The Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is the largest organization of Location Managers and Location Scouts in the motion picture, television, commercial and print production industries. Their membership plays a vital role in the creativ
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30 • LMGI COMPASS | Summer 2022 what it was and she was just like, 'how could you not take the job?' I mean … I am a huge fan of aviation and military aviation in particular. My father had own on a B-24 Bomber in WWII." "When I rst texted Mike," LeeAnn says, "we weren't even fully clear on what we were going to be doing or asking to be doing on the lm, but I brought Mike in because he's rock solid, professional and, even though he's very … passionate and demonstrative, I needed somebody who was cool under pressure and who would have all his ducks in a row." LeeAnn, having known Mike for years, did have one request: "I wanted him to cut his ponytail," she laughs. "I mean, it's the Navy, so I thought I might be able to convince him." She did not. The ponytail remains. A couple of days later, Mike got the call that he'd been approved by the producers and the studio. Fortunately for the production, working with the Navy wasn't new for Mike. "I had done some work with them years back on Godzilla in Hawaii and, to be honest, the process hasn't changed much since then," he says. Daggers In the lm, the team of pilots that Maverick pulls together are called "Daggers," and Mike knew he'd need some sharp daggers of his own to pull this one off. "With a project like this, you've got to really trust your team," Mike says. "I'm pretty anal about things. I have a way I do things and expect things to happen and I had a few new people I hadn't worked with before so it's always a little disconcerting when you don't know how someone works, but I've gotta say, they really pulled it all together." We catch up with the now Capt. Maverick as a test pilot dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. Called back to TOPGUN to train a detachment of recent grads for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, he meets Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: Rooster, the son of Maverick's late friend and RIO (Radar Intercept Ofcer) Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka Goose. Confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick faces his deepest fears as he accepts a mission that will demand the ultimate sacrice from those who will be chosen to y it. The movie is an impressive achievement on its own, but as a sequel to a nearly 40-year-old lm, it has no business being as good as it is. Originally set for release on July 12, 2019, the lm ew into cinemas across the globe on May 27, 2022 and grossed more than a billion dollars worldwide at the time of this writing, shattering records and becoming Cruise's rst lm to debut with more than $100 million at the box ofce. For supervising location manager Mike Fantasia (that's "Fanta- See-Uh" for those who've never met or worked with the legendary SLM), working on the lm was "without question, the best experience I've had in 31 years in this industry." "Don't Think, Just Do" "It was a Sunday night and I got a text from the UPM LeeAnn Stonebreaker that read, 'Are you available?' I knew she was on TGM (TOPGUN:MAVERICK)," Mike recalls. "So I was like, 'holy shit!'" LeeAnn asked Mike if he'd come in to meet with director Joseph Kosinski and executive producer Tommy Harper. It was his rst time meeting both and it went well. LeeAnn knew it would. "I had been talking about retiring," Mike says, "but I told my wife