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Inside the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Flying Sequences


Before Tom Cruise signed on to star in the original “Top Gun,” he wanted to test-fly a jet. Cruise wasn’t world-famous yet, so his long hair was still in a ponytail when he got to the hangar. Remains of “Legend” According to one of the film’s producers, Jerry Bruckheimer, the pilots decided to give this Hollywood hippie the ride of a lifetime. Compressing at 6.5 G—more than double the G-forces some astronauts endure during rocket launches—Cruise felt the blood being drawn from her head. The fighter pilot vomited on his mask.

He agreed to make the movie.

Cruise continued to fly so fast and often that he learned to tighten his thighs and abs to stay conscious. His stomach kept up with the pace. When director Tony Scott put a camera in the cockpit, Cruise was able to smile for his close-ups. His fellow players weren’t so prepared.

“They all vomited and rolled their eyes,” Bruckheimer said in a phone call. The original image was “just a mess,” he admitted. “We couldn’t use any of them.”

“Top Gun” made Cruise a superstar – and the experience of filming him stuck with him so much that he was now convinced that he needed to take a three-month flying course for the cast of its sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick.” Theaters that have 35 years to build suspense. In the new movie, Cruise’s Captain Pete Mitchell (known as Maverick) prepares a dozen young pilots on a dangerous mission to destroy an underground uranium plant in enemy territory. Behind the scenes, Cruise did more or less the same thing, gradually raising the players’ air tolerance and confidence from small propeller planes to F-18 fighter jets. “He has every kind of pilot’s license you can imagine – helicopters, jets, whatever,” Bruckheimer said.

At its core, “Top Gun: Maverick” is a heist flying at 450 miles per hour. Mission leaders design a challenging set of challenges for pilots: zooming low and fast, jumping up a steep mountain, flipping over, falling into a basin, and surviving a nearly vertical climb at 9G while dodging missiles.

Nominated to be the most daring actor since Buster Keaton, Cruise was adamant that every stunt be accomplished with practical effects. Each jet was controlled by a US Navy pilot, with its actor spinning like a leaf in a storm. The deserts and snow-capped peaks in the background are real, and so are the grimaces, strabismus, panting, and groans of the artists.

“You can’t imitate the forces applied to your body during battle,” director Joseph Kosinski said over the phone. “You can’t do it on a sound stage, you can’t do it on a blue screen. You can’t do it with visual effects.”

The audience faces its own challenge over the safety of movie theater seats: forgetting the computer-generated peace of mind that turns modern blockbusters into dazzling holes. In “Top Gun: Maverick,” the images of sky and ground spinning behind players’ heads look like digital magic. Not.

The film’s aerial coordinator Kevin LaRosa II and aerial unit cinematographer Michael FitzMaurice filmed from above using three aircraft: two types of jets with exterior cameras mounted on windproof gimbals, and a helicopter that proved to be the best at catching. the speed of the whistling actors. A private jet can shoot the same scene using two different lens focal lengths to double the image captured in a single flight. When LaRosa heard that the long-awaited sequel would finally become a reality, she also developed her own plane, a glossy black airplane with cameras that can withstand up to 3G.

“This has never been done before,” LaRosa said in a video interview. While flying alongside the cast, LaRosa avoided the trees while keeping an eye on the monitors to make sure FitzMaurice, who was checking the cameras from the back of the plane, was shooting.

Director Kosinski also worked with the Navy for 15 months to develop and install six cameras in each F-18 cockpit; this meant passing rigorous safety tests and allowing the military to completely remove their own equipment. Luckily, Kosinski said there were “Top Gun” fans among the commanders. “All the admirals currently in charge were 21 there in 1986 or when they enlisted,” he said. “They supported us and allowed us to do all these crazy things.”

Generally, the Navy prohibits pilots from flying below 200 feet during training. One of the film’s most jarring images is Cruise in an F-18 at just 50 feet off the ground, a height roughly equal to its wingspan. The plane flew so close to the earth that it lifted the dust into the air and caused the ground cameras to shake. The pilot landed, turned to Cruise, and told the superstar he would never do that again.

Actress Monica Barbaro didn’t know how nervous she had to be when she agreed to play pilot Natasha Trace (nickname: Phoenix).

“When I met Joe on my call back, the first thing I did was sign a hesitation that I wasn’t afraid to fly,” Barbaro said over the phone. “I just got goosebumps. I was so excited.”

Each flight day began with a two-hour briefing for the pilots and crew to review each upcoming line of footage, action, and dialogue. Next, the actors and pilots of this sequence would rehearse the maneuvers on a wooden mock-up of the jet cockpit until the movements took root. Then they took to the skies to take as many shots as possible before the jet or the artists ran out of fuel. They did it again this afternoon.

Rising above the crew, Barbaro and the rest of the crew acquired a Swiss Army knife skill. He had to hit his mark in the air instead of hitting the ground. The sun was his spotlight. On a pilot’s kneeboard in his lap, write down his script, his movements and necessary coordinates, as well as the way he checks his parachute and shoulder straps, fixes his hair and make-up, adjusts the flight visor, turns on the bright red switch that controls the cameras, and the time codes. In the end, Barbaro had to do his main job: acting.

“Tom really encouraged everyone, if you’re going to vomit, learn how and get on with it,” Barbaro said. “We used to clap when someone vomited, so it was celebrated.” Glen Powell (playing Lieutenant Jake Seresin, referred to as The Executioner) even shook his barf bag as he floated upside down and raised his thumb.

Barbaro continued his lunch. But she said that after her first diaries, her face looked so calm that it gave the impression that the clouds howling behind her were just a green screen. Cruise’s training had prepared him well.

It was sent back to the sky to be retrieved again.



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