6. film in air airspace, in-flight entertainment
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STEPHEN GROENING
Film in A ir : Airspace, In-Flight Entertainment, and
Nontheatrical Distribution
n 21 May 1932 Los Angeles radio station
KHJ transmitted a segment of a motion
picture as a television signal for five min-
utes to a W estern Air Express transport
plane nearly ten miles away Th e experiment was part of
a proposed plan to transmit weather information to planesusing the e mergent technology of television. In this early
application of in-flight screened entertain ment, the visual
communication technology was intended to further the
efficiency of transportation technologies. W ithout ac-
curate weather reports, goods (including human labor)
could not be delivered safely and in a timely manner.
However, if the experiment was simply to be used as a
weather information system, it is unclear why Western
Air Express and KHJ broadcast a feature-length film to
test the technology. This convergence of entertainment
and aviation technologies was a telling indication ofa
growing alliance between Hollywood and commercial
air travel. Alth ough the film (starring Loretta Young) was
broadcast without sound, the engineers told reporters,
who constituted the majority of those on the plane, that
it would require only a small adjustment to also transmit
sound, pointing toward th e possibility of entertainment
applications.'
The experiment demonstrated American technical
prowess within the ong oing modern project: to eliminate
barriers of physical distance and lay claim to the new kinds
of spaces createdby this
project.The televisionsignals
were
received on a moving vehicle, occupying the relatively
new spatial category of "airspace" (a term barely twenty
years old). As the plane itself defied the normal rules of
territorial contiguity, flying over Los Angeles but no t be ing
in Los Angeles, the transnational comm unication apparatus
of Hollywood became seemingly ethereal. Hollywood,
ever ready to take the spotlight for new advancements in
entertainment, now^ took flight to ensure its dominance
over the dispersal ofcultural content across new spatial
categories—the airspace above the world stage.
Th e in troduction of new screen technologies, such as
seatback screens on airplanes, has allowed Hollywood to
multiply its exhibition sites and circulate its product into
places and spaces it could not previously access. Film'sstanding as an essential part of contemporary culture
depends on the abuity of film exhibition technologies to
transform places into movie theaters (or approximations
thereof). Furthermore, the introduction of these new
exhibition technologies opens upadditional sources for
the fikn industry's revenue stream. In-flight entertainment
exemplifies the film industry's intent to create and reach
audiences rather than waiting for audiences to find the
industry's product. Th e film industry uses these new ex-
hibition spaces (fk)m which persons often find themselves
unable to exit) to pro mote, market, and sell produ ct. Film
is thus no longer part of a menu of entertainment and
leisure but a constant, sometimes distracting backgro und.
On many airplanes films appear on screens unbidden,
ready to become the central focus ofattention if a pas-
senger chooses to listen in via headpho nes.
Changes in the field of film studies indicate a grow ing
concern andawareness of this multiplicity of new cin-
ematic spaces: movies on television, films on computers,
portable DVD players, seatback screens inminivans, and
handheld digital media players. From the millennium issue
of the journalScreen
to the adoption of the initial "M "by the Society for C inema Studies in 2002, the discipline
has increasingly recognized that mo ving image culture is
no longer locatable in the movie theater oron the silver
screen. This can also be seen in the emergence ofPhD
programs, such as Moving Image Studies (Georgia State
University) and Screen Cultures (Northwestern Uni-
versity), that by their very names proclaim "fdm" to be a
limited and perhaps obsolete demarcation of the presence
The Velvet Light Trap, Number 62, Fall 2008 ©2 008 by the U niversity ofTexas Press, RO. Box 7819, Austln,TX 78713-7819
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St epher ) G roen i ng
of mo ving pictures in contem pora ry culture. Alongside
this effort to find moti on pictures in myriad n ontheatrica l
places (a kind of "ambient cinema," to paraphrase Anna
McCarthy) is a turn toward "convergence culture" ( to
borrow from Henry Jenkins) , in which motion pictures
are seen as but one choice in a menu of digital entertain-ment options, a single facet of a franchised and remediated
property—or merely a piece of intellectual property that
converges vÁth othe r cultural comm odities in a single piece
of technology. Add to that nu mero us claims regarding th e
"en d o f cinema," the death of celluloid, and the downfall
of the movie theater, and it becomes an understatement
to say there is an ongoing debate over the definition of
cinema, the places it occupies, and the spaces it creates.
