Lost, Up & Ratatouille - Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino is one of my favorite composers. One of the first projects of his that garnered attention was his critically acclaimed score for the television series Lost. The show includes many character themes, island themes - as it’s a character in its own right -, emotional motifs, and several other setting themes. In recording the score pieces of the plane wreck were actually used as instruments to create the music. They shipped sections of the plane and recorded a guy playing pieces of fuselage in the percussion booth. 

Some of my personal favorites of his works are the scores for the films Ratatouille and Up.

Ratatouille’s soundtrack has been critically acclaimed, with the most famous piece from the movie being "Le Festin", the film’s main theme. Where "Wall Rat" is Remy’s external theme, "Le Festin" is his internal theme. The dreamlike quality of the song tells the audience of Remy’s aspirations of becoming a chef. The orchestra used to record the score is one Giacchino’s been working with for many years.

One of Giacchino’s most famous pieces is the opening score for the film UP.  The movie is about 78 year old Carl Fredricksen who’s grappling with the loss of his wife and reflecting on his life. For the first ten minutes of the film Carl only says one word, but despite barely speaking we learn of his feelings for Ellie clearly through the song "Married Life". The extremely poignant opening effectively sets up Carl's emotional conflict throughout the story. At first Ellie's theme represents their love and life together, but quickly becomes representative of Carl's grief after Ellie’s passing. The music is a direct manifestation of Carl's emotional state, and is what Ben Winters termed “intra diegetic music”. 

Several aspects I love of Giacchino's work is he likes forming long partnerships and working with people across decades and different projects like J. J. Abrams, Tim Simonec and the orchestra, and he only records analog for films.