The Hypersonic Sound of Top Gun Maverick

For those who grew up in the eighties, the Top Gun movie stirs tons of memories and revives the nostalgia of a production that, at the time, was the best thing they could have seen in a movie theater. Danger Zone, The Final Countdown, Take My Breath Away... Even the soundtrack itself is already a hit, a clear glimpse of what was the music and sound of the second half of that decade of hairsprays, Cold War, and Rock N' Roll on the radio. Since 2010, a sequel was announced but only this year, in the post-pandemic era, has it seen the light of day.

At the time, Top Gun was quite revolutionary from a sound point of view. What's more, the techniques that were developed for the film have been used for decades in Hollywood (including in this year's sequel, of course.) What was sought, first and foremost, was a sound that suggested danger and adrenaline, and this has been used since 1986 to make viewers jump out of their chairs. Back then, the film's director, Tony Scott (RIP), wanted to create an iconic sound for the scenes where Tom Cruise's character Pete Mitchell (Maverick) flies through the air at 500 miles per hour towards his enemy aircraft, and he did it. In order to create this iconic sound, Scott hired Hollywood composer Bill Conti who created a synthesized version of the whip-crack of a jet passing overhead. Conti's synthesized version of this whip-crack was mixed with recordings of an F-14 fighter plane.

36 years later, sound technology and sound-effects techniques have improved significantly but still, they have been building on the shoulders of giants. The Top Gun Maverick sound was created by combining recordings of real aircraft carrier sounds, jet engine sounds, and other various effects which spin around the same concept from the first movie. In the sequel of which we speak today, there was much more automation but it is impossible to deploy so much creativity without first having a previous conceptual framework; and, although the Top Gun of 1986 was not exactly a jewel of the seventh art, again, it was a creative parameter for many films that followed.

Skywalker Sound was in charge of post-production sound services. Al Nelson worked as supervising sound editor, and sound designer; but a key piece in the project was Chris Burdon, a re-recording mixer with a little-known musical background, who already has a career of more than twelve years, who began to gain notoriety with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) and remembered with films like X-Men: First Class (2011), and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011.) The sound effects used were, essentially, Hollywoodedge, Doppler Horn By LeftT PE079801, which use a solid semi-truck, and they both have already been widely used in film, television, professional YouTube streams, and video games. These sound effects were first used in March 1987 for airplanes, cars, and trains, and it was a wise choice for this film.

The well-known sound mixer Mark Weingarten was ultimately in charge of the film's sound. For this job, Weingarten needed to study and observe a lot before he began executing the recording project. The in-flight dialogue was a difficult challenge, and there was a lot of it in the film. They were of various types: between planes, between planes and the base, as well as short lines of monologue, and this meant thinking of a solution to solve each of these problems. What Weingarten did then was to take advantage of the microphones on the pilots' masks (he could not install new ones on instruments whose vital functions could not be hindered,) and, on the other hand, a connection inside the survival vest. He did this after contacting the Aircraft's Internal Communications Department and the Navy's Aircrew Survival Equipment Department, and the goal of this was first and foremost to find a balance between the realism of the film and the safety of the actors. Only then he could scream eureka. 

There were many other challenges and achievements but let’s just mention this one. The sound was recorded thanks to an adapter designed by himself for this film, which connected the survival vest cable to a wireless transmitter, and, from there, the audio went to a Lectrosonics receiver connected to a 744T recorder. A backup wireless lavalier was also installed, as well as a transmitter in the actors' survival vests for the shots in which they spoke without their masks. All this was integrated into the cockpit of the aircraft. Moreover, one detail that was quite useful for sound recording and the subsequent editing process was the fact that this whole recording system could be activated by remote control (you can read more about all this here.)

So, if the first Top Gun movie was, in a way, pioneering in terms of sound, this sequel is no slouch. It's safe to say that this production is a master class for mixers, editors, and sound designers, and you should definitely watch it.

If you want to build something like this for your next film, don't hesitate to contact us.

*The images used on this post are taken from Pexels.com