In-flight entertainment constitutes an apt case study for
exploring the issues—screens, convergence, remediation,
and the en d of cinema— that inform these debates. Th epractices of in-flight entertainment give rise to useful and
productive understandings o f trends in media technologies
and provide a convenient snapshot of reconfigured spatial
relations brought about by networks of rapid commu-
nication and rapid transportation technologies. In-flight
entertainment offers insight into the globalization of media
products. It constitutes yet anothe r venue for film culture,
exemplifying the fashion in which film finds an audi-
ence (rather than the other way around). In addition, the
seatback of an economy-class seat is rapidly be com ing the
cutting-edge site of media convergence. In what followsI focus on the passenger airplane as a revenue generator
for the film industry and how in-flight films are crucial
to Ho llywoo d's status as the icon of the film industry and
global film cu lture. I argue that distribution and e xhibition
practices—not simply content—are key to contempo rary
media culture.
Currently, for mem bers of the Mo tion Picture Associa-
tion of Am erica (MPA A), the revenue generated from in -
flight films reaches nearly $20 0 million an nually (Sharkey).
The payoff in cultural cachet is not as easily measured.
Form er M PAA president JackValenti has com men ted that
"widening the audience for a film through the increased
attendance that is on airplanes, that's growing rapidly, is
very good for our indu stry" (Wu). O ne indicator of the
value placed on in-flight exhibition is the willingness to
conform to the content guidelines set up by the World
Airline Ente rtainm ent Association.^ Som e studios view the
in-flight window as important enough to warrant shooting
separate scenes for films, such as an alternate ending for
the film Speed (Twentieth Ce ntu ry Fox, 1994), in whi ch
the bus does not crash into an airplane. Norm ally, cont ent
editing is performed by the distribution companies, which
act as mediators betw een the studios and airlines.This can
require a degree of cooperation on the part of a film's
producers. For instance,James Ivory spent two hours withthe hea d of Jaguar Dis tribution , a distributor of in-flight
films, editing A Room w ith a View (Merchant Ivory, 1985)
for airplane exhibition (Nichols).
But those inside Hollywood did not always hold in-
flight movies in such high regard. In 19 65, w he n regu-
larly scheduled in-flight films were in their infancy, Mark
Robson, the director of Von Ryan's Express (Twentieth
Ce ntu ry Fox, 1965), saw his film o n an airplane on a black -
and-white video system in 4:3 ratio instead of in DeLuxe
Co lor in 2.35:1 ratio. H e com plained that the bad word
of mouth from seeing films reformatted so inadequatelywo uld lead to depressed box-office sales. Robson suggested
that studios "hold back new pix from airlines until played
off in key money-making dates" ("Mark Robson") .^ Es-
sentially, R ob so n o utlin ed a plan to delay the in-flight
exh ibitio n until after the theatrica l release, arra ngin g the
release schedule of films by venue and format.
The division of a film's release schedule into discrete
units creates a range of revenue sources for the film indus-
try, kno wn as exhibition win dow s. Traditionally, the first
wind ow is the theatr ical exhibit ion window. Th e second,
known as the nontheatrical exhibition window, can bedivided into television transmission and home rental or
even further still into pay per view, satellite, cable, major
broadcast netw orks , and specialty cable channels."* For the
members of the MPAA, revenue is increasingly generated
in the domestic sphere rather than in theaters.^ In 2003
Disney, Paramount, Sony,Twentieth C entu ry Fox,Warner
Bros., and Universal actually lost money in the theatrical
category. W ith DV D sales the studios retain almost tw o-
thirds of the revenue as profit and retain almost 90 perc ent
wit h television deals. Because of this disparity in profit share
across platforms, for the fdni studios the theatrical release is
an investment in publicity to serve as a foundation for the
far more lucrative markets in the nontheatrical window.'
