Quotes from Michael Giacchino

Many film scores try to force an emotion into a story that inherently is not there in the first place.

I love percussive instrumentation.

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 used to do puppet shows as a kid - me and my brother would do them - and then any poor soul who came into the house had to sit and watch our puppet shows.

My parents loved music, but they weren't musicians. So my musical training as a young kid was limited to piano lessons. I was not the best student; I was awful, never practiced. But I was always interested in just messing around on the piano.

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.

When you write for an orchestra, the sky's the limit.

There's so much fun you can have with your instruments that no one ever taught you.

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.

You've all seen movies where the music isn't working with the story. And it's either because... the story isn't working itself. Or the composer kinda just wants to write whatever they want to write, not paying attention to the thing.

Hopefully, by the time I do a project, I already have a true understanding and love of what I'm about to do because if I don't, I'm not going to work on that project. I really want to have those connections so I can be truthful to the emotional aspect of what I have to deliver for the story.

I grew up with so many different sounds, and 'Lost' allows me to express all of it, the melodic and the atonal.

I always liked melody.

My dad had a great record collection, which included some music from Mexico, and so I always loved it.

I was obsessed with 'The Twilight Zone' as a kid, and one of those things I didn't realize until I was in college was that I had been listening to Bernard Herrmann all my life.

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.

I work on the types of movies that I would have loved watching as a kid.

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.

My entire life was making movies.

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.

Who can't relate to a story of a dreamer who, against all odds, is going to make something of himself that is completely unexpected?

People on 'The Incredibles' would ask me if I listened to a lot of spy scores, but no, I don't.

That's one of the neat things about 'Call of Duty.' There are areas in the game where we were able to score the gameplay.

My dad gave me his camera, so I spent my childhood making movies with the kids in the neighborhood as actors.