The Target of Accuracy and Truth: A Conversation with ‘Masters of the Air’ Creator and Writer John Orloff

Based on Donald L. Miller’s book of the same name, and scripted by John Orloff, “Masters of the Air” follows the men of the 100th Bomb Group (the “Bloody Hundredth”) as they conduct perilous bombing raids over Nazi Germany and grapple with the frigid conditions, lack of oxygen and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air. Portraying the psychological and emotional price paid by these young men as they helped destroy the horror of Hitler’s Third Reich, is at the heart of “Masters of the Air.” Some were shot down and captured; some were wounded or killed. And some were lucky enough to make it home. Regardless of individual fate, a toll was exacted on them all.

How do you combine historical accuracy within a dramatic storytelling frame for television? Well, John Orloff and team certainly have figured out “the secret sauce” on how to mix the two ingredients to produce a mini-series that is visually entertaining, with both an educational component and a dose of humanity through these characters.

John Orloff spoke with Script about what initially attracted him to the project, why the series is character-driven, not calendar-driven, what he’s drawn to thematically as a storyteller, and so much more!

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: What initially drew you to this project?

John Orloff: Well, it was an incoming phone call, which is always nice. I guess Steven [Spielberg] and Tom [Hanks] had already sort of decided to make a third show. I'd worked on Band of Brothers and was busy when The Pacific was being done, so I didn't work on The Pacific. And when I read the book, it was just amazing. And it was a really interesting way to talk about World War II and bigger issues that we could get into, in a way that actually hadn't been examined a million times before. Infantry ground troops, there's hundreds of movies about them and tankers, but there's only a few movies about the air war. And specifically, even fewer about the bombing campaign. And so, I found that really, really intriguing really quickly.

It's sort of a world we actually have never seen before accurately portrayed in cinema ever. And so, I found that really, really interesting and appealing, as long as we could do that show. And what I mean by that is, I love 12 O'Clock High, great movie, very few combat scenes, and very...I don't want to say unrealistic, but kind of unrealistic in what we would consider realism today. Equally wonderful film, Memphis Belle, great movie, not the most accurate movie, or a representation of what the air war was about. So, I was really intrigued about showing people a world they'd never seen before. I'm really, as a writer, I love world building, and showing a world that that audiences aren't familiar with. So that really got me jazzed to work on the project.

Sadie: I keep thinking of the 1927 film Wings, which actually had the POV of these guys up in the air --

John: And scale too right, that has battles with dozens and dozens and dozens of in their case, real airplanes. And that was a big goal going in was OK, I want to make sure that by the last episodes of this show, we are seeing 1,000 airplanes in the air - that was a really big goal of all of ours.

Sadie: Was there any symbolism or metaphor for you and the other creatives with the use of these warplanes, especially in terms of character?

John: It's interesting - the planes themselves, were really I think, at least in my telling of it, were terrifying machines for their crews. Yes, the B-17, in particular, had an amazing ability to get men back after the plane had been damaged. But what it really represented to them was you get in that thing, and chances are, you're not coming back. So, for me, the B-17 is this sort of dualistic machine where on one hand, we see these great shots of them lining up on the tarmac and music swelling and all this great, amazing technology and filmmaking going on. But at the same time, our characters themselves have a deep fear of these planes and these missions that you don't see it in every episode in every mission.

But I think, in Episode Six, when Rosie has to get back into his plane for the first time at the very end of the episode, and Rosenthal actually said on the record, that the only time he was ever afraid to get into an airplane was that specific mission after he had finished his vacation in a flak house, for the reasons that we say in the show, his rhythm was gone; he sort of had gotten into this drive of somehow surviving, and then they broke up his rhythm, and he was terrified to get into the airplane, for that one mission. And then he got back into it.

And then in terms of the metaphor of what do the planes mean writ large in terms of destruction, war effort - that's a more complicated conversation, obviously. And I sort of took the approach in the show that I was not going to take a moral judgment on the air war, we can have that conversation, right? And Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book about it. There's a lot of people who have written books about it. That's not what these guys were thinking. And this was a very visceral show, right? This show has always been about what was it like to survive in one of these bomber groups; to be one of the lucky people who survived one of these tours of duty? And they were not thinking about, ‘Oh, this is horrible. We're bombing Hamburg today.’ They were thinking about how do I survive this and get home.

Now, that said, there are times where those questions do come up, particularly on October 10, 1943, which is actually in our show the Munster mission, Episode Five. That's the very first mission in US history, where the target was specifically in a civilian area. All the bombings that Americans had done previous to October 10 of 1943, their targets were on the edges of the city. And the civilian casualties was considered to be non-existent to very little. It changed with this Munster mission. Because the railroad tracks were literally right next to the Cathedral on a Sunday and there were conversations not just in the 100th bomber group, but throughout the whole Eighth Air Force that morning, from different levels to not just flight crews - it was not what Americans did. And even junior generals were complaining to senior generals about this change of targeting.

