Talaat Captan is the founder and CEO of Air Hollywood, the aviation-themed motion picture studio in Los Angeles, and a film producer with more than 30 years in the film and television business.
From producer to studio founder
Before Air Hollywood, Talaat Captan worked in domestic and international film distribution and then moved into production, producing a dozen feature films including Ground Control with Kiefer Sutherland, Prototype and Living in Peril.
The idea for Air Hollywood came on the set of Ground Control in 1998. Shooting airport scenes at a working airport was slow, expensive and full of restrictions. Captan, a lifelong aviation enthusiast, saw that filmmakers needed a dedicated place to shoot aviation scenes, and he founded Air Hollywood shortly after the film wrapped.
Building the world’s first aviation studio
Under his leadership Air Hollywood became the first studio dedicated to aviation, with real airliner cabins and flight decks housed in its stages, a standing airport terminal, glass and analog cockpits, mobile airline sets and an in-house prop collection. Around 500 films have been shot on its sets, along with hundreds of TV shows, commercials and music videos for every major studio and clients from New York to Tokyo.
More than a film set
Captan has used the studio’s sets to serve audiences beyond Hollywood:
- The Pan Am Experience, a recreation of 1970s Pan Am travel with a full in-flight dinner service.
- Open Sky for Autism, which lets families of children with autism rehearse air travel before a real trip.
- FearlessFlight, a course for people with a fear of flying.
- Air Hollywood Props, the studio’s aviation prop house.
Today Captan is also one of the executives leading the effort to bring Pan American World Airways back to aviation and travel.
Interviews
- Aviation Week: Questions for Talaat Captan
- Aviation Week: Fast Five video
- BizBash: Event Innovators 2015
More about Talaat Captan at talaatcaptan.com.