“It’s Star Wars on Earth!”
That’s what Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer said after reading a May 1983 article in California Magazine. The article described a special flight school for the Navy’s best pilots.
Bruckheimer knew he had to make a movie out of it. So he bought the rights to the magazine article — title, “Top Guns.” He got two screenwriters who loved flying to drop the final ‘s’ and start developing it into a script.
A couple days ago, I sent out an email with a Top Gun theme. That made me track down and rewatch a fantastic documentary I saw once on YouTube about the making of Top Gun.
The documentary is called Danger Zone. It’s got interviews with the film’s producers… the editors… the stars… the cameramen… the special effects guys… even Giorgio Moroder, the Oscar-winning composer who wrote and produced the iconic songs.
But it’s not just my boyish love of Top Gun that makes this documentary so interesting.
For one thing, it shows how complex it is to produce an hour and a half of seamless entertainment… how many specialists are involved… how much thinking lies behind seemingly simple parts… how many layers of subtlety go into even a jockish, commercial, fantasy flick.
But that’s not the biggest lesson I got from it all.
The biggest lesson — and what I want share with you tonight — is the role of chance and obstacles in the final result.
I won’t retell all the “this can’t possibly work” stories from the making of Top Gun. Watch the documentary for that. But if you’re interested in doing any kind of complex, creative work, the lesson is timeless:
Things will break. There will be deviations from your original plan. You will run into obstacles that threaten the very project.
That’s all normal. Expect it. Accept it. And with a bit of luck and good timing, the final result you produce will be stronger for it — Star Wars, in whatever market or niche you’re in.
Finally, here’s a blockbuster recommendation:
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