An upbeat score
for ‘Penguins’

The composer’s music serves
as dialogue in the film

What is it about the emperor penguin and its home in the bitterly inhospitable terrain of the Antarctic that fills us with wonder?

This bird is both comical and noble in appearance. Once it leaves its natural home in the coastal sea, the penguin must struggle to accomplish any task on the icy land.

Warner Independent, which acquired the French documentary "March of the Penguins" at this year's Sundance Film Festival, has added a new Alex Wurman score and an English-language narration by Morgan Freeman for the American market.

"March of the Penguins," playing at the Varsity Twins, tracks an emperor penguin flock -- and one couple in particular -- as they trek across the Antarctic on an annual journey that involves just about every major life experience, from birth to death, dating to mating, in a fight for survival.

Gone is the film's initial gimmick of having actors provide penguin dialogue. The American release reverts to the purity of watching birds stare at each other or their precious chicks, leaving the viewer to intuit the emotional context.

Wurman's upbeat music is a plus, attentive to the humor and gravity of penguins' traditional mating ritual.

Wurman credits his facility and wide range of composition styles to his early classical training, a lifelong love of jazz, and technological knowledge.

His résumé of film scores range from the rhythmic, soulful melodies of "Play It to the Bone," contemporary interpretation of French impressionism for "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing," to '60s- and '70s-era compositions and stylized abstract solo piano for "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind."

Some of Wurman's other motion picture scores include "A Lot Like Love," "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy" and "Hollywood Homicide." He also contributed to the scores for the blockbuster hits "A League of Their Own," "The Lion King" and "Armageddon."

Wurman fielded questions at his West Los Angeles recording studio.

WARNER BROS. Alex Wurman's upbeat music provides the backdrop for "March of the Penguins."

Alex Wurman: I just have strong ears. (laughing)

SB: This is quite a departure from other films you've scored.

AW: Well, I grew up watching National Geographic ... totally in my soul. But every movie I do, hopefully, will be a departure, and certainly "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy" was a major departure. The movie itself was a departure, and so was the music.

SB: How did you get involved in "March of the Penguins"?

AW: When Mark Gill at Warner Bros. first told me about a bunch of penguins, I was thrilled because I love being out in the world, and what they experienced was fascinating. And the way it was shot was so magnificent, there was no question in my mind that it was something quite inspiring to me. I have a tendency to want to do music that is melodic and harmonic in its style, more than sound design and special-effects music. This was closer to what I want to do more.

SB: Any creative problems with this type of score?

AW: No, just the opposite. This was one of the easiest things I've done. It was harrowing in the beginning because I had to write 65 minutes of music in six weeks, record and mix it for a very small budget, but my studio is really happening and I was able to bridge the gaps between the budgetary problems and scope of the music that I felt I needed. The end result was to find a way to make the synthesizers' sounds good out there, and they do. The challenge was to get it to sound big. I was able to use a string ensemble sparingly but still have it be a large role in the sound. But the collaborative team who bought the film for the U.S. was extremely open-minded ... about me putting ideas in the score.

SB: What was the creative process?

AW: First you watch the movie once or twice and develop an understanding of what it is, the way it looks and the way it feels, and the needs of the movie. Then you go off and have a little romance in fantasyland away from the movie where it's all happening in your mind. Then you go into a process where you're watching the film constantly to make everything line up right.

SB: Your music is the film's dialogue.

AW: Very much so and that was wonderful. I could develop melodies that were lengthy and were going somewhere.

SB: How important has it been for you to stay up to date with technology in creating music?

AW: That saved me on this film because we didn't have the money to hire a whole bunch of people to make the score a reality, and I ended up producing the whole score from beginning to end. I was running the computers that record it, the live instruments, I was programming the synthesizers, recorded some of the soloists ... and then we mixed everything in my studio. With today's technology it sounds fantastic; it sounds like a $4,000-a-day mixing studio. I've only got about $100,000 or so in my studio, and that's it.

SB: So is the home studio the orchestra of the future?

AW: We lost something when we developed the home studio, and that was the ability to discern between someone who really knows how to write music and someone who doesn't. We're starting to figure that out again, and people are once again starting to use their ears. But for a while, producers and directors thought having one guy do it all was just a good way to save money.

SB: How do you like to score a film?

AW: I like to work really hard on what I'm doing, take things from very beginning to very end, as thoroughly as I can and make it as artistic as it can be. I'm not the type of composer who can get in and out real fast, though I can and have done that. Independent films are a bit more creative.

After I delivered the music for this film, I went back and remixed it for the album because I cared so much how the album sounded, and no one paid me for that.