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    The Apple ’1984’ Ad Changed the Super Bowl Forever

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    An oral history of Apple’s groundbreaking “1984” spot, which helped to establish the Super Bowl as TV’s biggest commercial showcase.Four decades ago, the Super Bowl became the Super Bowl.It wasn’t because of anything that happened in the game itself: On Jan. 22, 1984, the Los Angeles Raiders defeated Washington 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII, a contest that was mostly over before halftime. But during the broadcast on CBS, a 60-second commercial loosely inspired by a famous George Orwell novel shook up the advertising and the technology sectors without ever showing the product it promoted. Conceived by the Chiat/Day ad agency and directed by Ridley Scott, then fresh off making the seminal science-fiction noir “Blade Runner,” the Apple commercial “1984,” which was intended to introduce the new Macintosh computer, would become one of the most acclaimed commercials ever made. It also helped to kick off — pun partially intended — the Super Bowl tradition of the big game serving as an annual showcase for gilt-edged ads from Fortune 500 companies. It all began with the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’s desire to take the battle with the company’s rivals to a splashy television broadcast he knew nothing about.In recent interviews, several of the people involved in creating the “1984” spot — Scott; John Sculley, then chief executive of Apple; Steve Hayden, a writer of the ad for Chiat/Day; Fred Goldberg, the Apple account manager for Chiat/Day; and Anya Rajah, the actor who famously threw the sledgehammer — looked back on how the commercial came together, its inspiration and the internal objections that almost kept it from airing. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.JOHN SCULLEY On Oct. 19, 1983, we’re all sitting around in Steve [Jobs’s] building, the Mac building, and the cover of Businessweek says, “The Winner is … IBM.” We were pretty deflated because this was the introduction of the IBM PCjr, and we hadn’t even introduced the Macintosh yet.STEVE HAYDEN Jobs said, “I want something that will stop the world in its tracks.” Our media director, Hank Antosz, said, “Well, there’s only one place that can do that — the Super Bowl.” And Steve Jobs said, “What’s the Super Bowl?” [Antosz] said, “Well, it’s a huge football game that attracts one of the largest audiences of the year.” And [Jobs] said, “I’ve never seen a Super Bowl. I don’t think I know anybody who’s seen a Super Bowl.”John Sculley, right, with Steve Jobs in 1984. The ad would promote the company’s new Macintosh personal computer.Marilynn K. Yee/The New York TimesFRED GOLDBERG The original idea was actually done in 1982. We presented an ad [with] a headline, which was “Why 1984 Won’t Be Like ‘1984,’” to Steve Jobs, and he didn’t think the Apple III was worthy of that claim.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Debuts Apple’s New Film Strategy

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      Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic is the first of three high-profile movies the tech company will give wide theatrical releases in the coming months.The box office results for Martin Scorsese’s new film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” will be revealed on Sunday and analyzed by reporters and industry insiders. Did the movie perform well? Did it fall short? Did Leonardo DiCaprio’s inability to promote the film because of the actors’ strike ultimately mean fewer people went to see it?This is a normal opening weekend practice for any major theatrical release, but it will be a first for Apple Studios, the producer and financier of the $200 million movie. It is teaming up with Paramount Pictures to release the three-and-a-half-hour R-rated film in more than 3,600 theaters.Until now, Apple’s films were streaming-first. But “Killers of the Flower Moon” won’t reach its streaming service, Apple TV+, for at least 45 days. It is Apple’s clearest embrace of movie theaters since the start of Apple TV+ four years ago, and the first of three major theatrical releases from the company scheduled for the next six months.During Thanksgiving weekend, Sony Pictures will work with Apple to release Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. In February, Apple is joining forces with Universal Pictures to release the spy caper “Argylle” in theaters around the country.Bradley Thomas, a producer of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” called Apple’s partnerships “comforting,” because traditional studios have decades of experience with theatrical releases.“So Apple is dipping its toe into it,” he said. “They aren’t taking the whole thing on by themselves.”The producer Kevin Walsh, who began developing “Napoleon” with Apple in 2020, has watched its approach to theatrical release evolve. The turning point, he said, came after the top Apple TV+ executives Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amberg saw the success that Paramount had with “Top Gun,” which brought in $1.5 billion at the global box office last year.“What ‘Top Gun’ did to the box office they are trying to emulate with movies like ‘Napoleon,’ and ‘Formula 1,’” Mr. Walsh said in an interview, referring to the upcoming Brad Pitt movie that Apple is making with the “Top Gun” director Joseph Kosinski. “I think there is money to be made, of course, for spectacle movies in the theater. But they also serve as a massive billboard for the Apple TV service when they are successful and rolled out well.”Apple’s recent embrace of movie theaters is welcome news for a movie theater business that has been upended by streaming companies’ penchant for making films largely for their at-home services. Netflix first disrupted the long-held tradition of the theatrical release by putting films in a limited number of theaters for a limited time — usually the minimum required to appease filmmakers and qualify for Oscar consideration.Amazon Studios recently reversed its approach, giving commercial films like Ben Affleck’s “Air” significant time in theaters before releasing them to streaming subscribers.Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” will open in theaters on Thanksgiving weekend.Sony Pictures and Apple Original FilmsBut Apple, with its deep pockets, reputation for secrecy (it doesn’t share streaming subscriber numbers and declined to comment for this article) and interest in controlling all components of its ecosystem, has surprised some with its willingness to team up with others to market its films to moviegoers. It’s a situation that leaves the company open to the vagaries of the theatrical marketplace.And “Killers,” with its high price tag, has to do big business to become a success. Analysts are predicting that the film could fetch anywhere from $18 million to $30 million in its opening weekend. That would be a tough beginning even for a film by Mr. Scorsese, whose movies traditionally have staying power in theaters and often eventually gross close to five times what they brought in on opening weekend. The film’s long run time and dark subject matter — the plot revolves around the murders of Native Americans — could also be commercial hurdles.