Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1522701
o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 2 c g w 7 A pple TV+'s Masters of the Air is based on Donald L. Mill- er's book of the same name, and follows the men of the 100th Bomb Group (a.k.a. "Bloody Hundredth") as they conduct dozens of bombing raids over Nazi Germany. The nine-episode series looks at the struggles the crews face at 25,000 feet, including freezing temperatures and lack of oxygen, along with the psychological and emotional tolls that wear on the young men as they help to destroy Hitler's Third Reich. The series was executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman, and was split up among a team of direc- tors that included Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Dee Rees, and Tim Van Patten. Austin Butler and Callum Turner star in the series, which also in- cludes Anthony Boyle, Nate Mann, Barry Keoghan, Rafferty Law, Ed- ward Ashley, Jonas Moore, Elliot Warren, Matt Gavan, Branden Cook, Josiah Cross, and Ncuti Gatwa. overall vfx Stephen Rosenbaum served as the show's visual effects supervisor, coordinating work among a number of studios, including The Third Floor, DNEG, Whiskeytree, Rodeo FX, and Wētā FX. Here, he reflects on the VFX needs of the show and its challenges. Hi Stephen! Tell us about your background. Stephen Rosenbaum: I've been an independent supe for years. I will occasionally associate with a specific VFX vendor, but most of the time, I'm freelance, hired by the studios." How did you get involved in Masters of the Air? Stephen Rosenbaum: I got a call from somebody who was working on the show. Early on, they were deciding what direction to go—both creatively and technically. They were looking around and saw my cre- dentials, and they called me up. You've worked on big features, such as Avatar and Kong: Skull Island. How does this streaming series compare? Stephen Rosenbaum: It was like doing three movies, back-to- back. Sometimes not even back-to-back—sometimes on top of each other. Most visual effects movies are about a half to a third the size. In terms of scope and complexity, this was definitely a beast. And it grew exponentially as we were prepping and then shooting. Can you talk about the different contributors and their re- sponsibilities? Stephen Rosenbaum: [The] Third Floor, I hired to do previs. So they were on from the early days of development and then into prep. They helped me build out the concepts of mostly the mission sequences—the battles. Sometimes they would help me visualize sequences that were not battles—sort of somewhat abstract in na- ture and in terms of the narrative, and we needed to visualize what that would be before we got into shooting. So they were my ven- Stephen Rosenbaum served as the show's overall VFX supervisor.