I lived in New York City for six years, and I was always amazed at how diverse everything was.
— Michael Giacchino
I love classic animation, and I especially love classic cartoon music.
If you listen to a score from beginning to end, you should envision the entire film in your head.
When artists find other artists that they love to work with, they more than likely will continue to work with them throughout their career.
'Lost,' at its core, is a science-fiction show. Live music helps lend an air of legitimacy to this otherwise crazy storyline. It makes a big difference.
I love Glenn Gould. Max Steiner. John Williams. Louis Prima. Benny Goodman. Miles Davis. John Philip Sousa.
I was never one of those people that would just take jobs that were thrown at me.
I always thought of 'Lost' as a psychotic opera. Because there were so many characters, it was important for me to track them with themes.
Because of John Williams, I began collecting all kinds of film scores. I listened to them when I fell asleep, and it was through my obsessive listening that I learned what all the different parts of the orchestra were. I learnt a great deal from him by just simply listening.
There have been several movies that I've done over the years that have got a bad shake - 'Speed Racer' was one of them. I loved that movie, and the fact it got such a bad reception was disheartening.
When I was 9, I saw 'Star Wars,' and it set me on a path to where I am today.
I always liked melody.
My dad had a great record collection, which included some music from Mexico, and so I always loved it.
I work on the types of movies that I would have loved watching as a kid.
My dad had these great Benny Goodman albums that I was obsessed with, and Louis Prima's another guy I loved, and Peter Niro the jazz pianist. I loved international music: Irish music, Mexican music. I love the different colours that they all have.
I don't like working all hours of the night and having an unreliable working pattern.
I grew up with so many different sounds, and 'Lost' allows me to express all of it, the melodic and the atonal.
I watched 'Land of the Lost' as a kid, you know, incessantly. I loved it. Me and my brother watched it every Saturday.
The 'Jonny Quest' theme had a huge influence on me while I was growing up.
When I was a kid, there was no DVD, no VHS. The only way to re-live a movie once it was out of the theater was to listen to its film score.
Nothing can grab you by the throat - or heart or soul - like an orchestra. It's undeniably the most engaging and exciting way to bring a score to life.
I think Mozart, with all his impatience in writing, would have loved it. It would have allowed him to write twice as much. He would have loved a Mac. If he'd had a laptop, he would have been unstoppable.
On 'Lost,' I write a score and orchestrate it on days one and two; I record it on day three. In animation and film and videogames, you have a little more time to work things through.
There was a time that I did 'Up,' 'Star Trek' and 'Land of the Lost,' and I was working on 'Lost,' at the same time, and that was really hard.
We're all inspired by what has come before us, but hope to use the inspiration to create our own. That's the artist's journey. It's a pretty amazing path.
I was pretty lucky to have grown up during the 'Star Wars,' 'Indiana Jones' and 'E.T.' years.
Without my experiences on the likes of 'Lost' and 'Alias,' I don't know if I would have survived 'Rogue One.'
I have tons of drawings of 'Star Wars,' whether it be stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Star Destroyers, or the whole thing.
My great uncle, my mom's uncle, had an appliance store in Philadelphia, and it was called Peter's TV. They sold stereos and televisions and washers, dryers, all kinds of stuff.
The Internet's a crazy place to hang out because it's insane to see so many people doing so many creative things all over the map.
As a kid I was obsessed with monster movies.
If you look at my credits, most of them are the same directors over and over.
There's so much fun you can have with your instruments that no one ever taught you.
Of everything I've done in my career, or whatever you want to call it, 'Lost' is the purest version of me musically.
Filmmaking is hard enough as it is. If you can find a group you love working with, it makes it just a little bit easier.
I loved 'Planet of the Apes,' and I loved 'Star Wars,' and I loved 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' and to me, the goal always was to work on something as cool as that.
When you write for an orchestra, the sky's the limit.
Scoring animated films, I have the exact same approach and philosophy as I do for a live action. It's all story- and character-driven. I don't care if it's a mouse or Tom Cruise.
As a kid, I would listen to anything that had a live orchestra or ensemble playing, so that covered everything from show tunes to eclectic jazz things to film soundtracks to classical music. They're all inspiring to me.
The very first game I worked on was for DreamWorks Interactive's 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park.'
I love Batman.
Many film scores try to force an emotion into a story that inherently is not there in the first place.
Art is difficult. It's not always going to please everyone; it's not always going to work the way you want it to work.
There was a paperwork mishap on 'War For The Planet Of The Apes,' in that the end credits was simply called 'End Credits.' And that's what appears on the album. Once we realised that was out there, we were so ashamed.
I always loved movies like 'King Kong' and 'Planet of the Apes,' monster movies, Ray Harryhausen films, all of that stuff. I always loved the music in them, too.
Working with Kevin Feige has just been a joy.
I like to think that I probably have written more World War II music than anyone on the planet after all the 'Medal of Honors' and 'Call of Duties.'
I like the sounds of real, living, breathing musicians. When a real person plays something, there's a soul. They're giving you their emotions.
I try to keep a regular work schedule.
For some reason, as a kid, I felt outwardly embarrassed to say that I liked rock music. I don't know where that came from. For me, it just wasn't cool - orchestral music was cool.
