192 - The Making of Masters of the Air

Dolby Creator Talks

This week we discuss the sound, music, and cinematography of “Masters of the Air,” the epic WWII limited series from Apple TV+. With so many films and shows about World War II over the past several decades, one of the biggest challenges of the series was keeping things fresh. So the creative teams took some ingenious approaches to give every episode and action sequence a unique look, sound, and feel.

“Because there's so much time spent in the air with these planes, and so many different planes, we really wanted to sell the geography of each location within each plane and also each and every different plane. So one of the ways that we did that was that Mike [Minkler] and I had the different sequences cut by different people, with a fresh take. Or I did this particular sequence, and then I would hand it off to another editor. Or they would do that, and then pass it to me. And so we had a lot of interplaying around with each other's material, which I think keeps it really fresh, whilst not just copying and pasting material. When you have this much time in the air, you really need to keep the listener involved and their ear kind of excited at all times.”

—Jack Whittaker, Supervising Sound Editor, “Masters of the Air”

Joining our conversation:

- Supervising Sound Editor Jack Whittaker

- Re-recording Mixer Duncan McRae

- Re-recording Mixer Michael Minkler

- Composer Blake Neeley

- Cinematographer Jac Fitzgerald

Be sure to check out “Masters of the Air” on Apple TV+.

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