Talaat Captan built Air Hollywood on a simple observation: an airplane scene is only as believable as the objects in it. The seats, the galley carts, the safety cards, the overhead signs and the crew uniforms are what tell an audience they are on board a real flight. Over the years, the effort to find and keep those objects grew into Air Hollywood Props, the prop rental house that now supplies aviation pieces to film, television, commercial and photo productions, and that quietly preserves a good deal of commercial aviation history along the way.
Why a film studio needed its own prop house
Captan founded Air Hollywood in 1998, after producing the aviation thriller Ground Control. That production showed him how hard it was to put a convincing airliner on screen, a story told in more detail in how Talaat Captan turned a Ground Control setback into Air Hollywood. Building cabins and cockpits was only part of the challenge. A set also needs the right seats, trolleys, signage, safety cards and uniforms, and those details are where an aviation scene either holds up or falls apart.
The problem was supply. Genuine aviation parts are hard to find, and new components are expensive. So Captan began collecting and preserving them. According to the Air Hollywood Props founder page, that growing collection is what became the prop house.
A collection drawn from retired aircraft and airlines
Many items in the Air Hollywood Props inventory come from retired aircraft and from airlines that no longer fly. Rather than letting those pieces disappear, the company keeps them in working order so they can be used on camera. Original Pan Am seats, complete with logo seatbelts, are one example. Some of those pieces have found a second life in the Pan Am Experience, the immersive recreation of a classic long-haul flight that Captan also created. (CNN Travel’s look at that experience is summarized in CNN Travel on Talaat Captan and the Pan Am Experience.)
The collection is not only about the golden age of flying. The prop house keeps period pieces such as a vintage galley cart, vintage light blue economy seats, a vintage paper ticket scanner and a vintage in-flight passenger phone from roughly 1980 to 2008, alongside modern equipment for present-day stories. That range lets a production place a scene in a specific decade, which matters to audiences who remember what flying looked like at the time.
What productions can rent
Air Hollywood Props describes its inventory as thousands of aviation-themed props, set dressing and wardrobe items. The catalog is organized around the places a story might be set:
- In flight: galley carts, service trays, coffee pots, cabin curtains, passenger amenities, safety equipment and cockpit gear.
- Airline seats: first class pods, first and business class two-seat banks in several leather colors, economy two- and three-seat banks, vintage seats and a crew jump seat.
- Airport security: X-ray machines, walk-through metal detectors, a body scanner mock-up, bins, conveyors, podiums and stanchions.
- Terminal: ticket counters, check-in kiosks, arrivals and departures monitor walls, gate seating, and luggage and skycap carts.
- Signage and wardrobe: hanging terminal signs, lightbox ads, crew and security looks, pins and wings.
Several pieces actually work. The prop house lists working X-ray machines, working walk-through metal detectors, monitor walls with programmable displays, check-in kiosks with working screens and driveable AirStairs. For actors and directors, equipment that behaves the way it does in a real airport makes a scene easier to stage and more natural to play.
Designed for fictional airlines
One practical detail shows how closely the collection is shaped around the needs of filmmakers. Many productions cannot show real airline names or logos, so a number of pieces are built to carry a production’s own branding. Directional walls are blank on the back for custom vinyl, security divider panels have a graphics area, a luggage sizer has space for an invented airline’s logo, headrest covers can be printed, and digital signs and monitor walls can display a production’s own content. A show can create a convincing fictional carrier without borrowing anyone else’s identity.
How the props work with Air Hollywood’s sets
The prop house and the studio were built to work together. Air Hollywood’s aviation sets include wide-body and narrow-body cabins, private jets, cockpits, lavatories, an airport terminal set and the mobile AutoPlane, and every one of them can be dressed from the prop inventory. Many productions film on those sets and add props to extend or customize them; others rent pieces for use on location. The craft behind those sets is explored further in how Air Hollywood films airplane scenes without a real plane.
That approach drew attention this fall, when the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum published a feature on how filmmakers recreate aviation scenes, which included Captan and the sets Air Hollywood builds from decommissioned airliner parts. A summary is in Smithsonian Air and Space Museum features Talaat Captan and Air Hollywood.
Renting is designed to be simple
Production designers, set decorators and prop masters browse the online catalog, tag the items they need into a “props bin” and submit a request. No account is required, and the company aims to send a quote within 24 hours. Product pages list dimensions and how many matching pieces are available, such as sets of stanchions or rows of seat banks, and the team helps track down items that are not listed online.
Looking ahead
Air Hollywood Props operates from Air Hollywood in Valencia, in Los Angeles County. The company has announced that it is preparing to move to Stage 2 at Triscenic Production Services in Valencia, a 17,000 square foot sound stage, and says it will share details as the move gets closer.
For Talaat Captan, the prop house reflects the same idea that runs through all of his ventures, from the studio to the Pan Am Experience to his work with the team reviving Pan American World Airways: aviation’s history is worth keeping, and it is most valuable when people can still see it, sit in it and use it. Explore the catalog at Air Hollywood Props, or return to the Talaat Captan home page for more of his story.