And we bring it up a little bit from the perspective of John Egan. And again, historically, Egan really was excited when the target was mentioned that it was Munster, and it was in the middle of the town. Because 27-year-old John Egan in 1943, who had just lost his best friend, he thinks, possibly to death, was all ready to go court some revenge. And then other people weren't, and we have a couple of scenes about it. But that's not the purpose of the show. That's not what the show is really about.

Sadie: When developing and breaking the story, because you have to distill all of this history down to nine episodes, how do you go about just framing the show itself, not only around but also choosing those key historical events, or just events that were important to these men, that propel the story forward, and the character development?

John: Well, that's the secret sauce. That's an endless conversation, it was an endless process with a lot of different opinions. And somehow, we sort of baked it into one sort of piece. It's hard - nonfiction writing, or adapting, or whatever you want to call it - it's a really specific thing. And it's quite different than any other genre, I would argue. And particularly when Tom and Steven, in this trilogy, in particular, the target of accuracy and truth is really, really important. And that is a continuous conversation, did it really happen? And if we're changing it, why are we changing it? Are we changing it to help the larger truth of the experience of these men?

Obviously, we have to condense time, quite often. For example, Episode Six, when Crosby goes on his furlough to Oxford in real life, he didn't do that for another, like eight or 10 months. It didn't happen in October '43. But narratively, we had to do it then. And then it becomes an emotional thing, because now we're using that regal event that happens 10 months later. We're using it now to expand upon the sort of post-traumatic stress disorder that the men were feeling. And we can't revisit that four episodes from now because we're doing it with Rosie. And so, let's do it with Crosby right here as well. Plus, we're already in Episode Six.

We always knew that in terms of the timeline of the show, the first half of the show was going to examine a smaller period of time than the second half of the show, because it was character-driven. So, the first half of the show is examining Bucky’s relationship as the alpha A-story, right? But they're only there for four months before they're both shot down. So, we examine that in the first five episodes, let's say six episodes where we're just June '43 to end of October '43, over six episodes, and then over the next 7, 8, 9, we're covering a year. And that's just the way the show laid out because it was character-driven, not calendar-driven.

And one of the big, big decisions that Tom and Steven made before I was hired, was that they wanted a show that was both about Buck and Bucky and Rosenthal - those three characters were our main characters - John figure it out. And the problem there is the overlap is not very big. Buck and Bucky are shot down on Rosie's first mission, and his third mission, so it's not like these guys are best friends and Rosie is going to be pining for them. And so that's where Crosby comes in as a major character, he was sort of the foundation bridging these two time periods. He was always there. And so, I could use him as like, OK, let's have this guy as our fourth character, because now he can be the through line between the two sort of eras, right? The Buck and Bucky era of the 100th bomber group, and the secondary era, which was Rosie was there the whole time, for the whole rest of the war, and then Crosby's there who bridges them both.

Sadie: Yeah, and it works. And especially with Rosie and his journey both in the air and on the ground. And there's that line about them taking down the monsters but are you the monster too?

John: Rosie is really an interesting man, I mean, as a human being, he was a really deep thinker, and, Buck and Bucky, I love them, but that's not who they were. Cleven and Egan join the service in 1940 before the war starts, they're not drafted. They do it for the fun of it; learning how to fly airplanes and getting laid. And Rosie is built of deeper stuff. And he comes into the war for deeper reasons. And that was really the reason why I did the show, quite frankly, what excited me as a writer when I read Don Miller's book was the later part of the war - Germany falling apart at the seams, and that hasn't been examined a lot in cinema - a little bit, obviously, and sometimes great like Downfall is a perfect film. 

But more people were on the road, more people were displaced in that winter-spring of 1945 in Europe than ever before. There were millions of people walking all around, including soldiers, including civilians. And it was chaos. And I was really intrigued by that. And Rosie was sort of - and Buck and Bucky, because they're both kind of in that end of Götterdämmerung at the same time. And I found those really interesting to explore.

Sadie: How did Crosby’s narrative storytelling device come into play??

John: Apple TV+ had a real mandate about episode length. They wanted to keep the episodes under a certain amount of time, which is totally reasonable. It's their show, their money. And that necessitates sometimes I mean, for example, my original scripts my first drafts were 80 to 90 pages...each. So, they were basically movies. I don't think people quite understand that this is really four movies. That's what we were dealing with, we were dealing with both storytelling-wise and movie making wise, the equivalent of making the Lord of the Rings movies, the first three movies, that's what we were doing. We had as big a crew, bigger cast, more people working on our movie, and I would argue probably as many special effects. We have about 400 plus special effects an episode. So, there's a lot of moving parts and all of that had to be reshuffled as new people come on board.

So when you go from 70 to 80-page scripts, then they're down by production, maybe they're down to 60-50 pages, but Apple TV+ is really hoping for episodes in the 45-plus range, in terms of minutes. And so that just means we have to cut stuff. So that then necessitates trying to sometimes what's the best way to convey to the audience what a Norden bombsight is. Well, yeah, we did have scenes where it was brought up in dialogue, but those were cut out, because we don't have time for them. And yet the audience has to understand certain things to understand the drama, right?

