritual Successor to Williams, McNeely, DeVol and Phillips as noted above, he can be considered this too as they can be seen as a next-gen Reconstruction of the latter four's own past work. - Uncommon Time: Shows up sometimes. "Escape from Muntz Mountain" on the Up soundtrack is in 5/4.
