In the last of four special episodes recorded live on August 1 at the American Society of Cinematographers Clubhouse in Los Angeles, Joel D. Catalan, CAS — a sound re-recording mixer who was Emmy-nominated for the NatGeo series Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey — sits down with two of 2024’s Emmy contenders in the category of outstanding sound editing for a comedy or drama series (one hour): Brian J. Armstrong, MPSE, is nominated for FX’s period drama Shogun, and Tim Kimmel, MPSE, got nods for two Netflix shows: sci fi epic 3 Body Problem and animated adventure Avatar: The Last Airbender. The two sound supervisors reveal how they collaborate with showrunners to balance music, dialogue, action and strategic silence, frequently deploying what Armstrong calls “addition by subtraction.”