“We are a little more bullish than the industry expectations floating around,” said Shawn Robbins, an independent box office analyst, who predicts the film will open in the $30 million range. “The film certainly has its hills to climb with a long run time and DiCaprio’s absence from the press circuit.”But “strong reviews and Mr. DiCaprio’s own box office history — especially with Mr. Scorsese — provide ample amounts of good will for audiences,” he added, and work in the film’s favor. “The market hasn’t had a high-profile film targeted toward adults for a while.” (“Oppenheimer,” with a similar run time and equally serious subject matter, defied odds this year and earned $942 million worldwide.)While Apple has said very little about its shift in strategy, theater owners are ecstatic.Apple is “a major company that has the ability to do a lot of high-quality work, and I think that the recognition on their part that movies belong in theaters is a strong signal,” Michael O’Leary, chairman of the National Association of Theater Owners, a trade association, said in an interview. “Prioritizing theatrical will help them get major filmmakers to come into their tents, and to create even more dynamic, entertaining fare in the years ahead.”Mr. Scorsese and his co-writer, Eric Roth, began adapting David Grann’s nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon” in 2017. Paramount agreed to finance and distribute the film, but when the production costs soared, the studio brought in Apple in 2020 to finance the project.Others wanted it, said Mr. Thomas, who initially purchased the adaptation rights to “Killers” with his partner, Dan Friedkin. It was Apple, however, that guaranteed a full theatrical release — a must for Mr. Scorsese, whose last film, “The Irishman” for Netflix, had a truncated run in theaters.Paramount stayed on in a deal that saw Apple reimburse the studio for its development costs on the movie and a portion of Mr. Scorsese’s overall deal, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were not public. Paramount controls all theater bookings and media buys for the film’s trailers and commercials, while Apple controls its publicity and marketing materials.Apple made similar, though less expensive, deals with Sony Pictures for “Napoleon” and Universal Pictures for “Argyle,” with Sony and Universal sharing the marketing costs with Apple and handling each film’s distribution.And while all three studios would like the opportunity to enter into long-term partnerships with Apple, the tech giant has not committed to any one partner.“I’d be surprised if they take a single-studio approach for distribution,” said Tim Bajarin, chief executive of Creative Strategies, a high-tech research firm based in Silicon Valley. “Apple is willing to work, and they have shown that they can work well, with multiple studios. I think that track is more likely to be what they’ll use in the future. They are extremely calculating.” More

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      What Spatial Audio Can and Cannot Do for Classical Music

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      Immersive audio formats, while newer for pop, have been used by composers for decades. But not all works call for spatial treatment.Recent developments in spatial audio — albums old and new being mixed for immersive formats — have made news in the world of pop.Given the right production process (in the studio) and tech setup (at home), headphone sounds no longer need feel so statically pressed to each ear; instead, they can seem to whiz around your head or beckon from the nape of your neck.Or simply breathe anew. Whether you’re focusing on a stray slide-guitar accent in the Dolby Atmos mix of Taylor Swift’s “Mine (Taylor’s Version)” or appreciating the serrated details of brass-arrangement filigree in Frank Zappa’s vintage “Big Swifty,” the idea is to bring the souped-up, three-dimensional feel of large-speaker arrays into your ears.But classical music was there decades ago. Deutsche Grammophon and the Philips label both experimented with “Quadraphonic” — or four-channel releases — in the 1970s. More recently, binaural recordings and mixes, designed to simulate that 3-D feel, have been a delight. Now, though, these and other spatial-production practices are enjoying deeper corporate investment, including head-tracking technology as a feature of Apple’s newest Beats headphones. (When you move your head while wearing these — with the tracking option enabled — sound-points seem to stay fixed in your 360-degree field, even if you swerve about.)Head-tracking seemed largely pointless to me — even distracting — until I tried it with the new archival recording “Evenings at the Village Gate,” featuring John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.Hearing Dolphy’s bass clarinet in front of my face — in a way that remained stable, even when I shook my head in wonder at his playing — allowed me the fleeting sensation that I was sharing space with the legend. A neat trick, though not one more important than Dolphy or Coltrane’s playing on its own terms.Around the time that recording was made, classical composers were bringing spatialized concepts into their creative practice. Even before the comparatively meek technology of two-channel stereo sound was standard in every home, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others were using more complex mixes for works involving electronics or taped elements.There’s a reason Stockhausen is one of the cultural worthies on the cover of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”: The composer’s works, like “Gesang der Jünglinge,” from 1956, employed a five-speaker mix (including one on the ceiling). That made a lasting impression on Paul McCartney, who once described “Gesang” as his favorite “plick-plop” piece by Stockhausen.Now, more traditional corners of the classical music world are getting in on spatial audio as well.Esa-Pekka Salonen rehearsing with the San Francisco Symphony, which has released spatial audio recordings.Ulysses Ortega for The New York TimesLeading conductors in the orchestral world — including Riccardo Muti and Esa-Pekka Salonen — have personally approved spatial audio mixes of their recent recordings, which have been released on Apple Music and its stand-alone classical streaming app. And, as with other genres, Apple has gathered playlists of spatialized remixes.The regular players in classical music’s immersive cohort have meanwhile continued to ply their trade: Members of SWR Experimentalstudio came to the Time Spans Festival in New York this month, bringing surround-sound works by the Italian modernist Luigi Nono. And the American composer-saxophonist Anthony Braxton brought a new surround-sound concept, “Thunder Music,” to the Darmstadt Summer Course in Germany.Those live performances were terrific. It’s a different story on recordings: After listening to a variety of Dolby Atmos mixes recently, I sensed that classical music’s more mainstream slate of spatial offerings remains a work in progress.Somewhere in between was the Sonic Sphere, a realization of a spatial audio concept by Stockhausen, at the Shed in New York this summer. Its 124-speaker setup encircled about 200 listeners at a time. In early July, I heard a new mix of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” that suffered from muddy bass frequencies. This, unfortunately, also robbed the work of its chiseled, Minimalist grace; instead of following the bass clarinet lines, you just guessed that they were there. A sense of drama had been frittered away.Similarly, some selections you can find in Apple Music’s “Classical in Spatial Audio” playlists seem poorly selected for the format. A recording of a profound solo work like Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” isn’t exactly crying out for the spatial treatment. But when it receives one — as in an otherwise pleasant recording by Fazil Say — it merely sounds like it’s had its reverb levels jacked to the sky. It’s more distracting than moving. Such extraneous mixes are also a poor advertisement for what Dolby Atmos can provide when applied to the right repertoire.For a contrast, look to the opening work on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s recent album “Contemporary American