feature · 20222h 11mUS
Top Gun: Maverick
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
At a glance
- Director
- Joseph Kosinski
- Cinematography
- Claudio Miranda
- Editor
- Eddie Hamilton
- Music
- Lady Gaga
- Costume
- Marlene Stewart
- Format
- 2.39:1 · Sony VENICE 6K Open Gate (Rialto extension)Cockpit interiors — Sony VENICE Rialto extension
- Photographed
- May 2018 – Apr 2019
Production
Studios
- Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Filmsproduction company
- Jerry Bruckheimer Filmsproduction company
- Paramount Picturesdistributor
- Skydance Mediaproduction company
- TC Productionsproduction company
Department
Camera
- Claudio MirandaDirector of Photographyprimary
- David B. NowellAerial Director of Photographyprimary
- Rohan ChitrakarDigital Imaging Technicianprimary
- Calvin ReibmanDigital Imaging Technician
Department
Grip
- Brad ReaDolly Gripprimary
- Gary A. Beaird Jr.Dolly Grip
- Michael WahlDolly Grip
Department
Electric / Lighting
Post-Production
Visual Effects
1,650 total VFX shots
Recognition by craft
Recognition
Awards (6 won, 20 total)
Locations
Shooting locations
China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station
Sun plannerCalifornia · United States · 35.652, -117.682
Mojave Desert weapons range — practical SAM-site mock-up + canyon-trench excavation for the terminal-attack sequence.
- Civil dawn
- 12:14 UTC
- Sunrise
- 12:42 UTC
- Magic-hour AM
- 12:42 UTC → 13:19 UTC
- Magic-hour PM
- 02:17 UTC → 02:54 UTC
- Sunset
- 02:54 UTC
- Civil dusk
- 03:23 UTC
Eastern Sierra Nevada — Owens Valley
Sun plannerCalifornia · United States · 37.000, -118.200
Low-altitude canyon-run + mission-rehearsal photography. Real F/A-18 flights at 100ft above the canyon floor; camera Astar B2 helicopters at 200ft AGL.
- Civil dawn
- 12:12 UTC
- Sunrise
- 12:41 UTC
Lighting
Per-scene setups · 6 across 6 scenes
Per-scene lighting plots: fixture role (key / fill / back / practical), color temperature, diffusion stack, and motivation notes from cited supervisor interviews.
Darkstar Mach-10 opening
Practical cockpit interior of the Darkstar mock-up at Plant 42. No movie lighting in the cockpit itself — Miranda relied on the tinted-canopy bounce of the desert sun for the in-cockpit reaction shots, with a frame-right SkyPanel S60-C bounce off the canopy interior for fill on the helmet visor.
Mock-up was static but slung on a hydraulic gimbal driven by SFX coordinator Scott Fisher. Out-the-window plates were shot separately with a real flying SR-71 stand-in at Edwards AFB.
Dogfight training round 1 (Hondo + Maverick)
No artificial light inside the F/A-18F cockpit — the entire interior is lit by the actual sun bouncing off the polarised canopy + the helmet visor. Six VENICE Rialto cameras compensate for the lack of supplemental fill via sensor-side latitude (S-Log3 dual-base 2500 ISO).
Rialto setup: 3 standard VENICEs + 3 Rialto extension blocks. Forward-facing pilot cam, two side-of-shoulder Rialtos, weapons-officer reaction cam aft, cockpit-glance reverse cam, and a wing-mount external. All synced via SMPTE timecode jam from the lead aircraft's mil-spec clock.
Mojave shores beach football (Dogfight Football)
Color
Pipeline
Camera color science → IDT → working space → ODT → deliverable. Production-wide default first; scenes that diverge below.
- Camera logS-Log3
- Camera gamutS-Gamut3.Cine
- IDTACES IDT.Sony.SLog3.SGamut3Cine
- Working spaceACEScct
Stunts
Curated set-pieces · 5
Sequence-level rigging detail — pole-cats, decelerators, picture-car modifications, named coordinators, and the SAG-AFTRA / BSR safety bulletins observed on set. Click through for the full breakdown.
Darkstar Mach-10 hypersonic test
7.0 minDetail →Maverick test-flies the Darkstar prototype past Mach 10 against shutdown orders. The Darkstar mock-up — a full-scale practical airframe built at Plant 42 with consultation from the Lockheed Skunk Works — was static, but Scott Fisher's SFX team gimballed it on a hydraulic pivot to sell the buffeting. The flight footage cuts to plate photography of the actual Skunk-Works-derived A-12 airframe at Edwards.
AerialCockpitPractical-AirframeBreakawayMojave shores beach football
5.0 minDetail →A magic-hour beach-football scene in lieu of mission chalk-talk: practical sun-position blocking, four consecutive afternoons of 25-minute shoot windows, no electric supplements. Stunt coordinator Casey O'Neill choreographed the running pattern + tackle blocking; cast performed their own choreography over multiple takes.
Stunts
1 crew · 1 company
The stunt department on this production: credited crew, actor-double pairings, and the companies whose members brought them onto the show. Click any name to jump to their full filmography + doubling history.
Contributing stunt companies
Post-production
Lab & finishing
- Light Irondi — Panavision-owned DI / colour facility — primary digital intermediate for TGM. The Sony VENICE S-Gamut3.Cine → ACES → Rec.709/Rec.2020 conform was finished at Light Iron LA.
- Company 3color grading — Stefan Sonnenfeld colorist. Sonnenfeld worked closely with Miranda to define the sun-bleached, slightly desaturated palette that distinguishes TGM from the 1986 saturated original.
- Skywalker Soundsound mix — Al Nelson supervising sound editor / sound designer. Skywalker mixed the engine roars + cockpit-noise blend that won the Best Sound Oscar.
- Formosa Groupsound design — Additional sound design + dialogue editing.
- IMAX DMRimax remaster — IMAX 1.90 expansion DMR remaster for the IMAX-certified theatrical release.
Score
Composer & cues
Score credits shared with Harold Faltermeyer (original themes), Lorne Balfe, and Lady Gaga. Re-recording of the original Top Gun themes was a deliberate franchise-continuity choice.
Score
Scoring stage
- AIR Lyndhurst HallAIR Studios· London, GB
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