Sadie: I'm curious about some of that coverage, and having that voiceover, did you happen to have that coverage that you could lay over?

John: Oh God, no! We were editing this thing for two years. Anthony Boyle was doing voiceover scratch tracks, then we would change them, and he would be shooting something in Bulgaria, and we'd be on headphones in Santa Monica, and he'd be in Bulgaria. And we'd be doing different voiceover versions. One of my favorites, by the way, at the very end of the show, the opening of episode nine, as we're seeing the armada of B-17s, in the very opening, and he says, ‘The Germans, we were defeating them on the land on the sea. And in the air, we had become the true masters of the air’ - it's the first time that phrase is used. That wasn't in the show until, I don't know, five months ago, six months ago, I guess it was before the writers’ strike…but it was a very late edition is my point. Even that, which is kind of an important lie in the show, but it wasn't in there for a long time.

Sadie: The filmmaking process just never ceases to amaze me. What inspired you to become a writer? And are there certain stories or thematic elements that you're just excited to explore as a writer?

John: I'm actually kind of figuring that out right now - I'm dealing with my agents trying to figure out what my next job is…I really like showing worlds that we've never seen before - that has always been really, really interesting to me. It really appeals to me. So I go all over the map, though, what that means science fiction, fantasy, obviously historical -I find that those genres in particular are really good for examining what's going on in society right now.

And the metaphor, the prism is that other place in time, and yet that other place in time has to really resonate, obviously to an audience today. One of the things about what Masters is about has changed in the 10 years I wrote it. When I started writing it in 2013 it was a different world, and the relevance was different. And that's another reason the show changed over time. The world that I was writing about through that metaphor, the real world is different in 2013 than it was in 2020. So, I love genre stuff. I know my agents even forget this, I am the only person who has written a movie with a sword wielding armor wearing owls. I made a movie with Zack Snyder called Legend of the Guardians, which is a kid's animated movie, about talking combative owls in a fantasy world. 

What I have found, though, like even that film…it's about anti-Fascism - literally, it's an anti-Fascist story. I'm really attracted to that - I almost didn't know that. It was sort of just undergirding my work. Obviously, Band of Brothers, which I also wrote a couple of episodes on…that was obviously anti-Fascist - all of my work has some sort of underpinning of anti-Fascism. I seem to be coming back to that over and over and over, but that's unintentional.

Sadie: It's what's at the top of your mind.

John: Yeah, and I think obviously, right now, it's even more so with what's going on in the world. I grew up in the 70s. I'm a fourth-generation Hollywood, you said, ‘How did I get into it?’ I'm fourth-generation Hollywood. My great-grandparents were a radio team called Fibber McGee and Molly. They started in show business in the 30s and had a radio show until 1960. So, if you wanted to have a conversation at the dinner table, you sort of had to have read Variety and Hollywood Reporter that day. And that's actually how I got into the business - there was no other choice - like in my life growing up in LA, there were no other examples of success. We didn't have lawyers and doctors - none of my family went to college, except for one of my aunts. And she didn't go to college until after I did. I wanted to be a Director for 10 minutes, but I quickly discovered that was not my skill set. And also turns out, the thing about directing, you gotta do night shoots, you got to wake up at four in the morning. With writing at least you can do your own hours.

Sadie: I am so curious because of your background, and your great grandparent's radio show, did you do you ever listen to those? And did you ever take anything from those from a storytelling perspective?

John: They're really interesting. Yes, I have listened to them. They're on YouTube. They break the fourth wall all the time. It's really interesting. And actually, during the war, Fibber McGee and Molly, every single episode they ever made, had some mention of World War II in it, unlike other people - they were very patriotic folk. I didn't take anything other than, you know, when I would write Masters of the Air, I tended to listen to old radio and 30s and 40s music. And I really do like to sort of dive into the world that I'm writing about - a really immersive dive in whatever historical thing it is. In this case, obviously, the 40s. So, I didn't take anything out...

Other than I think...I take that back...it's an interesting question. One of the things that I definitely wanted to convey in the show, and that I thought that we could do that the other two shows couldn't do was show two societies at war. And I mean, the whole society, not just the soldiers. We couldn't really do that in Band of Brothers or The Pacific. But here, because the guys are spending so much of their time outside of combat in London and in the UK, and then obviously, in Germany, we could show what a whole society of war looks like, where everybody is somehow in the war, every single person is doing their part.

Whether, as it is in Fibber McGee and Molly, where they'll have episodes about rationing, and the whole joke is Fibber the husband wants to go somewhere, but he doesn't have enough gasoline to drive there, because his ration tickets are up, or another episode of Fibber can be about the food rationing, you know, no butter this week, no sugar this week. So, I think that informed me a little bit just again, to sort of say this is a moment in time where everybody on the planet is partaking in this war, whether they're on the frontlines or not.

Granted, that's not what Master of The Air is about, but it is in the subtext, it is all around you - anytime anybody is anywhere, the wars going on whether you're in a pub, or you're walking around Germany, the evidence of the war, the reality of the war impacting your personal life is everywhere. 

Masters of The Air is now streaming on Apple TV+.