By Peyton Wilson, director of Speed and Angels
(from the Sedona International Film Festival)

The year is 2003. I'm living in San Francisco, I'm a filmmaker, and I'm a pretty liberal woman. My friend Paco Chierici, a screenwriter and fighter pilot, calls me up one day and says, "Let's make a film about U.S. Navy fighter pilots." At that point, my only interaction with fighter pilots had been when Paco invited his pilot buddies to some Tahoe ski weekends, and it seemed like all they did was stand in a corner all night and talk about flying. Great. "Hmm...What? Who? Do they have anything interesting to say? Do I care about jets? Don't they just drop bombs for a living?"

But Paco continued to persuade me and I grew curious. Out I went to the Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nevada. Not only does Top Gun reside here, Paco's squadron - the VFC13 Saints - is based here as well. The squadron's sole purpose is to train student fighter pilots in the art of the dogfight. They are all instructors - older guys who have seen a lot. My intention was to hang out, talk to the guys, and see if there was a story. Saying I was nervous is an understatement. Entering a Navy base in the middle of the desert is an alien experience; hanging out in a squadron full of fighter pilots is more than surreal.

My fear disappeared in about two minutes. The guys were great, deep, intelligent, funny, relaxed; they were real. Over the next few days I met their wives, went to the Officer's Club, and learned what a "butterfly" start to a dogfight is. Before I knew it, I began to document their world.

However, I still wasn't that into jets. What I was fascinated with was their passion. I had never been with a group of people who so fiercely loved what they did, and who'd all fought against some steep odds to achieve their dream. That was the story I knew I had to tell. But finding a way to tell that story, and to bring audiences into their world in an extremely intimate style, was the big challenge.

After a few months I met the Saints' future students: 15 pilots all around the age of 23, based in Virginia Beach, Va. Here was a group of pilots who had just begun the "dream" journey I was looking to document. They had recently been handed the F-14 Tomcat, and they had one year to prove to the Navy they could fly it. Ah ha! This was a story that I could follow.

And that's when Speed and Angels took off.

Meagan on the carrier deck in "Speed & Angels."

The students opened their lives to me. I went where they went: aircraft carriers, their homes, the flight simulators, night vision classes, etc. And I was always on the ramp waiting for their return from a flight. It had to feel extremely personal. Eventually, two stories rose to the surface: Jay's and Meagan's. Two pilots who - had they listened to adults when they were teenagers - absolutely shouldn't be in the cockpit: a woman who decided she was going to be a fighter pilot when women weren't even allowed to fly fighter jets, and a young man who is lucky to be alive, much less flying.

For two years I attached myself to Jay and Meagan. I initially thought their childhood stories were enough to get the film's dream theme across to an audience. However, no one could have imagined what fate had in store for them. Their journeys were heartbreaking, scary, breathtaking and deeply moving to most people who have seen the film.

By understanding Jay and Meagan's world in such a personal way, I finally began to share their fascination with jets. I wanted our aerial footage to be as intimate and awe-inspiring as Jay and Meagan's incredible journey. My goal - and our team's mantra - was to "put the audience in the cockpit." Shooting the aerial footage was as challenging as capturing their stories. It required months of coordination, massive aerial crews and many sleepless nights. We knew that lots of Navy fighter pilots would be viewing our film critically. When we screened the film for these groups and they responded that we had captured aerial maneuvers they'd never seen before (we used no visual effects), I was immensely proud of what we had accomplished.We did a lot of test screenings. The ultimate screening for me was before a theater full of Bay Area liberal women. My executive producer, Mike Homer, decided to push it... Our previous screenings had gone very well, but could we even grab this group? My experience watching those women walk into the theater was similar to the first day I walked into the Saints' fighter squadron. Nervous, nervous, nervous. This time I didn't get to relax after two minutes - it took 90 minutes. But when they stood up and applauded, some with tears in their eyes, we knew we'd done it. A woman in her late 50s came up to me afterward and said her childhood dream had been to be an astronaut or a fighter pilot, but as we know, women back then weren't allowed that dream. She told me that watching Meagan gave her the chance to live out her fantasies. Oh, and that night I realized I had fulfilled my dream. And that's all I could hope for - that this film could provide some inspiration.

Click HERE for MPM's article about the Sedona International Film Festival.
Images courtesy of Salient Media. (Top: F-14s in flight maneuvers)
 

SPEED & ANGELS BIOGRAPHIES

Peyton Wilson (Director)
Acknowledged internationally for her authentic work about real people, Peyton Wilson has been directing since 1998. Peyton's unique contribution to Speed and Angels is her ability to take the concept of what it looks and feels like to be an elite fighter pilot and have it magically revealed, honestly and openly, onscreen.

Peyton's film career began in 1994 when she founded Spellbound Productions, known for its original programming and television commercial production. Spellbound was rated one of the fastest growing companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and boasts worldwide success for its story-telling approach to television commercials and original programming that has aired on PBS, TBS, A&E and the BBC.

Peyton served as the creative director for the documentary Take Joy: The Magical World of Tasha Tudor, which chronicled the life of the well-known but very private author. She was also creative director for Dreams Spoken Here, a film documenting the story of deaf children who learn to speak and to hear.

Peyton is also known for her television commercials, having produced award-winning spots for AT&T, Chase Bank Manhattan, Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart, Siebel Systems, Yahoo!, Levi's, Macy's, Coca Cola, Safeway, Hewlett Packard, Apple Computer and the Siebel System's Super Bowl campaign. Early in her career, Peyton also worked on music videos for famous artists that include Madonna and Earth, Wind and Fire.

Jay (Pilot)
He caught "the bug" the day he was born; his father took him up in a plane on the way home from the hospital. He's already living his second life at 23. As a high school senior, he was accidentally shot in the mouth at a party by a Marine. The doctors told him the bullet did as much damage as it could without killing him. He showed up a few months later at the Naval Academy with a reworked tongue and his burning desire to fly. The only son of a single mom, his brush with death made him more certain of his dream and drove his ambition to be #1 at everything he did.

Meagan (Pilot)
She's a typical 24-year-old woman, except when she goes to work, she straps into an F-14 Tomcat. She decided she had "a need for speed" as a 12-year old when she saw Top Gun with her father. "Dad, I want to be Maverick," she told him, and never looked back. Despite two pacifist sisters, she defied all critics and went to the Naval Academy. She both makes history and struggles with the choices only a woman must make in the "man's world" she's chosen.