Composers,” Jessie Montgomery’s “Hymn for Everyone.” That track is plenty inviting in its regular stereo mix; even as its singable opening motif is passed between sections, taking on new timbral colors, it never loses its openhearted sense of invitation. In the Dolby Atmos mix on Apple Music, that enveloping effect deepens. The spaces among bowed strings, brasses and percussion are wider. A centrally mixed pizzicato line takes on an even more dramatic, bridging role.The orchestra’s audio engineer, Charlie Post, said in an interview that “contemporary music seems to lend itself particularly well for this.” And he related how, since joining the Chicago Symphony in 2014, he’s been “future-proofing” sessions by recording with more microphones than are strictly necessary for radio broadcast or archival purposes. Now, when a format like Dolby Atmos comes into play, the ensemble is ready with a robust audio-capture program — think of it as a highly detailed orchestral data set — from each performance.After working with the producer David Frost and the spatial-mixing expert Silas Brown, Post is then required to get the sign-off from Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony’s music director. Post recalled that when the conductor, wearing Sennheiser headphones, heard a binaural rendering of the 2018 album “Italian Masterworks,” he counted himself impressed — and gave the ensemble’s spatial-audio team his blessing to do more in this realm.“He thought it was more wide and pleasing to him,” Post said. “So that was a great thumbs-up to get.”At the San Francisco Symphony, Salonen has been equally enthusiastic — and even more hands on — with engineers as he plots coming performances and releases.“We have a very, very good team, so they don’t need any kind of mothering,” he said in a video interview. “But I’m just fascinated by the process myself, because it’s a new kind of mixing. When you position sound objects in 360 space, it becomes like a superfun computer game — very entertaining. And there are some musical artistic gains which are not gimmicky. It doesn’t have to be technology for the sake of technology; there can be an expressive purpose.”That much is clear in Salonen’s recent San Francisco recordings of music by Gyorgy Ligeti, several of which now exist as Dolby Atmos-enabled singles. (A take on Ligeti’s “Lux Aeterna,” which Stanley Kubrick famously used in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” is also available on YouTube in a binaural, headphone-optimized version.)In Ligeti’s “Ramifications” — a piece that requires different orchestral groups to play in microtonally different tunings — the Dolby Atmos mix brings across the peculiar differences. Eerie, branching strings are easier to locate and appreciate, smeared across a wide soundstage; the chattering climax has fresh force.Salonen, who has been interested in blending technology with the traditional orchestra, both as a conductor and as a composer, thought about which Dolby Atmos recordings he would like to see. Thinking about Stockhausen’s “Gesang der Jünglinge,” he said, “I would buy that!”Karlheinz Stockhausen, a pioneer of spatial audio in composition, conducting in 1984.Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesIn an email, Kathinka Pasveer, Stockhausen’s longtime companion and collaborator, said that there were no plans to remix the Stockhausen Verlag catalog. The market, she added, is currently too small.Apple’s market share could change that. But for now, there are other distributors of cutting-edge spatial audio compositions.The composer Natasha Barrett’s recent album “Leap Seconds” — perhaps the most vivid spatial-audio work I’ve encountered in the past decade — comes with a headphones-only binaural mix when bought from the Sargasso label. And the British label All That Dust has been releasing binaural mixes of albums on its Bandcamp page.This year, the best spatial audio purchase I’ve made was an All That Dust download of Stockhausen’s “Kontakte” for piano, percussion and electronic sounds. That may not be as newsworthy as the latest buzzy technology, but neither is it as expensive.The week I visited the Shed, tickets for the Reich show started at $46, for a concert that amounted to an hourlong playback session. But my “Kontakte” recording was something of a corrective: just 5 pounds ($6.37). With that binaural release and ones like it, you don’t need to be hustled into hyped equipment from Apple. Anyone with solid over-ear headphones — as with the Sennheiser line that Muti used in Chicago — can experience this magic. More

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      Dolby Atmos Wants You to Listen Up. (And Down. And Sideways.)

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      True believers in the immersive audio format say it could restore a musical appreciation lost to a generation that has come up during the streaming era.After more than 30 years as a producer and engineer, Brad Wood wasn’t sure if he still had a future in music.Wood, a classically trained saxophonist, had gotten his start in Chicago’s early ’90s music scene, helming breakthrough albums for Liz Phair and Veruca Salt, and platinum records for Smashing Pumpkins and Placebo. In 2000, he moved to Southern California, where he thrived for a time — and then merely survived, as the downloading era sank recording budgets just as the brand of guitar rock he specialized in lost cultural relevancy.While many of his colleagues gave up, Wood kept going, working harder while earning less. “I probably got to the point where I was making the same rate as when I started,” he said.Then, in 2021, an emergent technology ushered Wood — and thousands of recording professionals like him — into an unexpected boom time.Over the past two years, Wood has been busy mixing old and new records in Dolby Atmos, an audio format that lets engineers create a listening experience more immersive than traditional stereo by placing sounds around and above the listener. Working for a variety of labels, Wood has done Atmos mixes for the Supremes, the Pogues, Jennifer Lopez, Modest Mouse, Gwen Stefani and Soul Asylum — some 300-plus tracks in total, the equivalent of two dozen albums.“The whole thing has been pretty unexpected and thrilling,” he said.For Dolby, the audio company that developed Atmos, and Apple Music — which has invested heavily in it — the technology could lead to the most dramatic shift in audio in 65 years.“The recording industry went from mono to stereo decades ago, and it didn’t move from there,” John Couling, senior vice president of Dolby Laboratories, said in a phone interview.There have been efforts to convince the public to adopt new advanced technologies in the years since, ‌including Quadraphonic sound in the ’70s ‌and 5.1 surround sound in the ’90s, but with little success. “We’ve changed formats, we’ve changed delivery methods, we’ve changed all sorts of things,” Couling said, “but it was still fundamentally the same sound. Atmos is a completely new experience.”Oliver Schusser, a vice president at Apple Music, said that his company, which has incentivized record labels to deliver catalog material in Atmos, sees it as way to bring sonic value back to music — something that’s been lost among a whole generation that has come up during the streaming era.“There was no appreciation of the art and work of sound engineers and mixing and mastering,” Schusser said over a video call this spring. “That really pained us. We wanted to fix that.”Today, all three major record labels and hundreds of independents are delivering tracks in Atmos. Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Qobuz are the among the 15 streaming services bringing Atmos to 160 countries and over 500 million listeners.