Supervising sound producer Al Nelson breaks down the Mach 10 sequence. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO One of the most exciting things about Top Gun: Maverick is their emphasis on practical effects. Most times, when you see the film’s actors struggling against high-level g-forces, that struggle is real. The actors spent months training to be in planes doing their own stunts, and the whole film feels grounded because of it. Most times these sequences were shot practically … but not every time. In the film's incredible seven-minute opener (also known as the Darkstar sequence), nearly everything we see is completely fake. The plane used to go Mach 10 doesn’t really exist yet. It’s a prototype for a plane that will exist in the future, built by Lockheed Martin. While a prototype of that plane was used for taxiing around the runway, anytime we see the plane in the air it’s entirely VFX — impeccable VFX. But beyond the VFX, the thing that makes it feel so real is the sound design. In this video, Top Gun: Mavericks supervising sound producer Al Nelson breaks down the Darkstar sequence. He explains how his team made a plane that doesn’t exist sound real, and, more importantly, how they leveraged the sound design to be just as emotionally impactful as a piece of orchestrated music. Note: The headline on this piece has been updated. Previous headline: How Top Gun made a fake plane sound real Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com/ Support Vox's reporting with a one-time or recurring contribution: http://vox.com/contribute-now Shop the Vox merch store: http://vox.com/store Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Facebook: http://facebook.com/vox Follow Vox on Twitter: http://twitter.com/voxdotcom Follow Vox on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@voxdotcom