{"id":33871,"date":"2022-07-12T15:21:07","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T22:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locationmanagers.org\/?p=33871"},"modified":"2022-08-24T14:14:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T21:14:56","slug":"topgunmaverick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locationmanagers.org\/es\/topgunmaverick\/","title":{"rendered":"TOPGUN:MAVERICK"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Need for Speed
\nThe Locations of\u00a0<\/b>TOPGUN:MAVERICK<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

Tom Cruise is back with his megawatt smile in TOPGUN:MAVERICK\u2014
\ndoing what he does best: flying fast and pulling Gs.
\nSLM Mike Fantasia\/LMGI also pushes the envelope to help make it happen\u2026<\/p>\n

by Shaun O\u2019Banion<\/b><\/p>\n

Photos by Scott Garfield\/Paramount Pictures<\/p>\n

\n

When Top Gun<\/i> opened on May 16, 1986, the film became an instant global hit. Made for just $15 million, it grossed more than $357 million worldwide, made Tom Cruise a star, won an Oscar for Best Original Song with Berlin\u2019s \u201cTake My Breath Away\u201d and increased enlistment in the Navy by a storied 500%. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With that kind of success, you\u2019d think that everyone involved would have tried to make a sequel right away\u2014but it would be 36 years before audiences would once again get to climb back into the cockpit with Pete \u201cMaverick\u201d Mitchell.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u2019s late friend and RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) 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 sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.<\/p>\n

The movie is an impressive achievement on its own, but as a sequel to a nearly 40-year-old film, it has no business being as good as it is. Originally set for release on July 12, 2019, the film flew 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\u2019s first film to debut with more than $100\u00a0 <\/span>million at the box office. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Mike Fantasia\/LMGI, Toiyabe Range, Nevada<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

For supervising location manager Mike Fantasia (that\u2019s \u201cFanta-See-Uh\u201d for those who\u2019ve never met or worked with the legendary SLM), working on the film was \u201cwithout question, the best experience I\u2019ve had in 31 years in this industry.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Think, Just Do\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a Sunday night and I got a text from the UPM LeeAnn Stonebreaker that read, \u2018Are you available?\u2019 I knew she was on TGM <\/i>(TOPGUN:MAVERICK<\/i>),\u201d Mike recalls. \u201cSo I was like, \u2018holy shit!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

LeeAnn asked Mike if he\u2019d come in to meet with director Joseph Kosinski and executive producer Tommy Harper. It was his first time meeting both and it went well. LeeAnn knew it would.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been talking about retiring,\u201d Mike says, \u201cbut I told my wife what it was and she was just like, \u2018how could you not take the job?\u2019 I mean \u2026 I am a huge fan of aviation and military aviation in particular. My father had flown on a B-24 Bomber in WWII.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first texted Mike,\u201d LeeAnn says, \u201cwe weren\u2019t even fully clear on what we were going to be doing or asking to be doing on the film, but I brought Mike in because he\u2019s rock solid, professional and, even though he\u2019s very \u2026 passionate and demonstrative, I needed somebody who was cool under pressure and who would have all his ducks in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n

LeeAnn, having known Mike for years, did have one request: \u201cI wanted him to cut his ponytail,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s the Navy, so I thought I might be able to convince him.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She did not. The ponytail remains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A couple of days later, Mike got the call that he\u2019d been approved by the producers and the studio. Fortunately for the production, working with the Navy wasn\u2019t new for Mike. \u201cI had done some work with them years back on Godzilla<\/i> in Hawaii and, to be honest, the process hasn\u2019t changed much since then,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Inyokern Airport, Ridgecrest<\/p><\/div>\n

Daggers<\/b><\/p>\n

In the film, the team of pilots that Maverick pulls together are called \u201cDaggers,\u201d and Mike knew he\u2019d need some sharp daggers of his own to pull this one off.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith a project like this, you\u2019ve got to really trust your team,\u201d Mike says. \u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019t worked with before so it\u2019s always a little disconcerting when you don\u2019t know how someone works, but I\u2019ve gotta say, they really pulled it all together.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the beginning, prep was a bit of a moving target. All they knew for sure was that the shoot would be divided into three chunks: aerial, ground and marine work. That was enough for Mike to start pulling his team together.<\/p>\n