“But mention the word ‘Atmos’ to anyone in the general public and they don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said the veteran engineer and producer Bob Clearmountain. One of the most respected and influential figures in the recording world, Clearmountain was initially dubious of Atmos’s staying power, but he has come to believe in its future.“Music has become background noise for most people. It’s something in your headphones while you’re out doing other stuff,” he said during a call last month. “When I was a teenager, I used to listen to an album three, four times through just sitting in front of my speakers, entranced.” That way of listening has disappeared, he said, but he’s hopeful that Atmos can bring it back, “if we’re able to get people to understand what it is and hear it the right way.”From the outside, it appears Atmos is entering a critical period that could determine whether it will kick off a sonic revolution or become just another tech lost to time.“The goal is to feel like you’re sitting amongst these musicians as they’re performing,” the producer Brad Wood said.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesDOLBY ATMOS, INTRODUCED in 2012, was initially developed for movie theaters and the home theater market. Because it offers a wider palette than stereo, and differs from traditional 5.1 and 7.1 channel setups, Atmos allows engineers — typically mixing across a dozen or more speakers — to put sound sources in front, to the side, behind and even above the listener.“When you take sounds and you separate them from each other,” Couling said, “you will be able to hear those sounds independently much more clearly than if they are on top of each other. By creating space, we also create depth and clarity — and we found that’s what content creators really wanted.”For artists like Chic’s founder, Nile Rodgers, immersive audio is the closest thing to the musician’s experience. “When I’m making a record, I’m sitting in a room with the band,” Rodgers said during a video chat, “we’re playing and jamming and what happens is the sound is bathing us. That’s what music sounds like to me.”Listening to Dolby Atmos mixes in a professional recording studio can be a powerful experience. “It’s remarkably seductive,” said Clearmountain, who’s done Atmos projects for Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and others. “I’ve played Atmos tracks for so many people who say, ‘I can never listen to stereo again.’ People have been in tears, moved by what they were hearing. It has an incredible effect.”Opinions among recording professionals on any subject are rarely uniform, and there are some who have reservations about Atmos.Susan Rogers, a longtime engineer for Prince, left the music industry in the late ’90s to become a cognitive neuroscientist. Last fall, Dolby invited her to the company headquarters in San Francisco to listen to a new Atmos mix of Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” a track she originally worked on.“As both an engineer and as a psychoacoustician, I have mixed feelings about whether it’s an improvement,” Rogers said in a phone interview.She noted that there are evolutionary and biological reasons that sound sources coming from behind and above listeners can be unsettling or anxiety inducing. She also observed that music is a potent form of communication in large part because the consummatory phase happens entirely in the listener’s head. Having clearer and more sound sources can actually make it harder to know what to pay attention to.“That was what I noticed listening to ‘When Doves Cry’ in Atmos,” Rogers said. “It sounded amazing, but it was more difficult to assemble it into a unified whole in that private place I listen to music. I found it distracting.” Her “knee-jerk reaction was ‘do not want,’” she said. “But over time I may learn to like it.”APPLE MUSIC IS betting heavily that the public will, by and large, come to love Atmos. Although other companies, including Amazon, had flirted with the technology, in 2021 Apple decided to commit itself fully to Atmos, putting its own proprietary and branding spin on the tech, dubbing it “spatial” audio.Strategically, Atmos offers Apple Music a way to further distinguish itself from streaming competitors like Spotify — which has historically ignored high resolution or advanced audio options — and siphon market share from the industry’s dominant music service, YouTube.“We wanted something where people would notice a difference immediately,” said Schusser, the Apple Music executive. “Maybe not 100 percent would love Atmos or spatial audio right away, but everyone would know this sounds different, and the hope is the majority would come to appreciate the upgrade.”Initially, Apple’s biggest challenge was that there was very little Atmos content available. In 2017, R.E.M.’s “Automatic for the People” became the first album mixed for Atmos, and over the next few years, several notable Atmos releases — from Elton John, Queen and the Beatles — showcased the format’s possibilities.To achieve its broader aims, Apple needed to make Atmos content both viable and plentiful. It began by partnering with Dolby to encourage recording studios to upgrade to the format. There are now some 800 officially recognized Dolby Atmos studios in over 40 countries, a 350 percent increase in just two years. (Dolby estimates there are two or three times that number of other studios capable of delivering music in Atmos.)Apple Music also drew up wish lists of artists, albums and tracks and presented them to record labels, along with funding and deadlines, to help quickly expand the library of titles available in Atmos. Over the past few years, this effort to refit 50 years of pop music has heralded a rush of work for engineers and mixers, who’ve suddenly found themselves doing volume business in the format.Wood, initially dismissive of learning to work in Atmos, said he changed his mind once he realized the inevitability of its rise. “It was clear that records I’d made were going to get mixed in Atmos,” he said, “and if I didn’t learn how to do it, somebody else would, and I’d be ceding that control.” Wood’s first Atmos mix was for Liz Phair’s “Soberish,” an album he’d originally produced. “And, also, I realized there would be a good payday in learning,” he added.While contemporary pop and hip-hop artists were quick to adopt the format for new releases, convincing veteran rock acts to enter the Atmos fray proved more of a challenge. “The first six months, those artists had a lot of questions,” Schusser said.Some groups, like the Doors, embraced the format, overhauling their entire catalog in Atmos all at once; others, like Fleetwood Mac, have proceeded more cautiously, doing one album at a time. More and more though, top legacy artists have been putting out Atmos mixes with increasing regularity, with recent releases including landmark albums like Pink Floyd’s‌ ‌“The Dark Side of the Moon‌‌” and ‌the Beach Boys’‌ ‌“Pet Sounds.”Given the sheer volume of Atmos catalog work and the still evolving understanding of the format, not all mixes are created equal.