Talaat Captan’s Air Hollywood — The Truth Behind Hollywood’s Iconic Aviation Scenes

We all remember the iconic scene from The Wolf of Wall Street where the much-loved actor Leonardo DiCaprio board the jet plane all drunk and high.

And who’s to forget the classic first-class meltdown scene from Bridesmaids, the memorable plane crash from the TV show Lost, and Red Eye’s in-flight terror?

If you thought to yourself that the directors went all the way to build their own fuselage, investing several hundred thousand dollars in the process, you couldn’t be more wrong.

They all turned to the only airplane studio in the world — Air Hollywood.

Talaat Captan’s Air Hollywood, a popular one-stop destination that allows shooting flight scenes for movies, is a 60,000 square feet space containing low-slung warehouses.

It is located on the outskirts of LA and offers filmmakers a chance to choose from four absolutely different complete flight interiors. This includes cockpits, bathrooms, and working galleys.

Moreover, Captan went as far as to build a mock terminal, security gate, and an amazing, but expensive prop room, which contains very original-looking foil peanut bags, boarding passes, etc. that can easily qualify as those that belong to a real airport.

The Inspiration

Talaat Captan likes to call himself an aviation enthusiast and founded Air Hollywood when he felt great difficulty while coordinating direction in an active airport when he was shooting scenes for the movie Ground Control in 1998.

He realized that there could be a better way and soon came up with the concept of Air Hollywood, with the end goal to offer a studio where practically all kinds of flight scenes can be shot in an extremely film-friendly ambiance.

The Features

“Airplanes are made to travel and to fly, not to film in,” says Mr. Captan.

The best part?

So, you know how a real aircraft has immovable seats, which causes a problem for directors when they want shots from different angles?

Air Hollywood studio has easily removable chairs that can be reconfigured to provide all shooting angles that a director might desire.

Moreover, there is a powerful air compressor rigged in an aircraft to give realistic turbulence effects, ranging from mild shaking to the teeth-rattling kind often seen in some episodes of the popular TV show Lost. The cast can even reach for barf bags (real) if needed.

The interior of the aircraft looks like that of a cross between Boeing 767 and an Airbus A330, housing cabin panels.

There is a Learjet cabin, followed by two narrow body cabins.

In order to provide more pace to film, the jet was built to be wider than normal. The interiors have wall panels that can be customized, according to camera placement.

There is a storage unit in the back of the building, wherein the racks are stacked with every item that you can possible imagine to construct a real-seeming flying experience, regardless of the generation.

A particularly interesting item is a set of first-class suites from Emirates, which were used to film Sex and the City 2.

There are even beer bottles in various shapes packed with replica labels lest they should inadvertently advertise any brand.

The amazing props and inventories available at the studio give a director full freedom to create a beautiful aviation scene and even Talaat Captan’s Pan Am experience, for that matter.

Fearless Flying Classes

Jokingly referring to itself as the “Safest Airline in the World,” Air Hollywood offers classes called “Open Sky for Autism” to support mentally unbalanced (autistic) children and their folks adapt to the stress of flying.

There’s additionally a K9 school that offers training to proprietors and their canine companions to fly with insignificant stress. A postcard for the class shows two retriever pups sitting in the cockpit.

It is a delight to visit this one-of-a-kind aviation studio, thanks to Talaat Captan’s efforts and understanding of movie direction. And after the recent settling of the Air Hollywood, Talaat Captan lawsuit, the man is even more dedicated to adding important components to his studio, simultaneously working towards providing a rich experience to those who fear flying.