\"\"

First Baptist Church, Pasadena. Jon Hamm (Adm. Beau “Cyclone” Simpson) and Charles Parnell (Adm. Solomon “Warlock” Bates).<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cA Series of High-Speed Passes\u2026\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

He immediately brought on scouts and a couple of KALMs. \u201cOne of the first things I did was ask Donny Martino\/LMGI to get me maps for the aerial work.\u201d In fact, Mike was eventually given the call sign \u201cMaps\u201d due to his, let\u2019s call it, obsession with them.<\/p>\n

The team had to literally cover all of the bases, so they scouted (and eventually shot) them all in addition to using them as launch points for the jets. Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI) in Coronado, California, Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon, in Nevada, which has been home to the TOPGUN program since 1996, NAS Lemoore, in California\u2019s Central Valley, the Naval Air Facility (NAF) in El Centro, California, the Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake in Ridgecrest, California, and Naval Air Station (NAS) Whidbey Island (near Oak Harbor, Washington) were all called upon to serve this ambitious mission.<\/p>\n

Mike also knew they\u2019d need access to an aircraft carrier at sea.<\/p>\n

\"\"

NAS North Island, Coronado<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThings were changing every day,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d be there with the brain trust and then I\u2019d get on the phone or send an email and say, \u2018make this work.\u2019 And, amazingly, most of the time my team did. Everybody else does the work, you know? Donny Martino, Nancy Wong\/LMGI, Teddy Alvarez\/LMGI, George Alvarezzo\/LMGI, Mike Reft\/LMGI, Mike Louis\/LMGI \u2026 there are many more. I schedule, budget and look pretty. I think as we went on, the Navy realized we knew what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy Wong went to look at NASNI (which would become one of the production\u2019s primary hubs), along with Mike Louis, George Alvarezzo and Teddy Alvarez. Teddy would also oversee a shoot at California\u2019s Inyokern Airport which would serve as the site of Maverick\u2019s private hangar, as well as work at Lemoor and Whidbey Island.<\/p>\n

With NASNI in-process, Nancy and Donny Martino went up to South Lake Tahoe to find a meadow, forest and airfield locations, all of which feature heavily in the third act of the film.\u00a0 <\/span>Scout Lori Balton went searching for a number of other critical off-base locations, including the home of Maverick\u2019s new love interest, Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), which was found in San Pedro, California, and the home of a certain admiral which would initially shoot in Point Loma and subsequently be re-shot at the Wattles House and Gardens in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Lake Tahoe was another great location,\u201d says Nancy. \u201cThe community in general and the Parks Office were a pleasure to work with. I loved working there as much as at NASNI!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

NAS North Island, Coronado<\/p><\/div>\n

Mission Objectives<\/b><\/p>\n

The third act of the film features a practical aerial sequence which may be one of the most extraordinary ever put on film. Where the first film frequently relied on model planes for exterior shots and actors sitting in \u201cbuck\u201d cockpits in front of rear-projection screens, the mandate for TGM<\/i> from the very start was that they were going to shoot with the cast in real F-18s and all of the shots of planes whooshing by would be real\u2014even if the plane was just 30 feet off the deck. That\u2019s where Capt. Brian (call sign Ferg) Ferguson comes in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A 30-year veteran of the Navy, Ferg would represent the military for the film and ultimately become a key ally for Mike and the team\u2014a job he had turned down multiple times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy work with Mike and his team wasn\u2019t necessarily one of my, for lack of a better term, \u2018mission objectives,\u2019\u201d says Ferg, \u201cthe primary of which were safety and protecting the interests of the Navy, its core values and image. But as I moved into the project and began to work with all of the various departments, including the Location Department, I kind of became a jack-of-all-trades and word got around to everyone like, \u2018hey, ask Ferg, he\u2019ll know,\u2019 which is almost never true by the way.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ferg soon realized that what Mike and the team were dealing with was probably unlike anything they\u2019d dealt with before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve sat at length with Mike and talked to him about some of the other films he\u2019s worked on,\u201d says Ferg, \u201cand there are gargantuan, challenging projects on his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, but you throw the federal government and a branch of the military into it and then you start talking about shooting on bases where there are classified materials and machinery all over the place, well, Mike and I ended up working very closely and I was convinced by the end that there was no problem Mike couldn\u2019t solve.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems the admiration is mutual. \u201cFerg, much like a LM, had to walk a tightrope between production and the Navy but he did an amazing job of working with everyone and trying to get us what we needed. The guy is the real deal, man and a consummate naval aviator,\u201d Mike says.<\/p>\n

\"\"

NAS North Island, Coronado<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re Called Orders, Maverick\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

To shoot the aerial portions of the film, which in the end amounted to some 800 hours of footage, the team utilized MOAs (Military Operating Areas\u2014in other words, areas totally closed off from the public) or other low-level flying corridors that the Navy uses for training. One of those corridors is in the Cascade Mountains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo scout, we\u2019d fly all the routes,\u201d says Mike, \u201cwith Joe and Tommy looking at the different story points we needed\u2014and then sometimes we\u2019d fly to get a look at the view from a mountaintop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once they had a spot in mind for the aerial work in the Cascades, they\u2019d do another scout by helicopter. \u201cWe took two actually because if one went down, we were gonna have a real hard time finding it,\u201d says Mike, \u201cso it was for safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge on these scouts was reorienting yourself,\u201d recalls Mike. \u201cI\u2019m pretty good with a compass. I\u2019m pretty good with a map. But doing stuff from the air? You\u2019re up there and it\u2019s a couple million acres of jagged peaks, covered in snow. You\u2019ve got a route on a map and you\u2019re trying to check the GPS from the pilot\u2019s read-out and not puke while he\u2019s banking so \u2026 finding a safe place to do the low-level stuff and then getting permission to shoot there was difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

These scout flights would last for 2\u00bd or three hours and on each one, they\u2019d narrow things down a bit more until they had fairly precise maps for each run. Then Mike and the team would launch into conversation with the Navy and permitting with the different entities and agencies. In the Cascades, for example, there were five: two federal, three state. In Nevada, it was the Bureau of Land Management and state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it was private land too,\u201d Mike says. In one instance, they would need the jets to fly over a resort known for its wealthy clientele coming in and spending a lot of money for a week or weekend of relaxation. Hard to relax with F-18s whizzing over your head.<\/p>\n

At another location for the sequence, there\u2019s a moment where the jets fly through a pair of jagged peaks on the ridgeline of a mountain. The jets then invert, go over the ridge and disappear before reappearing and whipping around a corner, mere feet above a river.<\/p>\n

\u201cCruise saw the scout footage and said, \u2018OK, I want cameras on each one of those peaks and then I want a camera on the ground in this valley to catch those planes coming down and around the corner,\u2019 and Mike said, \u2018you won\u2019t be putting a camera on the ground in that valley. It\u2019s wilderness land.\u2019 Then he quoted the specific statute that said so, like \u201cit\u2019s the Naturalist Land Act of 1936 or whatever, like he knew it by heart,\u201d laughs Ferg.<\/p>\n

\u201cCruise wanted a Technocrane and what I actually said was, \u2018Tom. The Wilderness Act signed by Lyndon Johnson on September 3, 1964, Section 4(C), sub-section blah blah blah\u2026\u2019 Well, Cruise just sort of stopped and everyone looked at me,\u201d remembers Mike, \u201cand I remember thinking, \u2018I just said no to Tom Cruise. I\u2019m about to get fired,\u2019 but what could I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem was ultimately solved when aerial coordinator Kevin LaRosa II suggested bringing in his helicopter and hovering just above the ground.<\/p>\n

Mike clarified this workaround with the Forest Service in the regional office and asked whether they\u2019d be allowed to do it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman I spoke with said, \u2018I don\u2019t like it, but there\u2019s no rule that says you can\u2019t do that, so yeah, I guess \u2026 go ahead,\u2019\u201d laughs Mike. \u201cSo that 45-second interaction with Cruise was scary, but the shot with the jets coming around that curve, low to the water and going supersonic with the vapor coming off the wings? It\u2019s incredible. And it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

