Composer Michael Giacchino To Direct An Animated 'Star Trek' Episode

By Ben Pearson/Feb. 4, 2019 4:30 pm EST

Michael Giacchino is known as one of the best composers working in film and television today, but the prolific musician is beginning to flex some different creative muscles. After making his directing debut last year with a short film, Giacchino will head to the final frontier and direct a Star Trek episode for CBS All Access. Read more about the upcoming Michael Giacchino Star Trek episode below.

Not content with dominating the field of music and winning three Grammys, an Emmy, and an Oscar, Giacchino is stepping behind the camera once again as a director. SyFy points us to a recent Twitter thread from the official Star Trek account that took place at the Television Critics Association, where they announced the directors of the next two Star Trek: Short Treks episodes:

"We are doing two more short treks, they're going to be animated, different than the lower decks" #AlexKurtzman #StarTrekDiscovery — "One will be directed by @CenterWillHold and the other directed by @m_giacchino"

— Star Trek (@StarTrek) January 30, 2019

This won't be Giacchino's first trip to space with this franchise: he's provided the scores for Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond, the three most recent theatrical efforts in the Trek mythos.

Short Treks is a spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery which uses some of the same characters and sets as that show. The short-form episodes, each of which typically last somewhere between 10-20 minutes, provide a nice way to keep fans interested in that sci-fi world between seasons of Discovery. And while the existing four episodes of Short Treks have been live-action, the next two will be animated – including Giacchino's episode. (There's also an entirely separate Trek-related series called Lower Decks coming from one of the people behind Rick & Morty, but don't get them confused.)

Last year, Giacchino made his directorial debut on a short film called Monster Challenge, which starred Patton Oswalt and Ben Schwartz. The short played at Fantastic Fest and later screened in Los Angeles, where /Film's Peter Sciretta had a chance to check it out – the short isn't available online, but you can listen to Peter talk about it starting around the 52:24 mark in this /Film Daily podcast episode. Giacchino started out wanting to be a visual storyteller, making stop-motion animated films when he was a kid and eventually enrolling in New York City's School of Visual Arts before ultimately transitioning into composing. He got his start making music for video games like Medal of Honor before moving into television with his Emmy-winning work on LOST, and the floodgates opened from there. If you're looking for more of his work, I'd encourage you to check out our video recap of last year's Lost Live concert in L.A.

The Giacchino-directed episode of Star Trek: Short Treks will debut on CBS All Access after the second season of Star Trek: Discovery comes to an end.