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Giacchino recommended to his parents that he attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
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Giacchino describes visiting the school with his parents thus:
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I thought, wow, this is fantastic. They actually have colleges like this? Where I can do the things
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that I am really interested in doing? That was amazing to me. I loved SVA. I loved the kind of
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freedom that it provided. It was kind of like this great experiment—okay, you're here because you
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like something. So let's see how much you like it. We're not going to regulate you too much. We're
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going to see how passionate and driven you are, and how much you want this thing.
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Giacchino enrolled at SVA, majoring in film production and minoring in history. During his final
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year at SVA, his instructor in film publicity announced an unpaid internship was available at
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Universal Pictures. Giacchino, who was the only one interested, obtained the six-month position,
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which he filled at night while attending school during the day and working at Macy's to pay his
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rent. He graduated from SVA in 1990 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, after which he took music classes
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at the Juilliard School, and then at UCLA.
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Career
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Video games
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When Giacchino's internship ended, Universal hired him, giving him a job upon graduation from
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college. He later moved to Disney, and when Disney relocated to Los Angeles, Giacchino moved with
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them, working in publicity, while taking night classes in instrumentation and orchestration at
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UCLA. His work for Disney had him interacting with the various personnel who worked in films, such
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as the producers who hired composers, so when a job at Disney Interactive opened for a producer,
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Giacchino obtained the job, thinking he could hire himself to write music for the games he
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produced.
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Giacchino's composition work for Disney Interactive during the 16-bit era included the Sega Genesis
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game Gargoyles, the SNES game Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow and the various console versions of The
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Lion King. However his first major composition was for the DreamWorks video game adaptation of the
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1997 movie, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The video game was one of the first PlayStation (also on
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Sega Saturn) console titles to be recorded with an original live orchestral score. Giacchino has
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since continued his relationship with DreamWorks which also included composing the score for the
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Small Soldiers video game in 1998, providing full orchestral scores for many of their popular
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videogames. He also worked with Pandemic studios to create the theme for Mercenaries: Playground of
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Destruction. Giacchino's award-winning compositions covers the first four installments of the Medal
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of Honor series, (Medal of Honor, Underground, Allied Assault and Frontline), Heroes: 2, and also
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the scores for several other World War II-related video games like Secret Weapons Over Normandy,
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Call of Duty and Call of Duty: Finest Hour. Additionally, Giacchino composed themes for The
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Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, and co-wrote the theme of Black with composer Chris Tilton. He
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also composed the score for Alias, which was based on the television series of the same name. In
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2008 Giacchino wrote music for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. In 2007, he returned to the Medal of
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Honor franchise as he composed the music for Medal of Honor: Airborne.
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Film and television Giacchino's work on various video games led to his entrance into television.
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In 2001, J. J. Abrams, producer of the television series Alias, discovered Giacchino through his
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video game work and asked him to provide the new show's soundtrack. The soundtrack featured a mix
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of full orchestral pieces frequently intermingled with upbeat electronic music, a departure from
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much of his previous work. Giacchino would go on to provide the score for J. J. Abrams's 2004
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television series Lost, creating an acclaimed score which employed a unique process of using spare
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pieces of a plane fuselage for percussion parts. The score for Lost is also notable for a signature
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thematic motif: a brass fall-off at the end of certain themes. Just like his counterpart Stu
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Phillips, he worked with the television show creator Abrams on his shows with his music scores
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while Abrams supplied the show's main themes on certain series such as Alias.
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In 2004, Giacchino received his first big feature film commission. Brad Bird, director of Pixar's
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The Incredibles, asked Giacchino to provide the soundtrack for the film after having heard his work
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on Alias. The upbeat jazz orchestral sound was a departure in style not only for Giacchino but for
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Pixar, which had previously relied on Randy and Thomas Newman for all of its films. Director Brad
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Bird had originally sought out John Barry – perhaps best known for his work on the early James Bond
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films—but Barry was reportedly unwilling to repeat the styles of his earlier works.
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Giacchino was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2005 for The Incredibles: Best Score Soundtrack
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Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media and Best Instrumental Composition.
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Like his other counterparts Joel McNeely, J. A. C. Redford and Frank DeVol, Giacchino mostly
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associated with Disney from early in his career up to most recently, ranging from video games such
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as Mickey Mania and Gargoyles to films such as The Incredibles and eventually collaborated with
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Walt Disney Imagineering in creating two new soundtracks for the updated versions of Space Mountain
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at Disneyland, Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong
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Disneyland.
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Giacchino also composed scores for the 2005 films Sky High and The Family Stone, and the television
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movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. Additionally, he wrote the music for Joseph Barbera's final
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theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoon The Karate Guard, and scored the Abrams-directed 2006 film
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Mission: Impossible III. Giacchino's next musical achievement was his Paris-inspired score for the
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Disney-Pixar film Ratatouille, which includes the theme song "Le Festin", performed by French
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artist Camille. He received his first Academy Award nomination for this score. He also created the
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score for Abrams' 2009 Star Trek film.
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Giacchino scored the Pixar film Up (and its accompanying animated short Partly Cloudy), for which
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he collaborated with director Pete Docter. This marked the first time Giacchino worked with a Pixar
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director other than Brad Bird. This work gained Giacchino his first Academy Award for Best Original
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Score: the first-ever win for Pixar in that category. Giacchino notes that he won on the same night
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as his SVA classmate Joel Harlow won for Best Makeup Oscar for Star Trek.
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Giacchino has continued his collaboration with J. J. Abrams. For the Abrams-produced monster film
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Cloverfield, Giacchino wrote an homage to Japanese monster scores in an overture titled "ROAR!",
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which played over the credits, and constituted the only original music for the film. He composed
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the score for J. J. Abrams' feature Super 8 in 2011. He also composed for the pilot of the
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Abrams-produced American television series Fringe, after which Giacchino gave scoring duties to his
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assistant Chad Seiter, who scored the first half of season one. The task was then passed on to
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Chris Tilton, who scored the latter half of season one and all subsequent seasons.
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In 2016, Giacchino composed the score for the Marvel film Doctor Strange, as well as the score for
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the Disney film Zootopia. Giacchino also composed the fanfare for the new Marvel Studios logo,
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which debuted with Doctor Strange. In September 2016, it was announced that Giacchino had been
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chosen to replace composer Alexandre Desplat as the composer for the Star Wars anthology film Rogue
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One after Desplat was unavailable following reshoots. Giacchino then scored three more Marvel
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films, 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming and its two sequels, 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home and
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Spider Man: No Way Home, and is set to score a fifth in Thor: Love and Thunder.
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Giacchino returned to Pixar to score Coco (2017) and Incredibles 2 (2018).
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He also composed the score for Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit. In 2022, Giacchino will re-team with
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Matt Reeves to score The Batman.
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In 2018, Giacchino wrote, directed and scored Monster Challenge. The short film is a satirical take
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on Japanese game shows, starring Patton Oswalt, Ben Schwartz, Dermot Mulroney, Amy Brenneman,
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Taishi Mizuno, Ann Madox, and Teruko Nakajima. Monster Challenge originally premiered at Fantastic
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Fest in 2018 and premiered on YouTube on March 20, 2020. He continued with his directorial efforts
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with a Star Trek: Short Treks episode "Ephraim and Dot" in 2019.
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Additional compositions
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In addition to his long list of soundtracks, in 2005 Giacchino collaborated with Walt Disney
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Imagineering in creating two new soundtracks for the updated versions of Space Mountain at
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Disneyland, Space Mountain: Mission 2 at Disneyland Paris, and Space Mountain at Hong Kong