Planes, trains and automobiles: How aerial experts captured MI:8 and F1's action

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and F1 share one clear common denominator: breathtaking action, whether its Tom Cruise hanging off an airplane or Brad Pitt careening 180mph around Silverstone. But they also shared a team who enabled directors Christopher McQuarrie and Joseph Kosinski respectively to capture those moments: aerial cinematographer Phil Arntz and pilot Will Banks. 

The Mission: Impossible franchise is well known for its death-defying stuntwork, with star Cruise performing most of the incredible feats himself. And for this final film in the series, the sky really was the limit.

“Tom [Cruise] and McQuarrie set out to make [the biplane] sequence, but realistically no one really knew how we were going to film it,” says Arntz of the film’s key set-piece in which Cruise’s Ethan Hunt transfers between two biplanes in mid-air. No one's done anything like it, and no one's done it with an actor. The prep for that was massive, and the testing we did on it in the UK was huge.”

Director Christopher McQuarrie watching Tom Cruise in the biplane; Source: Courtesy Arntz & Banks 

The stunt sequence, which filmed predominantly in South Africa with pick-ups later in the UK, certainly pushed the limits of what was possible. It helped that Arntz and Banks have developed a strong partnership over their years of working together, one that gives them the ability to achieve the previously unachievable.

“I think I’d be a more nervous flyer if it wasn’t for the fact that we’ve made it so long and I’m still alive,” Arntz teases. “I’ve learned to trust the guy.”

That level of trust was particularly important given the intensity of the Final Reckoning shoot. “Most [filming of one aircraft from another] is shot with a with a longer telephoto lens with more standoff distance,” Banks explains. But Mission: Impossible was shot "in a way that hasn’t been done before. Phil, god bless him, decided that it would be great idea to shoot on a really wide lens so we could capture the width of the canyons [through which the planes fly].”

“But of course, we had to then be super close to the target aircraft to fill the frame - so we had to be eating these planes,” Banks continues of the helicopter from which he, Arntz and the aerial team captured the shots. “There were times when you do sort of pinch yourself. It was pushing the limits of proximity flying that was made to look out of control.”

Phil Arntz, Tom Cruise, Will Banks; Source: Courtesy Arntz & Banks

Even for the experts, it proved an immense challenge. “We were operating at quite high altitudes, the territory where you start getting into needing oxygen due to hypoxia,” says Banks. “You’ve got three or four people on board [the helicopter], heavy cameras, and you’re attacking a plane that happens to be upside down with somebody on fire – and the [helicopter] system was reaching its limits. It's a humbling feeling because you suddenly go, ‘Right we're 8,000 feet above the ground. We're right next to an aeroplane and the helicopter’s not really responding’. 

“It soon comes back,” Banks assures. "But it's just that split second, and a lot of the time no one in the aircraft would even know that was happening. You’d feel a shudder through the controls and you knew you were hitting the edge of that aircraft.” 

Yet Arntz never had anything less than 100 percent confidence in his teammate.  “You can't question what Will does because if you're questioning it and if you're worried about it and you're looking out of the aircraft to be like, ‘oh shit, are we doing the right thing?’ you're forgetting the shot.

 
Source: Courtesy Arntz & Banks 

That's why our company doesn't function without either of us,” adds Arntz. “We have a shorthand of communication. That trust, it’s massive.” 

"Playing with such hugely expensive assets without a grown up is fabulous.” 

On Final Reckoning, McQuarrie came with them on nearly every scouting flight. “The work we did in Africa was bloody dangerous, and lots of directors wouldn't have [come], but he did,” says Banks. “He said, ‘You know, I felt completely safe because I know that if you weren't happy, you wouldn't do it’” says Banks.  

This level of respect and trust from McQuarrie eventually allowed Arntz and Banks to operate mostly on their own during production.

“We became a detached unit,” Arntz says. “We'd organise shoots, we'd come back, and then one day we'd just go ‘By the way here's the footage.’ We’re running parallel to the other things they were doing.” 

Source: Courtesy Arntz & Banks 

“It’s very rare that you are allowed to just go off and shoot something without the head of department, like a VFX supervisor or DoP,” says Banks.” [Especially] just to be sent off to shoot a nuclear submarine. Playing with such hugely expensive assets without a grown up is fabulous! It was a massive privilege to have that level of freedom and respect from [McQuarrie] that we could go off and smash it, without someone breathing down our neck.” 

Arntz adds that collaborating with McQuarrie and Cruise was an equal privilege. “They have such a strong vision for how these films work to then kind of get involved in that and then also be able to like run with it a little bit… that's been amazing.” 

Top speed

It was a particular luxury for the pair to be involved so early on with the development of the shots for Final Reckoning. “Most of the time, it's like ‘Hey, can you guys do this next week,’ and that's difficult,” says Arntz.

F1, for Apple and Warner Bros, was closer to being in the latter camp. “I think for F1 we had probably a month,” Banks says. “They had a pre-viz made-up and they needed us to make it happen. They brought us in on a zoom and chatted through, and then we had to write the risk assessments and go see the tracks." 

On paper F1 may seem like the more straight-forward shoot, but different tracks have different flying regulations, making some of the shots that Kosinski and F1 cinematographer Claudio Miranda wanted difficult to get.  

Source: Courtesy Arntz & Banks 

At Silverstone, the UK’s premier F1 racing track, the permits are “so specific.” Arntz says. “It takes the flexibility away.” In the end, however, it all comes down to to safety. “It’s a really narrow environment. [Banks] will be coming down through the grandstands, past the gantries and there's not a lot of room to manoeuvre. If you get it wrong, there's a lot of flying parts of metal everywhere.” 

A particular challenge here was having to keep pace with the very real Formula One cats hitting incredible speeds in some of the worlds most difficult race tracks. “[It was like] a dog chasing a ball,” describes Banks. During their Abu Dhabi shoot, “there was stuff everywhere: lighting, trusses, gantries, cables – so much stuff you could hit,” adds Arntz.

While both F1 and Final Reckoning both threw up their own difficulties, Arntz says that, as a team, they relish the opportunity to capture something different every time. “Different cinematographers shoot in completely different styles and are looking for different things. [It’s about] changing my own approach because, ‘this cameraman wants to do something differently’ or ‘this production requires something else.’ That's where the challenges lie.”