“The labels seem to be farming this stuff out and it isn’t always being done with the original artist or production team involved,” Clearmountain said. “I know that’s not always possible. But sometimes what comes back are just bad mixes — or strange mixes, anyway.”Wood — who has done mixes in consultation with the original artists as well as on his own — agrees. “In general, you have to try to put the tracks into a speaker array so it doesn’t sound too jarring or gimmicky,” he said. “The goal is to feel like you’re sitting amongst these musicians as they’re performing. Like all mixing, it’s subjective, and how you approach it really depends on the music itself.”For some artists, transforming old recordings into Atmos has been challenging. Chic recently had its first three albums mixed in the format. “The process took months and months to get right,” Rodgers said. “The team that was working on it, we gave them notes, we went into different rooms, did rough mixes to show them what we were talking about.”For others, the overhaul has been relatively painless and even eye-opening. This past spring, Alicia Keys had eight of her albums mixed for Atmos. In a video interview promoting her catalog overhaul, Keys said that engineers working on her albums “completely reimagined every note, every sound, every instrument, every voice. It sounds like you’ve never heard it before. I mean, I never even heard it like this before. It really is a new experience.”Strategically, Atmos offers Apple Music a way to further distinguish itself from streaming competitors like Spotify,Chad HagenONE OF THE reasons other highly touted surround sound technologies like 5.1 and 7.1 failed to catch on is because they required a specific speaker configuration. Dolby Atmos, however, is scalable and can adapt to a variety of setups.Given its success in the headphones market, Apple has emphasized playback on its AirPods and Beats Fit Pro devices, which all offer a version of the Atmos experience with dynamic head tracking (where the sound shifts along with a user’s movement) in the $200 to $500 range. A number of other manufacturers, including Audeze, RIG, Corsair and LG, also offer Atmos headphones and earbuds.The options for affordable home music systems, ones purpose-built for Atmos audio, have been limited. Amazon and Apple have long offered their own Atmos-enabled smart speakers, but neither really conveyed the full range of sound possible.In March, Sonos introduced a first of its kind sub-$500 speaker, the Era 300, which more successfully packages the Atmos experience into a single compact unit, equipped with a half-dozen drivers that direct sound left, right, forward and upward.The Grammy-winning mixing and mastering engineer Emily Lazar, who helped test and fine tune the Era 300, hopes it will be the start of tech companies bringing more viable Atmos options to market.“No one who’s listened to Atmos in a properly tuned, beautiful-sounding studio can deny what it offers,” she said. “How now can we deliver that in a smaller package so everybody can afford it and have that same kind of experience is going to be key moving forward.”If Atmos does ever achieve critical mass, it might come through automobiles. Most cars come equipped standard with a dozen-plus speakers, making them a natural environment for immersive audio. So far, a handful of major automakers including Mercedes-Benz and Volvo have introduced plans to put Atmos in their vehicles. It’s a market Dolby and Apple both say they are determined to expand further.“But those kind of tech changes don’t happen in a year or two — and that’s really what it’s been so far,” Schusser said. “There’s obviously more work to be done. But we’re all optimistic we’ll get there with Atmos.”In the meantime, recording pros like Wood will keep working and mixing, hoping the Atmos bump will last a little while longer.“I don’t know that I could have written a better chapter for this phase of my career,” he said. “If you told me three years ago, I was going to get paid my day rate to listen and work on some of the greatest recordings in history, I would’ve said, ‘Sign me up — that sounds amazing.’” More

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      Apple’s New App Aims to Make Classical Music More Accessible

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      The company says it has a fix for the unwieldy world of classical streaming. But it’s unclear how much traction a stand-alone app can get.In the streaming era, fans of classical music have had reason to grumble.It can be hard for veteran listeners to find what they want on platforms like Spotify, Tidal, Amazon and YouTube, which are optimized for pop music fans searching for the latest by Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. And for curious newcomers, it can be difficult to get beyond algorithmic loops of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major” and Mozart’s “Rondo Alla Turca.”Apple last week released a stand-alone app meant to address these problems. The app, known as Apple Music Classical, features a refined search engine, a sleek interface and a host of features aimed at making classical music more accessible, including beginners’ guides to different musical eras and commentary from marquee artists like the violinist Hilary Hahn and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.Apple hopes that the app, which has been in development since 2021, when the company acquired Primephonic, a classical streaming start-up in Amsterdam, will attract die-hard classical fans and new listeners alike. But it remains unclear how much traction the app can get in a crowded streaming market, in which Apple competes with behemoths like Spotify as well as dedicated classical services like Idagio.“This is just the beginning,” Oliver Schusser, a vice president at Apple, said in an interview, adding that Apple would continue to improve and build the app’s database. “We’re really serious about this.”I spent a few days putting Apple Music Classical to the test, trying out its search, playlists and guides to classical music. (The app is currently available only on iPhone, though an Android version is in the works; at the moment, there is no desktop version.) Here are my impressions.Cutting Through the MetadataFor pop music, a listing of artist, track and album is generally sufficient. But in classical, there are more nuances in the metadata: composer, work, soloist, ensemble, instrument, conductor, movement and nickname (like Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto or Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony).Apple has amassed 50 million such data points, the company says, in the app — encompassing some 20,000 composers, 117,000 works, 350,000 movements and five million tracks — and its search function generally feels more intuitive than its rivals.On many streaming platforms, I have struggled to find Rachmaninoff’s recordings of his compositions. A search for his name on Spotify, for example, returns a disorderly display of his most popular works, such as “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” performed by a wide variety of artists.But on Apple Music Classical, it is easier to quickly locate his recordings because the app can distinguish between Rachmaninoff the composer and Rachmaninoff the pianist or conductor. The search function is not perfect; a Rachmaninoff track by the Chinese pianist Niu Niu also shows up in the mix of recordings by Rachmaninoff. But the app makes it much easier to hunt down specific pieces of music.A Sprawling CollectionApple Music Classical has a clean and inviting interface that mimics the main Apple Music app. But it still struggles with a problem that has long vexed classical streaming: the sheer volume of the catalog.A search for Verdi’s “Aida,” for example, turns up an eye-popping 1,330 recordings. Apple has tried to make it easier to navigate a sprawling list like that. A page for “Aida,” for example, has a brief description of the opera, an “editor’s choice” recording (Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia) and five of the most frequently played versions.But it can still feel overwhelming. It helps to know exactly what you’re looking for: the list can be searched, scrolled or sorted by popularity, name, release date or duration. If you’re interested in recordings of “Aida” featuring Leontyne Price in the title role, for example, you can type in “Leontyne” and find her performances under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf, Georg Solti, Thomas Schippers and others.
