Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500716
was going to be the big challenge this production offered. I wasn't sure how we would pull that off, but I was certainly game to give it my best shot to figure out if/how to make it happen. My team, Huck Caton, Kevin Becker, and I, spent a large portion of every day on set, problem solving. For me, as I imagine it is for most everyone who works in production, problem solving is pretty much my favorite aspect of the job. Being presented with unique situations in which we are being asked to record 100% usable sound is often a challenge. When we succeed, it is gratifying. When we fail, it is very frustrating. Of course, it is conceivable that we will not be able to achieve our goals, at the chosen location, within the time allotted, in the existing conditions. This possibility brings with it some anxiety, but experience has shown that in most cases, a solution does present itself and we do prevail… In the past, as far as I know, actors in flying sequences in movies were always filmed on stage in cockpit mock-ups, against a blue or green screen. We started shooting Maverick in San Diego in May of 2018. Principal ended over a year later, sometime in June of 2019. So, how did you ultimately handle the in-flight dialogue? MW: It took many trips to the airplanes' hangars and a lot of help and guidance from the Navy pilots and mechanics to find the way to record completely usable in-flight sound. Once we figured it out, we found that we also got a bonus, lots of the labored breathing and grunting from our actors as they experienced crushing G-forces and near blackouts. The actors are really experiencing it... Unfortunately for some of them, they did not weather all the flights very well. It was quite rough on them ... there was a lot of throwing up. So, does that mean Tom Cruise flew a fighter jet? MW: All our actors, including Tom, flew as back-seat passengers in two-seater fighter jets. Navy pilots were up front at the controls of all the planes. The grips fabricated and installed all the mounts that were used to secure the cameras and the sound gear to the planes. They built them to be able to stay in place at a maximum of 7 G's. The shots, including the ones where the planes are flying right next to the walls of the mountains through the canyons, are real. The actors are in those planes on all those flights. They did that. We would watch dailies and think, "Oh my God [laughter], this is amazing and it looks amazing!" To get those shots, [DP] Claudio Miranda's camera crew, with the assistance of our grip department, were able to mount six cameras in the center of each plane in between the pilot and each of our actors. Four cameras were facing our actor in the rear, and two were facing forward over the pilot's shoulder. The pilots wore identical helmets to our actors. On the back of their helmets was the actor's character name. Looking over the shoulder of the pilot, you were looking at the real pilot and the pilot's movements were completely in sync with our actor's movements, because they were both experiencing the same in-flight forces at the exact same time. The way our fantastic editor, Eddie Hamilton, cut it all together, the audience perceives that our actor is the person who is piloting the plane. How did you handle noise levels on the deck of the aircraft carriers? (Foreground) Re-recording mixer Mark Taylor, screenwriter Chris McQuarrie, re-recording mixer Chris Burdon, and film editor Eddie Hamilton