Function: Composer WSAcademy: WSA Voting Member
JOHN PAESANO is an Emmy Award®-nominated and BAFTA-winning composer, producer, conductor, and arranger for film, television, and video games. He studied classical music with Professor Sally Dow Miller of Conservatoire de Paris, and continued his studies at Berklee College of Music, focusing on composition.


On his path to creating film scores of his own, he has worked on some of the industry’s most prestigious films, including on scores by Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. Some of Paesano’s notable credits include the recently released 20th Century Studios’ "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes," Marvel’s “Daredevil,” and 20th Century Fox’s "The Maze Runner" Trilogy. His scores for PlayStation’s “Spider-Man” and “Miles Morales” have received seven best score nominations, along with a BAFTA win for “Spider-Man: Miles Morales” and BAFTA nomination for “Spider-Man 2”.


Paesano collected an Annie Award for best music for his work on the DreamWorks animated series “Dragons: Riders of Berk,” based on the Academy Award® nominated film “How to Train Your Dragon,” as well as a World Soundtrack Award for his score to the well-received young adult adaptation of “The Maze Runner.” He went on to complete the hugely successful trilogy, creating equally impressive scores for “The Scorch Trials” and “The Death Cure”. He was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music for Marvel's "The Defenders."


His recent scores for the Ethan Hawke-led “Tesla” and for the John Logan and Sam Mendes-produced “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels” are a testament to his range and ability to craft scores to the project’s needs, whether for large scale franchise films or intimate character-driven dramas. He continues work on the critically acclaimed Amazon series “Invincible” (with voices by Steven Yeun, Seth Rogen, Sandra Oh, Zazie Beetz, Mahershala Ali, J.K. Simmons, and Gillian Jacobs).