      Opera can be especially difficult to navigate on streaming platforms because of long lists of cast members. While Apple comprehensively lists singers on each track, it can be hard to figure out quickly who the stars are when perusing albums. This could be fixed through more consistent album descriptions, or an option to enlarge album covers to make the words more legible. And while Apple has introduced the ability to search by lyrics for pop songs, no such feature exists in classical yet.Apple makes the vastness of the classical repertoire more manageable through inventive playlists, which help resurface celebrated recordings. These playlists cover a variety of genres, including opera, Renaissance music, art song and minimalism. There are also lists for composers, including the usual suspects — Bach, Mozart, Beethoven — as well as contemporary artists like Kaija Saariaho and Steve Reich. “Hidden Gems” highlights overlooked albums (“Breaking Waves,” a compilation of flute music by Swedish women, for instance, or “Consolation: Forgotten Treasures of the Ukrainian Soul”). “Composers Undiscovered” showcases lesser-known works by prominent composers, like Beethoven’s Scottish songs.Attracting NewcomersApple hopes the app will help draw new listeners to classical music, and many features are aimed at shedding its elitist image.On the home screen, the app offers a nine-part introduction called “The Story of Classical,” described as a guide to the “weird and wonderful world of classical music.” The series takes listeners from the Baroque to the 21st century, with forays further back, into medieval and Renaissance music.
      A series called “Track by Track” features commentary by renowned artists, including Hahn and Ma. The cellist Abel Selaocoe, introducing an album of pieces by Bach and South African and Tanzanian folk songs, describes how hymnal music from England and the Netherlands mixed with African culture. The pianist Víkingur Olafsson talks about feeling naked onstage when he plays Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 16, “a piece we all have to face as pianists.”Part of Apple’s mission appears to be to help elevate overlooked artists, particularly women and people of color. For example, a tab of composers begins with Beethoven, Bach and Mozart but then expands to Clara Schumann, Caroline Shaw and Errollyn Wallen, as well as William Grant Still.The pianist Alice Sara Ott and the conductor Karina Canellakis are featured on an exclusive recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.
      While using the app on a recent morning, I encountered the music of Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century Benedictine nun and composer of Gregorian chants. Hildegard, I soon discovered, is something of a star on the app, where she is described as a scientist, mystic, writer and philosopher and sits adjacent to Tchaikovsky on a composer roster. (Many of the great composers have been given enhanced digital portraits as part of Apple’s efforts to make them more realistic; Hildegard is shown in a habit, with a piercing stare.)Hildegard’s music could easily be lost in the chaos of streaming. But in the Apple universe, it gets fresh life. More

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      Will Smith Film ‘Emancipation’ Will Be Released in December

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      Apple said the movie, Mr. Smith’s first since his infamous slap at the Oscars, will be in theaters on Dec. 2 and begin streaming on Dec. 9.The Will Smith film “Emancipation” — the actor’s first since his infamous slap at the Oscars this year — will be released in December, making it eligible for the upcoming awards season.While releasing a trailer for the film on Monday, Apple said “Emancipation” will have a limited theatrical release on Dec. 2 before becoming available on the company’s streaming service on Dec. 9. The announcement followed a long discussion of whether Apple would release the film this year or delay it until 2023, considering the controversy surrounding Mr. Smith after he slapped the comedian Chris Rock during the Academy Awards ceremony in March. Apple had declined to comment on its plans for the film.After the incident with Mr. Rock, Mr. Smith won the best actor Oscar that night for his performance in “King Richard.” It was his first Academy Award, but shortly afterward he resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, saying he had “betrayed” its trust. The academy then barred him from the organization and all of its events for the next decade.That punishment does not preclude the actor from being nominated for his work, though it did not augur well for “Emancipation,” which had been considered an awards candidate before Mr. Smith slapped Mr. Rock. The decision to release the film in a limited number theaters ahead of its debut on the service suggests that Apple is planning to push it for award consideration this year.That could backfire. The academy has signaled that it is ready to move on from the slap. Bill Kramer, the organization’s chief executive, said it would not even be joked about at the next Academy Awards ceremony.“Emancipation” stars Mr. Smith as Peter, a real-life figure from the 1800s who escaped slavery and fought for the Union Army. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by William N. Collage, the film had its first public screening in Washington on Saturday night, during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 51st Annual Legislative Conference. The event was followed by a question-and-answer session featuring Mr. Fuqua and Mr. Smith, who has remained largely out of the public eye since the Oscars.Mr. Smith issued a public apology on his YouTube channel on July 29. It has been viewed close to 3.9 million times. More

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      ‘Succession’ Wins Best Drama at Emmys as HBO Triumphs Again

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      “Succession,” HBO’s portrait of a dysfunctional media dynasty, won best drama at the 74th Emmy Awards on Monday night, the second time the series has taken the prize.Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, also took home the Emmy for best writing, the third time he’s won in that category. And Matthew Macfadyen won best supporting actor in a drama for the first time for his performance on the show.It was the sixth time in eight years that HBO has taken the television industry’s biggest prize for a recurring series, making it yet another triumphant night for the cable network. HBO, as well as its streaming service, HBO Max, won more Emmys (38) than any other outlet, besting its chief rival, Netflix (26).“The White Lotus,” the cable network’s beloved upstairs-downstairs dramedy that took place at a Hawaiian resort, won best limited series, and tore through several other categories. The show won 10 Emmys altogether, more than any other series. Mike White, the show’s creator and director, won a pair of Emmys for best directing and writing. And performers from the show, Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge, both received acting Emmys.