Talaat Captan

Talaat Captan began his career in Los Angeles on the business side of the movies, working in domestic and international film distribution before moving into production. In 1989 he set up his own company from a one-desk office, and went on to produce a dozen feature films spanning science fiction, psychological thrillers and action, including Prototype, Living in Peril and Ground Control starring Kiefer Sutherland. He also served for four years on the board of the American Film Marketing Association.

It was the airport shoot for Ground Control in 1998 that changed the direction of his career. Filming around a working airport proved slow and restrictive, and Captan, a lifelong aviation enthusiast, decided filmmakers needed a place where aviation scenes could be shot on their own terms. He founded Air Hollywood shortly after the film wrapped.

Air Hollywood grew into the world's first dedicated aviation-themed motion picture studio, with full-size cabins and flight decks, a standing airport terminal, cockpits and a large aviation prop house. Productions from every major studio and many leading production companies have filmed there, from big-budget features to student films, commercials, music videos and photo shoots, with work for clients from New York to Hawaii to Tokyo.

Captan has since used the studio's sets for far more than filming. He created the Pan Am Experience, an immersive recreation of 1970s air travel, and started programs that use the sets to help people who find flying hard, including families of children with autism and nervous flyers. Today he is part of the leadership team bringing the Pan Am brand back to aviation and travel.