Michael Giacchino had an early fascination with film and experimented with animations as a boy. He later studied film production in New York, where he scored a few independent films before moving on to study composition at the Juliard school. Working for Disney, one of his early jobs was for the newly formed Dreamworks putting music to the Playstation game based on Spielberg's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park". This game score was unusual at the time, because Giacchino followed the path taken by John Williams in the film by creating a full orchestral score recorded by "The Northwest Sinfonia". The added atmosphere generated by orchestral music and the symphonic skills of the composer gave a feeling of cinematic depth to console gaming, and the composer was asked to repeat this format for "Medal of Honor". The resultant success led to a number of game sequels and new titles including "Call of Duty" and "Secret Weapons over Normandy".
Between composing for these various video games, Giacchino extended his experience by composing music for television, such as the TV movie "Semper Fi" and the series "Alias" and "Lost". He then landed the career changing task of composing for the Pixar animation The Incredibles. Michael Giacchino deserves credit for a unqiue jazz score which dares to deviate from the accepted Hollywood norm. Although missing out on the oscar nomination, his score for this movie has justly been recognised with a number of awards, and the same team has come together again to create Rataouille.
Giacchino's latest big screen blockbuster is Mission Impossible 3. Like the soundtracks to the previous films by Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer, this one also has references to the original music from the TV series by Lalo Schifrin but Giacchino uses more than just the main theme so this soundtrack seems to have a greater degree of familiarity that bonds it to the small screen original. This is very much in the Schifrin traditional style and seems to be entirely played by acoustic instruments with some hints at the jazz styles of "The Incredibles".
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