10 Recent Movies That Put INSANE Effort Into Scenes

2. A Custom Six-Camera Rig Was Installed In Each Cockpit - Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick is an astonishing technical achievement like no other in recent times, largely because the film's gorgeous dogfight action was mostly captured practically in-camera.

Director Joseph Kosinski and Oscar-winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda arranged to use a ground-breaking six-camera rig which was installed in each of the plane's cockpits and would capture the actors from every necessary angle.

The cast members didn't fly the planes themselves - that job was afforded to pilots placed in the front seat, with the Navy being paid $11,374 per flight hour - but the actors were kept in charge of flipping the switch which activated all six cameras.

Typically the production shot two planes at once, meaning 12 cameras were rolling at any one time, but during one day of shooting they had an eye-watering 26 cameras shooting simultaneously.

Kosinski said that the technical complexity of the film was such that if they captured 30 seconds of usable footage in a 14-hour day, that was "great." Kosinski ended up shooting 813 hours of aerial footage for the 131-minute film.

With the crew being limited to shooting for 90 minutes per day, Miranda had to study the weather to try and capture as much aesthetically appealing, backlit footage as possible.

As for how the actors could possibly perform under these conditions? The cast started their day with a two-hour briefing that went over every piece of action and dialogue, and even details as mundane as the actors' eyelines and the position of the sun.

The cast then rehearsed on the ground in an F-18 cockpit, took notes from Kosinski, and then went into the air and shot their material, which the cast and crew largely watched together afterwards.

This was the shoot's hard graft for months, but considering the jaw-dropping quality of the visuals and the film's phenomenal box office performance to date, it all paid off splendidly.