GLEN POWELL PLAYS “HANGMAN”<\/p><\/div>\n

The Hard Deck Bar<\/b><\/p>\n

In the first film, Maverick, Goose and the rest of the aviators let off steam at Kansas City Barbeque, a bar in San Diego\u2019s Harbor District that today advertises itself as the \u201cTop Gun Bar.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Maverick would need a bar as well but when Harper, production designer Jeremy Hindle and the film\u2019s director went to look at Kansas City Barbeque early in the development of the film, it was clear that it wouldn\u2019t work. For one thing, it was connected to the Maverick\/Charlie storyline which would not be a part of the new film, but a bigger factor was that it was too small.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately for what Joe wanted to do,\u201d says Harper, \u201cwe decided to try to find a bar that was much bigger and right on the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bigger. And on the beach. \u201cSo first it\u2019s like, \u2018we need a bar, go find it,\u2019\u201d Mike says, \u201cand my first response was, you know, based on my 28 years in the business and mostly in California, what they needed in terms of specifics just didn\u2019t exist but OK, so Hindle and I hit the road.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we scouted probably 80 or so bars on every beach up and down the coast,\u201d says Hindle. They drove from Ventura County down the coast to San Diego and then down a bit further to the border with Mexico looking at all of the usual suspects like Paradise Cove in Malibu, but in the end, it became clear that they were going to need to be in and out of that location so many times,\u00a0 <\/span>it would have to be a build.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo OK, let\u2019s build it. Well, where do you build it?\u201d asks Mike, \u201cso we go back-and-forth and talk to the California Coastal Commission and you get all of these different restrictions and then there\u2019s the unavailability of space \u2026 I mean, there\u2019s a lot of space, but when you look at available open space, a lot of the beaches in California are narrow and subject to flooding, so you have to look at tides, wind. It\u2019s a lot to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone mentioned the beach at NASNI had a large beachfront, so they went to see it and, since they\u2019d already planned to spend a large chunk of the ground shoot on the base, problem solved, right? Well, no.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Tom Cruise at NAS North Island, Coronado<\/p><\/div>\n

Negative Ghostrider, the Pattern Is Full \u2026 of Snowy Plovers<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWe go down to NASNI and find a spot that everyone loves,\u201d says Mike, \u201cand they tell us we can definitely build there but then, oops, there\u2019s a bird called a snowy plover, this little tuft of white feathers that weighs a fraction of an ounce that nests there. And it\u2019s endangered. Well, I used to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service, so \u2026 what are you gonna do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy Wong remembers it all too well. \u201cFinding a location is always a little dance,\u201d she says, \u201cand in this case, we had the environmental folks from the Navy and it took some maneuvering.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had hoped to start filming there in September but due to the mating and migration patterns of the birds, they couldn\u2019t start building until September.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, the team had all kinds of other environmental work to do, including geological studies and analyzing tide and storm surge patterns because you wouldn\u2019t want to build the thing and have it get blasted by a storm and swallowed up by the Pacific.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of my time dealing with the Coastal Commission, the Navy\u2019s environmental people, state environmental people and the Fish and Wildlife people,\u201d Mike says. \u201cThat\u2019s where my experience from working with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service on these kinds of things really came into play. I speak their language.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all of the approvals finally sewn up, Hindle and his team were able to build the bar on the beach\u2014though construction did have to build a road 400 feet out onto the sand and surround the set with decking in order to access it.<\/p>\n

From the first scout to shooting on the set was around eight or nine months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Was it all worth it? Harper thinks so. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the bar, you can see out those windows,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can see the ocean, surfers and the different background people we had out there and I think you can feel that it\u2019s not a comp or an LED wall. And then when we\u2019re outside, you can see the bar is actually there on the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the film, the interior of the Hard Deck Bar is modeled on I Bar, an officers\u2019 club on NASNI that had also been deemed too small. The exterior has a sort of Paradise Cove style in terms of architecture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, we built it, shot the shit out of it, tore it all down and you\u2019d never know we were there \u2026 but KALM Mike Louis bwas dealing with that for four months,\u201d says Mike.<\/p>\n

