Prehistoric Planet Composers on Building Instruments From Fossils

How do you write music for animals no one has heard in 66 million years?

That was the puzzle for composers Anže Rozman and Kara Talve on season two of Prehistoric Planet, the Apple TV+ natural history series narrated by Sir David Attenborough. The producers wanted audiences to feel they were watching real animals living their lives, like an episode of Planet Earth. So the music had two jobs: make these creatures relatable, and carry the listener back in time. Their answer was an orchestra on one side, and on the other, instruments built from the things we study dinosaurs with today: fossils, bones, fossil replicas, rocks and petrified wood.

In Episode 203, Christian Taylor and co-host Jason Rugg talk with Anže and Kara, who met at Hans Zimmer's composer collective Bleeding Fingers Music and scored the series with Zimmer. Anže grew up in Slovenia, where, he says, every village has its own church choir or brass band. He started composing at nine and laughs that the next ten years were "not a pleasant listening experience." Kara grew up between her grandmother's classical piano and her dad's jazz guitar, fell for the film music of Thomas Newman, went to Berklee, and worked as a tech assistant at Bleeding Fingers for a few months before she was promoted to composer.

Anže holds up the Triceratone on camera, the last instrument they built for season two, made from a dinosaur skull replica and a double bass neck. They talk about the shock of an Emmy nomination, what it's like to work with Hans "basically working next door," and their advice for anyone who wants a career in Los Angeles: love the work enough to put in the hours, and be someone people want to work with. After the interview, Christian shares news from two sold-out screenings of The Girl Who Wore Freedom in Ormond Beach, Florida, and a research trip to Fort Campbell, and she and Jason talk about the 2023 strikes and what they might change.

WATCH THE FILM: Prehistoric Planet streams on Apple TV+.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How growing up in Slovenia shaped Anže's love of music
• Why Anže says passion and time matter more than talent
• How Kara went from Berklee to tech assistant to composer
• What it's like to learn from Hans Zimmer at Bleeding Fingers
• Why the team made instruments out of fossils and petrified wood
• How an orchestra and dinosaur-bone instruments share one score
• Why Christian and Jason hope the 2023 strikes change how crews get paid

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who composed the music for Prehistoric Planet?

Hans Zimmer, Anže Rozman and Kara Talve scored Prehistoric Planet for Apple TV+, working through Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers Music. Anže and Kara say they met at Bleeding Fingers, where composers each run their own projects but collaborate and share what they know. Season two premiered May 22, 2023, and their score for the episode "Badlands" was nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

What instruments were used in the Prehistoric Planet score?

Anže Rozman says the team recorded the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to make the animals feel real and relatable, then built instruments from the materials we study dinosaurs with today: fossils, bones, fossil replicas, rocks and petrified wood. The last one built for season two, the Triceratone, combines a dinosaur skull replica with a double bass neck.

How do you become a film composer?

Anže Rozman says it isn't about talent so much as the passion and time you're willing to put in, and that it's very hard to work on music every day and get worse. Kara Talve says the 10,000 hours are real, and that you should be someone people want to work with. She suggests listening to people's work and connecting before asking for help, because cold emails rarely go anywhere.

Was Prehistoric Planet nominated for an Emmy?

Yes. Hans Zimmer, Anže Rozman and Kara Talve were nominated at the 75th Primetime Creative Arts Emmys for Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Score), for the season two episode "Badlands." Anže says they were so sure they wouldn't be nominated that they weren't even refreshing the page.

DOCUVIEW DEJA VIEW PICKS

• The Staircase (2004), directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. Kara's pick, the true crime series about the Michael Peterson murder trial, now on Netflix.
• Ancient Apocalypse (2022), Netflix. Anže's pick, in which writer Graham Hancock presents his theory of a lost civilization before the end of the last ice age, a theory many experts dispute.
• The Changing Hollywood Landscape (2023), Fresh Air from NPR. Christian's pick, Terry Gross with Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw.

See every guest pick on the DocuView Deja View page.

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ABOUT THE GUESTS

Anže Rozman is a Slovenian composer of concert and media music and a composer at Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers Music. He studied composition at the music academy in Ljubljana and earned a Master of Music in scoring for film, television and video games at Berklee's Valencia campus. His credits include BBC's The Universe and The Planets, the IMAX film Great Bear Rainforest and the opening title music for BBC's Frozen Planet II, both co-composed with Hans Zimmer, and music for The Simpsons. Anže at Berklee

Kara Talve is a film and television composer at Bleeding Fingers Music, originally from Long Island, New York. She graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2018 with a degree in film scoring and a minor in video game scoring. She co-scored Prehistoric Planet with Anže and Hans Zimmer, and at the time of this episode had been a principal composer on The Simpsons for four seasons. Kara at Berklee

About the series: Prehistoric Planet is executive produced by Jon Favreau and Mike Gunton, produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit for Apple TV+, and narrated in its first two seasons by Sir David Attenborough.

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Apple TV+ announcement for season two, with music credits: Apple TV+ Press