“Mike White, my God, thank you for giving me one of the best experiences of my life,” Bartlett, who played an off-the-wagon hotel manager, said from the Emmys stage.But HBO’s chronicles of the rich were not the only winners on Monday night.“Ted Lasso,” the Apple TV+ sports series, won best comedy for a second consecutive year, as the tech giant continues on an awards show tear. Apple TV+, which had its debut in November 2019, won best picture at the Oscars (“CODA”) earlier this year. And Jason Sudeikis repeated as best actor in a comedy as the fish-out-of-water soccer coach in “Ted Lasso.”There were other big moments in the comedy awards. Quinta Brunson, the creator of the good-natured ABC workplace sitcom, “Abbott Elementary,” about a group of elementary schoolteachers at an underfunded Philadelphia public school, won for best writing in a comedy. It was only the second time a Black woman won the award (Lena Waithe was the first, in 2017, for “Master of None”).In one of the night’s most electric moments, Sheryl Lee Ralph won best supporting actress in a comedy for her role on “Abbott Elementary” as a veteran teacher at the school. Ralph began her Emmys speech by singing “Endangered Species” by Dianne Reeves, and received a standing ovation from the room full of nominees. Her victory was also historic: It was only the second time a Black woman won the award. The last time was in 1987, when Jackée Harry won for her role in the NBC sitcom “227.”This has been the most competitive Emmys season ever: Submissions for all the categories surged, and 2022 is very likely to set yet another record for the highest number of scripted television series.But there was also a sense of concern among the executives, producers and agents in attendance at Monday night’s Emmy Awards, that 2022 represents the pinnacle of the so-called Peak TV era, which has produced the highest number of scripted television series, nearly every year, for more than a decade.Netflix, which lost subscribers this year for the first time in a decade, has laid off hundreds of staffers and is reining in its spending. HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, has shelved projects and is about to lay off a significant number of employees. NBC executives are considering ending its prime-time lineup at 10 p.m., and handing the hour over to local stations.Business challenges aside, the night was mostly a feel-good celebration. Zendaya won her second Emmy by taking best actress in a drama for her role as a troubled teen in HBO’s “Euphoria.” Jean Smart repeated as the best actress in a comedy for her role as a Joan Rivers-like comedian in HBO Max’s “Hacks.”“Squid Game,” the blood-splattered, South Korean Netflix series, won a pair of awards: Lee Jung-jae for best actor in a drama, and Hwang Dong-hyuk for directing. Those wins represented a major breakthrough for a foreign language show as television becomes more global, and as American audiences are increasingly receptive to series with subtitles.Michael Keaton, who played a small town doctor in “Dopesick,” took the best actor award in a limited series. And Amanda Seyfried won best actress in a limited series for her well-received performance as Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout.”Emmy voters often have a habit of finding a winner, and sticking with it, and this year was no different. John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” won the best talk show category for a seventh consecutive year, and “Saturday Night Live” took the best variety sketch series for a sixth straight year.This year’s ceremony was the first return to the Microsoft Theater since the pandemic. Producers for the Emmys incorporated an element that it experimented with at last year’s ceremony, which took place inside a tent: Instead of theater-style seating, nominees were gathered around tables with bottles of champagne and wine around them.This year’s host, Kenan Thompson, the “Saturday Night Live” veteran, opened the ceremony in a top hat and led a group of dancers in a bizarre interpretive dance to theme songs of famous TV series like “Law & Order,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Game of Thrones.”During his monologue, Thompson took a dig at Netflix’s recent woes.“If you don’t know what ‘Squid Game’ is, it is the contest you enter when you’re in massive debt and desperate for money,” the host said. “Joining the cast next season? Netflix.” More

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      After Pixar Ouster, John Lasseter Returns With Apple and ‘Luck’

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      John Lasseter was toppled five years ago by allegations about his workplace behavior. He’s back with an animated film and a studio that could be Pixar 2.0.LOS ANGELES — The most Pixar movie of the summer is not from Pixar. It’s from Apple TV+ and the lightning-rod filmmaker-executive who turned Pixar into a superpower: John Lasseter.Five years ago, Mr. Lasseter was toppled by allegations about his behavior in the workplace. Almost overnight, his many accomplishments — building Pixar from scratch, forging the megawatt “Toy Story” and “Cars” franchises, reviving a moribund Walt Disney Animation, delivering “Frozen,” winning Oscars — became a footnote.After employees complained about unwanted hugging by Mr. Lasseter, Disney investigated and found that some subordinates occasionally felt him to be a tyrant. He was forced to resign as Disney-Pixar’s animation chief, apologizing for “missteps” that made staff members feel “disrespected or uncomfortable.”Mr. Lasseter, 65, is now on the verge of professional redemption. His first animated feature since he left Disney-Pixar will arrive on Apple’s subscription streaming service on Friday. Called “Luck,” the $140 million movie follows an unlucky young woman who discovers a secret world where magical creatures make good luck (the Department of Right Place, Right Time) and bad luck (a pet waste research and design lab dedicated to “tracked it in the house”). Things go terribly wrong, resulting in a comedic adventure involving an unusual dragon, bunnies in hazmat suits, leprechaun millennials and an overweight German unicorn in a too-tight tracksuit.Apple, perhaps the only company that safeguards its brand more zealously than Disney, has been using Mr. Lasseter as a prominent part of its marketing campaign for “Luck.” Ads for the film, which Peggy Holmes directed and Mr. Lasseter produced, describe it as coming “from the creative visionary behind TOY STORY and CARS.”“Luck” arrives on Apple TV+ on Friday.Apple TV+Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, shared a look at the film in March at the company’s latest product showcase event. “Luck” is just the beginning of Apple’s bet on Mr. Lasseter and Skydance Media, an independent studio that — contentiously — hired him in 2019 as animation chief. (Skydance hired lawyers to scrutinize the allegations against Mr. Lasseter and privately concluded there was nothing egregious.) Skydance has a deal to supply Apple TV+ with multiple animated films and at least one animated series by 2024.Pariah? Not at Apple.