Geoff Zanelli

As a native of southern California and a musician from a very early age, it wasn't surprising that Geoff Zanelli ended up composing music for big-ticket Hollywood films. He started out by playing in various local bands, then attended Boston's Berklee College of Music. It was around this time that he attracted the attention of A-list composer Hans Zimmer, who invited him to come out to Los Angeles to assist with scoring. Zanelli proved to be an avid and energetic student, and for his effort he was awarded assistant work on several Zimmer jobs, including the 1997 John Woo identity-switch thriller, "Face/Off," and the 1998 computer-animated bug epic, "Antz." Following these initial experiences, the still-young musician stepped up into a fill-in role as a composer of additional music on numerous immodestly budgeted offerings like the 2000 poultry-in-a-POW-camp animated comedy, "Chicken Run," and "Hannibal," the 2001 sequel to the dark serial killer hit "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). As the new millennium cranked into gear, so did Zanelli's work. After apprenticing for quite a few years, he finally got the chance to score films and TV on his own, starting with the 2004 literary thriller "Secret Window." Among his other efforts as lead composer are work for the 2005 TV miniseries "Into the West" and another miniseries, "The Pacific" (2010). He garnered Emmy nominations for his work on both.