The Anti-Iceman<\/b><\/p>\n

Being a SLM is all about solving problems, whether it be nesting birds or finding a solution to an iced-over runway\u2014exactly the problem Mike and the team faced in Fallon one morning when Ferg came to tell everyone they wouldn\u2019t be launching planes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018guys \u2026 this is TOPGUN. You\u2019re in Nevada at like 6,000 feet elevation and you don\u2019t have a way to de-ice a runway? This is the Navy! What the hell?\u2019\u201d laughs Mike.<\/p>\n

What Ferg saw next blew his mind. \u201cMike gets on the phone with people from NASCAR in either Talladega or at the Texas Motor Speedway because they apparently have a big track dryer,\u201d he laughs, \u201cand I go, \u2018Mike, that thing\u2019s like, 1,800 miles away,\u2019 and he just looked at me and said, \u2018if they\u2019ll rent it to me, I\u2019m gonna get it here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike even asked Ferg if they could get Harrier jets to come from Lemoore and hover over the runway to melt off the ice. Ultimately, the easier solution was to turn the cast around and launch them from Lemoore instead, but Ferg was impressed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo watch Mike always trying to find a solution,\u201d he says, \u201cthat was phenomenal. And the issue in Fallon was a drop in a bucket compared to the stuff they were dealing with most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For director Joseph Kosinski, that spirit is what makes Mike great. \u201cHe\u2019s a total pro and has the experience to know what we can and can\u2019t do. He also has the relationships with people to know what he can get. He\u2019s absolutely one of the best I\u2019ve ever worked with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

NAS North Island, Coronado<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Classified.
\nI Could Tell You but Then I\u2019d Have to Kill You\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the trickiest locations by far was the base at China Lake which the team wanted to use for scenes early in the film, featuring an experimental plane\u2014The Darkstar. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat base is a weapons testing facility,\u201d says Mike. \u201cIt\u2019s a quadrillion acres of just shit blowing up. Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon \u2026 they\u2019ve all got their compounds out there. I don\u2019t know exactly what they do there and they don\u2019t want me to, but I surmise that they test new weaponry and cutting-edge prototypes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When they first asked to scout a hangar, there they were told to paraphrase another classic film, \u201cForget about it, Mike. It\u2019s China Lake.\u201d But at some point that changed and they were told they could. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt went from \u2018don\u2019t go near that hangar,\u2019\u2019 says Hindle, \u201cto \u2018OK, you can go inside but don\u2019t take any pictures.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Later they got permission to shoot reference photos, but what they could shoot was extremely limited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d be standing there with your camera and they\u2019d go, \u2018tell me what you want to shoot and I\u2019ll tell you if you can,\u2019\u201d says Mike. \u201cI remember at one point, I\u2019m setting up and I said, \u2018OK, I\u2019d like to grab this shot.\u2019 A security person came over, looked through the viewfinder and approved it, but after I took the photo, she zoomed in, scrolled around and then she goes, \u2018yeah, no \u2026 see this thing here?\u2019 And I swear it was, like, the roof of a shack four miles away, and he was like, \u2018you can\u2019t show that. Delete it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After several visits, the team really wanted the location because it was by far the most modern space they\u2019d seen. The hangars at NASNI, for example, are probably 50 or 60 years old, but the hangar they saw at China Lake was brand new.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we got in there, it was like, \u201cWhoa, this is fuckin\u2019 cool! I mean, it was obvious we loved it,\u201d says Hindle.<\/p>\n

In the end, by some miracle, they were granted permission to shoot there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know whether it was because of Ferg or what but they said, \u2018let us know when you want to do it and it\u2019ll take \u201cx\u201d number of days to sanitize it\u2014meaning remove the assets that are in there, cover things up\u2014and then you can shoot,\u2019\u201d Mike says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalk to Me, Goose\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Even the best of the best will inevitably run into one of those \u201cTalk to me, Goose\u201d moments as when, in the first film, Maverick talks to his old RIO to help encourage him\u2014a beat that is repeated in fine form for the new film. It\u2019s a bit like a plea to the heavens and for TGM<\/i>, one sequence in particular was that moment for the Location Department.<\/p>\n

The production was set to shoot on two Nimitz Class aircraft carriers: the USS Abraham Lincoln<\/i>, used for the opening which beautifully mirrors the opening sequence from Tony Scott\u2019s original and the USS Theodore Roosevelt<\/i> for scenes in which the cast were on board.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor us to do any of this, it always had to be in line with whatever the Navy was doing in terms of training,\u201d says Mike, \u201cwhether it was aerial training or anything else. For the carriers, we\u2019d go down and load all our gear on a Saturday and then send the cast and crew down on Sunday for them to \u2018embark,\u2019 as the Navy calls it, on Monday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the cast and crew out for two weeks, the Location Department would have a chance to catch up and keep prepping. At least that was the plan. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMonday morning rolls around and we get a call,\u201d says Mike, \u201c\u2018hey, there\u2019s a little bit of a problem. The carrier isn\u2019t going to embark now. Not sure what\u2019s going on, but we\u2019re just sitting here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue turned out to be a \u2018tooth,\u2019 a piece of the propeller that had broken off and the replacement needed to be flown in from Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like fixing a Honda Civic, you know? It takes a while,\u201d laughs Mike.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team had to quickly figure out what sequences they could pivot to or rework to be shot dockside because they obviously weren\u2019t going to be heading out to sea and launching planes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The solution that presented itself was to shoot in the hangar bays which are one level below the deck where all the jets would be held \u2026 but there were no jets in the hangar because apparently, a carrier typically goes out without them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe jets fly out and land, they do their op, then the jets fly home and the carrier comes back,\u201d Mike says. \u201cSo we went to look at that hangar bay and it was just packed full of shit \u2026 food and fuel and just crates of stuff \u2026 but here\u2019s the good part: you\u2019re on a carrier with 5,000 naval personnel, so when you say, \u2018hey, can we empty this bay out?\u2019 It happens in like, three hours. Boom. It\u2019s all gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferg somehow managed to get a couple of F-18s moved across the base at NASNI\u2014which required Mike\u2019s team shutting down roads on the base with virtually no notice\u2014and then got them craned into the hangar bay. The final scene looks incredible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt just showed that when the shit hits the fan,\u201d Mike laughs, \u201ca good combination to have is the U.S. Navy and a great production team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Fantasia at Fairview Peak, NV<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThat Lovin\u2019 Feelin\u2019\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Looking back on the making of the film, Mike couldn\u2019t be prouder. \u201cWe had so many curveballs thrown at us\u2014everyone did, the whole production\u2014but everyone gave their all. And in terms of locations, I get the glory as the HOD, but I really need to acknowledge my team on this one. They were phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

His team is equally effusive about working with him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll always be thankful to Mike for his leadership, his mentorship and professionalism,\u201d says KALM George Alvarezzo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

KALM Teddy Alvarez says, \u201cMike was like a kid in a candy shop on this one and it was great to see his excitement every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

KALM Nancy Wong adds, \u201cHe hires good people, we get along well and he fosters that. It trickles down, you know? If you don\u2019t have a great boss, you\u2019re not going to have a good team. He just loved this job and seemed at ease with what was needed and it put all of us at ease and helped us enjoy it. It makes me sad he\u2019s retiring. \u201d<\/p>\n

Following TGM<\/i>, Mike did decide to turn in his papers, but he still had one more in him: He just wrapped Killers of the Flower Moon<\/i> in Oklahoma with Scorsese. \u201cIt\u2019s been a hell of a 31 years and I know how lucky I am. To start with Spielberg and go out with Scorsese? You can\u2019t beat that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Cruise is back with his megawatt smile in TOPGUN:MAVERICK\u2014doing what he does best: flying fast and pulling Gs.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":33873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured"},"yoast_head":"\nTOPGUN:MAVERICK - Location Managers Guild International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/locationmanagers.org\/es\/topgunmaverick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TOPGUN:MAVERICK - 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