“It feels like part of me has come home,” Mr. Lasseter said in a phone interview, noting that Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, helped build Pixar before selling it to Disney in 2006. “I really like what Apple TV+ is doing. It’s about quality, not quantity. And their marketing is just spectacular. It’s the best I’ve ever seen in all the movies I’ve made.”Mr. Lasseter’s return to full-length filmmaking comes at an awkward time for Disney-Pixar, which appears to be a little lost without him, having misfired badly in June with a “Toy Story” prequel. “Lightyear,” about Buzz Lightyear before he became a toy, seemed to forget what made the character so beloved. The movie, which cost an estimated $300 million to make and market worldwide, has taken in about $220 million, which is even worse than it sounds for Disney’s bottom line because theaters keep at least 40 percent of ticket sales. “Lightyear” is the second-worst-performing title in Pixar’s history, ranking only above “Onward,” which came out in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.Mr. Lasseter declined to comment on “Lightyear,” which arrives on Disney+ on Wednesday. He also declined to discuss his departure from Disney.The Race to Rule Streaming TVTurmoil at Netflix: Despite a loss of subscribers, job cuts and a steep stock drop, the streaming giant has said it is staying the course.An Expensive Gamble: Netflix hopes “The Gray Man” — its new $200 million action movie — can be the start of a blockbuster franchise that attracts much-needed subscribers.Live Sports: Apple and Amazon are eager to expand their streaming audiences. They increasingly see live sports as a way to do it.End of an Era?: The golden age of streaming might be over, and we probably won’t like what happens next, our tech columnist writes.More than 50 people have followed Mr. Lasseter to Skydance from Disney and Pixar, including Ms. Holmes (“Secret of the Wings”), whom he hired to direct “Luck.” The screenplay for “Luck” is credited to Kiel Murray, whose Pixar and Disney writing credits include “Cars” and “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Mr. Lasseter and Ms. Holmes hired at least five more Disney-Pixar veterans for senior “Luck” crew jobs, including the animation director Yuriko Senoo (“Tangled”) and the production designer Fred Warter (“A Bug’s Life”).John Ratzenberger, known as Pixar’s “good luck charm” because he has voiced so many characters over the decades, pops up in “Luck” as Rootie, the Land of Bad Luck’s unofficial mayor.The upshot: With its glistening animation, attention to detail, story twists and emotional ending, “Luck” has all the hallmarks of a Pixar release. (Reviews will arrive on Wednesday.) Some people who have seen the film have commented on similarities between “Luck” and the 2001 Pixar classic, “Monsters, Inc.” Both films involve elaborate secret worlds that are accidentally disrupted by humans.“I want to take the audience to a world that is so interesting and beautiful and clever that people love being in it,” Mr. Lasseter said. “You want the audience to want to book a week’s vacation to the place where the movie just took place.”It remains true, however, that Mr. Lasseter continues to be a polarizing figure in Hollywood. Ashlyn Anstee, a director at Cartoon Network, told The Hollywood Reporter last week that she was unhappy that Skydance was “letting a so-called creative genius continue to take up positions and space in an industry that could begin to be filled with different people.”Emma Thompson has not changed her public position on Mr. Lasseter since backing out of a role in “Luck” in 2019. She had been cast by the film’s first director and quit when Mr. Lasseter joined Skydance.“It feels very odd to me that you and your company would consider hiring someone with Mr. Lasseter’s pattern of misconduct,” Ms. Thompson wrote in a letter to David Ellison, Skydance’s chief executive. (Her character, a human, no longer exists in the radically reworked film.)Ms. Holmes, the “Luck” director, said she had no qualms about joining Mr. Lasseter at Skydance.“It has been a very, very positive experience, and John has been a great mentor,” she said.Holly Edwards, the president of Skydance Animation, a division of Skydance Media, echoed Ms. Holmes. “John has been incredible,” she said. “I’m proud that we’re creating an environment where people know they have a voice and know they are being heard.” Ms. Edwards previously spent nearly two decades at DreamWorks Animation.Some of Mr. Lasseter’s creative tactics have not changed. One is a willingness to radically overhaul projects while they are on the assembly line — including removing a director, something that can cause hurt feelings and fan blowback. He believes that such decisions, while difficult, are sometimes crucial to a quality outcome.Peggy Holmes, the director of “Luck,” said she had no reservations about working with Mr. Lasseter.Michael Tran/FilmMagic“Luck,” for instance, was already in the works when Mr. Lasseter arrived at Skydance. Alessandro Carloni (“Kung Fu Panda 3”) had been hired to direct the film, which then involved a battle between human agents of good luck and bad luck.“As soon as I heard the concept, I actually was kind of jealous,” Mr. Lasseter said. “It’s a subject that every single person in the world has a relationship with, and that is very rare in a basic concept of a movie.”But he ultimately threw out almost everything and started over. The primary cast now includes Jane Fonda, who voices a pink dragon who can sniff out bad luck, and Whoopi Goldberg, who plays a droll leprechaun taskmaster. Flula Borg (“Pitch Perfect 2”) voices the overweight, bipedal unicorn, who is a major scene stealer.“Sometimes you have to take a building down to its foundation and, frankly, in this case, down to its lot,” Mr. Lasseter said.Mr. Lasseter did not invent the concept of doing real-world research to inform animated stories and artwork, but he is known for pushing far beyond what is typically done. For “Luck,” he had researchers dig into what constitutes good luck and bad luck in myriad cultures; the filmmaking team also researched the foster care system, which informed part of the story. (The lead character grows up in foster care and is repeatedly passed over for adoption.)As at Pixar and at Disney, Mr. Lasseter set up a “story trust” council at Skydance in which a group of elite directors and writers candidly and repeatedly critique one another’s work. The Skydance Animation version will soon include Brad Bird, a longtime Pixar force (“The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille”) who recently joined Mr. Lasseter’s operation to develop an original animated film called “Ray Gunn.”Ms. Holmes said Mr. Lasseter was a nurturing creative force, not a tyrannical one.“John will give you notes on sequences,” she said. “He will suggest dialogue. He will comment on color or timing or effects. He’ll pitch story ideas. He’ll draw something — ‘Oh, maybe it could look like this.’“And then it’s up to you and your team to execute against those notes. Or not. Sometimes we came back to John and said the note didn’t work — and this is why — or we decided we didn’t need to address it.”Ms. Holmes added: “When the answer is no, he’s really OK with it. He’s really OK with it.” More