For blockbuster lovers and aviation fans, Top Gun : Maverick (whose review can be read here) is an event not to be missed indoors, on the biggest screen possible. The film offers everything they expect: lots of action, speed, humor, a touch of nostalgia and breathtaking aerial sequences.
Instead of giving in to the temptation of special effects, director Joseph Kosinski opted for realism and difficulty by getting his actors to shoot in real US military jets, without the slightest special effects, following undergoing military training. intensive three months. “The choreographies and the way of filming them required fifteen months of scientific work from Claudio Miranda and his team, to convince the Navy that we might place six cameras in the planes in complete safety. At the beginning, they did not want: not enough space. Claudio had to remove all the elements that were not essential to make it. And Sony provided new cameras, the Realto, which are very small but still provide Imax quality. We had to adapt the lenses and pass all the Navy tests, with speed, Gs, ejections. When they saw the first footage, they were like, ‘OK, here we go.'”
In the cockpit of the F-18, Tom Cruise is therefore alone with another pilot at the controls, surrounded by six cameras that he must direct himself according to the light and the acrobatics. A real physical performance. “The most dangerous scene is filmed 15 meters above the ground, at 800 km / h, explains the filmmaker. The pilot, nicknamed Walleye, had received special authorization from the army. When he landed, he came to me to ask me if I had filmed everything. He saw the footage and said, ‘Okay, that’s pretty amazing. Good, because I’m never going to do it once more.'”
That’s not all: the pilots of the Top Gun academy played the cameramen to offer even more breathtaking exterior images, while respecting the staging. The result is stunning.
