Why Top Gun won the Oscar for sound

In Top Gun: Maverick. All of this... is real. These actors trained for months to pull up to eight G's And cameras mounted inside of the F-18s captured real intense flying. Just look at the ripples on Jay Ellis’ face. But this shot is different because this plane doesn't exist. It's called The Darkstar and it uses hypersonic technology... a tool that's in development by Lockheed Martin but nowhere near ready to be used like Tom Cruise's Pete “Maverick” Mitchell does. This scene is almost entirely fabricated from Tom Cruise's convincing sweating and heavy breathing to the impeccable VFX. But the thing that grounds it for me is the sound design... which is why I talked to this guy. I'm Al Nelson. My job on Top Gun: Maverick was to define the soundscape for the film, from jets... to doors... foley... ambiances... motorcycles... and all things maverick. Expectations were high. The bar was very high. There wasn't a ‘good enough’ option. It always needed to be as best as it could be. When Al's team first got the mach 10 sequence... it sounded something like this: A blank slate with one big question. How do you make fake flight feel real? What does the Dark Star sound like? First of all, working backwards. It's not an F-18. It's not a fighter jet. The Darkstar is much more elegant. It's much more advanced. And one of the things that was important was for that to be believable as well. It shouldn't sound like a video game. It can't sound sci-fi. You think, of course, of Star Wars you know, the tie fighters are amazing but they're sci fi and they used elephants to make them. And so we worked hard, lots of field trips to aircraft carriers, cross-country trips for jet engines and auxiliary power units. We are trying to tell the story of Maverick's flight. Everything we're hearing and seeing should feel as real as it can feel so that we're experiencing this with him. And Al’s job was to make sure that the experience captured all the intensity of Maverick pushing the Dark Star to its limits. It starts with sounds of technology that we're familiar with. So when you see Maverick launch, he's using turbines. We wanted it to have punch and feel high tech. It doesn't ramp up. It just goes ‘ca-chunk’... and then thrust. Maverick gets up in the air and as he starts passing new thresholds... “Increase to mach 3.5.” ...there's this subtle beep... [movie clip beeps, high pitched] “Increase to mach 3.5.” ..that starts a simmering build of tension. Like Pavlov's dogs we're being trained to know that this tone will keep repeating until we get to the coveted mach 10. But before that, he has to go faster... this time using technology that most of us don't yet have a reference for. “Transitioning to scramjet.” A scramjet uses the speed of the jet... to intake oxygen, which ignites the fuel as opposed to a turbine. A turbine can only spin so fast and can only generate so much oxygen to ignite a fuel. All of that process needed to be articulated sonically. He kicks it in the scramjet and then you see the turbines close... and you see the tube open up in the back of the Dark Star. At that point, you've got this flow of air... going into the jet system and igniting that fuel... and creating that rocket. And then the plane is on its way. Maverick starts getting comfortable. “We’re feeling good.” And the soundscape reflects that by becoming slightly more subdued. Because... The other thing we're doing specifically with Dark Star is we are trying to tell the story of his joy of being in this flight and achieving... that which no one has done before. “He's the fastest man alive.” And so there are moments where we're just with him as he's smiling. The plane-focused sound design pulls back and other elements take the forefront. It's a lot of layers but it's also it's not necessarily accumulating. It's alternating. It's orchestrating. -You know, when he says... -”Talk to me, Goose.” there's not a lot else going on because we are with him emotionally. You see the Dark Star go off in the distance. That's very much a music moment. So you don't need a lot from us at that point. And we're just a dot and we're just a little rip as you hear it scan across the sky so you can track it and then the music drops out very dramatically and we cut to him... ...and it's boom. And you feel a little bit of shaking and you hear that turbine kick on and you feel those thrusters. and you feel those thrusters. Instead of having all these clips sound fade into each other... you feel every single cut. One of my first interactions with Tom he said “The cuts have to hit. They have to punch.” He was very, very emphatic about that. And it's a style that the first Top Gun established. That aggressive cutting, style of cutting from inside and being just dialogue and rather quiet to banging on to the exteriors. “Coming left!” And it makes the cut feel aggressive. It makes the film feel aggressive and dangerous and it propels us in the story. Each of these cuts has a unique sonic texture. You cut to the rear and it just bangs on with this ripping, tearing rocket thruster. You see all of those currents crossing the wings, the jet stream. It's such a beautiful visual. And we wanted to put something in there that was tonal and special which was the Roebling Suspension Bridge. So all of these flavors allow it to be constantly changing and constantly new... and hopefully exciting. To ratchet up that building tension Al’s team used a longtime sound design trick... the Shepard Tone: an auditory illusion where you loop a sound wave separated by octaves... which tricks your brain into thinking that it's a continually rising pitch. Listen to it here in the rising turbines. So the jet is starting to complain a little bit and so more tones are happening. And yes, that mach 9.7, 9.8... each time it's a little bit louder, a little bit higher. It's that winding you up. And then the minute he does it... “Mach 10! [cheers]” Catharsis. But just when you think it's over... we return to quiet. And then we start again with the build. “Oh, don't do it. Don't do it.” “Just... a little... push.” But this time the build is different. It starts with this beep from inside the control room... which plays off this last beep from the Dark Star's cockpit. When you listen to them both next to each other it's a rising tone and then a falling tone. And this subtly signals that danger is coming. The shepherd tone kicks in louder and more grating than before. It leaks into the sound-muted cabin. So we know that the pressure is building... and it keeps building until... [Explosion] But you know, it took some hard work to get us to this final version. Did some late nights and long hours but I'm very pleased and excited with with how it's been received and how it sounds. I know they did design an actual Dark Star that he sat in. You can see him sitting in it and then at a certain point it launches over our head and that's when we get into the magic of cinema. That was an F-18 that they then remapped the Dark Star over it. And that jet was so low that when you see the roof of that shed blow off, that was real. That was an unexpected addition. And the fact that Ed Harris just stands there and takes it... like that guy is he’s something else.

Channel: Vox

Views: 2,203,798

Keywords: Tom Cruise, Vox.com, audio, audio engineering, cinema, explain, explainer, film, sound design, top gun, top gun maverick, vox, visual arts, audio arts, vox ed vega, edward vega, ed vega, foley, sound engineering, f-18, dark star, darkstar top gun, dark star plane, mach 10, mach speed, mach 10 darkstar, jets, jet sound, fake sound, sound effects, visual effects

Id: K5E8eeyAQLM

Length: 8min 41sec (521 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/cincigreg]

Tom Cruise & Dustin Hoffman drove over the Roebling in Rainman. I wonder if he recommended that to be used.

[u/bigrick23143]

Well damn now I’m going to feel badass driving over it with the windows down

[u/ajBoeing61]

GE Aviation got a “thank you” in the credits for letting them record jet engine sounds at the Evendale plant.

[u/lightaugust]

For you local music fans, that sound also starts off the Afghan Whigs' album Gentlemen.

[u/TwoZeros]

I thought I recognized that sound when I saw the movie!

[u/spinney]

This is so cool! Always been my favorite part of crossing that bridge.

[u/xfan09]

Very cool thanks for sharing

[u/mpace965]

A bit of a snub by Vox, just saying the location is “Ohio River”

[u/MagnusPI]

And as of tonight we can now refer to the bridge as Academy Award Winner, John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge.