How ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Editor Eddie Hamilton Wove Together “Punchy, Exciting” Sequences
deadline.comFor the sequel to the 1986 Top Gun, director Joseph Kosinski gave editor Eddie Hamilton the challenge of compressing more than 800 hours of footage into a movie just over two hours.
Top Gun: Maverick follows Maverick (Tom Cruise) as he returns to the Top Gun flight school to prepare a new class of pilots for a dangerous mission.
His job becomes more difficult when his late partner’s son, Rooster (Miles Teller), joins the class. Once the exteriors of the jets were shot, Hamilton needed to search through the footage to piece together the final product, which involved a lot of cutting to create tight sequences packed with action. DEADLINE: When you began working on the final cut of Top Gun: Maverick, how many hours of footage was there? EDDIE HAMILTON: 800 to 814 hours.
It was quite honestly very overwhelming at times. There was one day in March, 2019 when they had 27 cameras running because there were four jets up in the air with various cameras on them, and two units filming on the ground, which added up to 27 cameras.
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