A N ew Space for N onthe atrical Exhibition
From this brief sketch it becomes clear how introducing
new screen technologies is key to the generation of revenue
for the film industry. Existing material can be reformatted
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Film in A irand resold to different delivery systems (movie theaters,
television, home video) and thus more exhibition windows.
More exhibition panes decrease fmancial risk while further
spreading m oving images into our built environment.This
has a snowball effect: the more we use electronic media,
the m ore pervasive their deployment; the more we dependon electronic media, the more intrusive they become. By
relying on the reformatting of previously produced ma te-
rial, the film industry has found a way to rerun and spin
off movie and television properties at Httle cost, whue con-
sumer electronic co rporations foot the bill for researching
methods of distributing this newly formatted material. In
the case of in-flight entertainm ent, of the $2 billion spent
annually by the airline industry, over two-thirds is spent on
the display technology to show the reformatted content
produced by the film industry (Guha). Current changes
in in-flight entertainment systems, including video on
demand and Uve television, mean that planes are no longer
simply transportation vessels; they are flying multiplexes.
In order for the film industry to realize these new fi-
nancial opportunities, previously produced filmic products
must be repurposed into digitized material, and noncin-
ematic spaces must be repurposed into exhibition sites.
Nontheatrical exhibition is key to Hollywood's growth and
ubiquity.The nontheatrical departments of film studios are
charged with seUing product for in-flight venues (as well
as cruise ships, military bases, prisons, and other specialty
venues) .The in-flight film pane typically falls three monthsafter the theatrical release but before the DVD release. In
the year following 11 September 2001 airlines cu t spending
on in-flight m ovies by nearly a quarter and program med
films that were already available on DVD (and, in some
cases, on television). The library films were programmed
even though studios cut their new release rental prices for
in-flight exhibition in 2002.^ The studios, however, rarely
deal directly with the airlines. Instead, they release around
twenty-five films a month to distributors such as Pace
Comm unications and Jaguar D istribution, which broker
deals between the prod uction companies and the airlines.
These distributors also negotiate the deals between airlines
and television networks (Gräser; Glader; Guha).
Thro ugh in-flight entertainm ent airspace has become a
new space through w hich H ollywood films and Am erican
culture nowflow.Th e use of airplanes as nontheatrical ex-
hibition sites furthers the diffusion of Hollywo od practices
into a greater num ber of places.This strategy has effectively
transformed airspace into a new space of moving picture
entertainment. Transcontinental and transoceanic long-
haul flights have a duration that allows for th e exhibition
of feature-length films, and in-flight entertainment is
considered standard on these routes. Hollywood's distri-
bution practices thus take advantage of the stature and
international network of in-flight entertairmaent. In-flightentertainment is one of the film industry's methods for
creating market awareness by advertising product to a seg-
ment of the population with disproportionate purchasing
power and cultural influence. In addition, the passenger
cabin provides an audience for films that they m ight oth -
erwise not acquire: passengers may choose to see films in
a plane they would not pay to see in a theater or rent for
domestic consumption.
The trend toward media convergence has turned the
passenger cabins of major international commercial airlin-
ers into mobile media centers.^ The seats, particularly infirst-class cabins, enable passengers to pursue screen-based
entertainments with out interference from their neighbors.
Indeed, one seat can be a mobue business office and the
one next door a chud's gaming room, while across the
aisle a teenager watches music videos and gets fashion
tips. The preponderance of personal media technologies
has succeeded in atomizing private space so that each seat
on the airplane becomes a media apparatus isolated from
other seats, even as the electronic media connect airplane
passengers to a mediasphere supplied and administered by
commercial interests.In-flight entertainment as we currently experience
it is rooted in Hollywood's strategic responses to the as-
cendancy of domestic television. Television's ascendancy
in the Un ited States began soon after the end of World
War II. In 1946 television broadcasts reached only 0.02
percent of households in the U nited States. By 1955 it was
65 percent; by 1961, 89 percent (Murray 3 5-3 6; Spigel
32). The rise of the domestic television set is generally
assumed to be a major contributing factor to the decline
of box-office revenue for theatrically released films in
the United States. The threat of television forced severalreorganization strategies in Hollyw ood. After World War
II the film industry pursued audiences in domestic and
other nontheatrical spaces, sometimes through alliances
with television netw orks (Balio; Anderson ).
On e unexam ined consequence of this com petition w ith
television is the in-flight mov ie. W hile films on airplanes
have appeared sporadically since the 1920s, the first con-
tinuous and regular in-flight film programming began in
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Stepheti Groenir)g
1 9 6 1 . This idea of regular in-flight film programming is
credited to a Me mp his, Tennessee, film ex hibitor nam ed
David Flexer, who blamed television for the decline in at-
tendance at his theaters and his subsequent loss of revenue.
Flexer decided to go after audiences where they were
rather than waiting for audiences to come to his theaters.He realized he could take advantage of the fact that travelers
could not leave a plane in midflight and so sought to bring
films to this captive audi ence . Flexer started tak ing his idea
to airline compan ies in 195 8. On ly Trans W orld Airlines
(TWA) was interested enough to let him use their planes
to perform an equipment test in front of their executives.
In May 196 1 L ockheed Aircraft Services signed a contract
with InFlight for exclusive manufacture o f the projection
systems. T h e first of these systems, wh ich projecte d a 16
mm film on a single screen in the first-class cabin and
required headsets to offset the airplane noise, was installed
into TW A planes.ByJuly 1961 TWA had commenced the
first regularly scheduled in-flight movie.'
Part of the reason forTWA's willingness to experiment
was that the airline industry was in the midst of a financial
crisis; in 1961 U.S. domestic airlines lost $13.5 million.
Flexer s system did improve the situation for some airlines:
a month after installing the system on United Airlines'
flights to Hawaii the company's passenger share went up
20 perce nt. Th e fdm system was particularly lucrative for
Flexer and InF light: that first year TW A s pent $2 million to
lease InFlight's equip me nt ($13.3 million in 2007 dollars).
The estimated profit for distributors from in-flight movies
in 19 65 was $2.5 million. By 1970 it was more than twice
Th e in-flight movie was quickly adapted for the speci-
ficity of airlines' needs a nd m oved bey ond jus t sticking any
reel of film or 8 mm cassette into a projector. By the end
of the 1 96 0sTW A ran magazine advertisements, declaring,
"T W A will show you all around Hawaii three hours before
you get there." TW A realized that they c ould advertise
Hawaii as a destination on the long-haul tourist flights
to Haw aii using in-flight film technology. These pretou r
"tours," currently referred to as destination guides, have
become ubiquitous.They have the advantage of providing
an additional revenue stream for the airlines by promoting
its partners in the tourist industry (which often belong to
the same "rewards" or frequent flyer programs), and, by
filling the films w ith po tentia l sights, they m ake sure tha t
some passengers will want to visit again and again. In this
way in-flight entertainment distracts the passenger from
the physical landscape miles below whue also replacing
the unseen landscape of the flight's destination, creating a
kind of window into the passenger's potential future. The
success of these fdms depends on the audience's ability to
project themselves into the scenery, sights, and places in
the film.Currently, these travel promotion programs are part of
synergistic ma rketi ng strategies. Th ese travel guides are
important to the tourism business of the cities featured.
T h e Denver Post declared that U nite d Air l ines' Thr ee
Perfect Days series "lifts Denver's image" and signifies
that D env er is on th e Hst of "2 4 w orld-class cities." T he
in-flight travel film aligns the financial interests of airlines,
the fikn industry, and tourist industries of the networked
cities. For th e passengers, even as they are isolated from t he
landscape and sights, these promotional travel programs,
wh ich each passenger watches on an individual screen, at-temp t to co nnect passengers to the w orld outside the plane.
United Airlines commissions these travel guides, paying
independent production companies to film destinations
in its network of routes.
In another attempt to "sell" a nodal city, in July 2003
United Airlines seized upon an opportunity for cross-
promotion and featured Miramax's fdm Chicago in-flight.
The city of Chicago is one of United Airhnes' hubs and
was the subject of their in-flight magazine's extensive
cover story that month. In addition to the feature film, a
behind-the-scenes documentary was also screened, andthe film was the subject of articles in the m agazine . Thi s
program was screened on every United Airlines flight in
the United States during that month.Thus, Chicago was
transformed from merely the midpoint in a journe y— a
space of waiting—into an exciting and glamorous hot
spot.
Some early in-flight movie systems tried to create a
direct replacement for the landscape. In 1964 American
Airlines bought an in-flight projection system from Sony
called Astrovision.This system, rather than the single large
screen used by TW A, featured several smaller m onito rs
throughout the cabin. Initially, the video system displayed
only in black and w hite. T he system co uld also receive
television signals, and Am erica n Airlines broadcast the 19 64
World Series on select flights." Astrovision also included
a camera mounted on the nose of the plane so that pas-
sengers could witness take-offs and landings via a closed
circuit video system.'^ This system m anaged to bot h call
passengers' attention to the fact of flight as well as distract
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8 Film in Air
from it.The thrill of witnessing taking offand landing from
an optical perspective close to that of the pilots helped tur n
the most dangerous (and therefore exciting) part of pas-
senger air travel into a contained piece of entertainment,
a thrill to witness. Astrovision presented wh at am oun ted
to a poin t-of-vie w shot from the optical standpoint of the
pilot and thus encouraged a kind of disembodied gaze for
the passengers akin to "ride films" of amusem ent parks and
fairgrounds.These on-screen m om ents o f flight, presented
as safely con tained on the screen, distracted passengers from
the real danger they faced.'•'
In-Flight Media Convergence
The Boeing Company reaUzed that the race to install in-
flight mov ie systems in airplanes provided an opp ortun ity
for a new Une of aircraft designed specifically with in-flight
enterta inm ent systems in min d. R ath er than retrofitting
previously built aircraft, Boeing began to design passenger
planes as movie theaters. Introduc ed in 1970, the Bo eing
747 was the first plane to be designed with provisions
for an entertainment system already in place. From the
start, Boeing designed the 747 as a flying multiplex and
enterta inm ent center. Bo eing allowed for three different
types of entertainm ent systems to be installed in the jum bo
jet: a large-screen direct-projection system (like InFlight's
system), a continuous -reel system with m ultiple proje c-
tion viewers, and television sets suspended above the seats.
This flexibility allowed multiple airlines to purchase the
747 without having to renegotiate with their entertain-
me nt system suppliers or to design new systems ("There's
No thing ") .The 747 was also equipped with a secon d-story
cabin that was often turned into an entertainment lounge.
Am erican Airhnes installed pian o bars in som e o f its 747s,
and Frank Sinatra,Jr.,played on th e inaugural coast-to-coast
flight (Serling). In 1979 Boe ing reco nven ed its custo me rs
for a presentation of a new video system installed in the
747 that included video projectors and mo unte d television
sets. Prog ram min g inc luded television shows, films, and, in
som e cases, vide o gam es such as Pac-Man.'"*
By the early 1990s the emphasis for commercial car-
riers was on offering an array of in-flight entertaimnent
choices, including p hon e service, multiple video and audio
channels, and personal viewing screens.This period of in-
air media convergence was the result of what amounted
to a media systems race. O nc e o ne major international
airHne installed a system in its airplanes, othe r airlines felt
it necessary to follow suit (W ilson). As on e indus try e xpe rt
poin ted out at the time, to install personal viewin g screens
in economy-class seats would mean putting $1,500 worth
of equipm ent in a $1,400 seat, "w hic h m eans the seat es-
sentially becomes a video rack."'^
While manufacturers were w^üling to share installationcosts with the airlines, this media systems race meant that
the airlines were investing nearly $300 miUion annually to
stay competitive in the 1990s. Some of these costs could
be recouped through fees and increased ticket prices.
The industry concluded that the necessary revenue could
com e from advertising to the captive audience . This led
more airlines to install video-based shopping systems and
to include advertisements as part of the vid eo lineup. T he
inclusion of advertising in the video lineup stalled for U.S.
carriers in the late 1990s, even though carriers included
ads in their in-flight magazines, boarding passes, ticket
jackets, and other pr int media. Du ring the dow nturn in air
travel following 11 September 2001 airlines resumed the
inclusion of advertisements. Airhnes began to incorp orate
sponsors for their video lineups and include promotional
films for hotels and resorts. M or e recently, the l ow -cos t
air l ine Ryanair experimented with no-charge transport ,
offsetting costs wit h advertising through out the cabin and
pay-per-view entertainment systems.'^
Most major airlines now carry a range of choices geared
for children and adults. Even in cabins wit hou t a ch oice
of video channels the programming offers a variety ofgenres. After the safety anno unc em ent the television pr o-
grams are usually travel and tourism themed, assumed to
be appropriate for all audiences. In cabins with channel
selection, such as economy seats on British Airways, the
in-fhght entertainment could include a choice of films,
comedy channels running si tcoms, a travel channel, a
cartoo n ch annel, and a sports channel, all meant to appeal
to a heterogeneous audience.
Th e mixture of short programming w ith long program -
min g also allows passengers to pick and choo se w he n they
might engage in those aforem entioned travel games, read a
book, or nap. The typical first-class airline seat on a trans-
oceanic flight offers multiple film options, video games,
video shopping, television programming, Internet access,
power for a laptop, multiple audio options, and satellite
pho ne and fax services.The seatback system for S ingapore
Airlines offers tw enty-five films, twelve television c hannels,
interactive video games, and music in addition to being a
full-fledged computer that can run business applications
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S t e p h e n G r o e n in g
such as word processing an d spreadsheet programs. Boeing
has boasted that the software required to run its current
in-f l ight enter ta inment system is more complex than the
software required to fly the plane. In-flight entertainment
systems can culminate in an additional four miles of wiring
to the plane and a substantia l amount of weight, Hmitingfuel efficiency and augmenting cost per flight for the air-
lines (StoUer) .The fact that airlines contin ue to install these
systems in their planes despite the accompanying financial
burden is a powerfijl demonstration of social expectations
that moving images can and perhaps should be anywhere
and everywhere.
In Februa ry 2000 JetBlue bega n offering live (real-time)
television in its passenger cabins.The programming, fi-om
a sateUite television service na me d LiveTV, includes sports
channels, t ravel and w ea ther cha nnels, and f inancia l n ews
channels. In 2002 JetBlue purchased LiveTV, making i tthe first U.S. carr ier to own a media distr ibution company.
This reversal of the standard financial a rrang ement between
firms complicates the relationships between airlines and
the film industry and affects interairline relations as well.
Frontier Airlines also uses the LiveTV service on its flights
and now pays another a ir l ine for in-f l ight enter ta inment.
JetBlue's strategy means that it can offset the cost of in-
f l ight enter ta inment system hardware by wholly owning
the distributor tha t supplies the co nten t, effectively cutting
in-flight entertainment costs by 25 percent.
Even though this a rrangement could be construed as a nexample of vertical integration, it remains puzzling as to
why other a irl ines have not purchased in-fl ight e nter ta in-
me nt distr ibution compa nies. Ma ny of these compa nies
have diversif ied into providing content to other nonthe-
a tr ica l venues, but a irplanes remain a pr ima ry pa r t of their
business. Airlines, on the o ther h a nd, have long reco gnized
that in-flight entertainment systems will never pay for
themselves an d prefer to think of in-flight entert a inm ent
as a loss leader that builds brand loyalty. W h e t h e r o r n o t
such customer loyalty actually exists has been the subject
of debate in trade pubhcations such as Airline Business,
Interavia Aerospace Review, a n d Air Transport World as we l l as
ma instream business publications such as th e FinandalTimes
a nd t he Wall Street Journal." Ma rk S mith, the director of
in-flight entertainment for American Airhnes, succinctly
summ arized this ambigu ous po sit ion for a ir lines: "O ur
research indicates that passengers don't make air-travel
choices based on enter ta inmen t options, but we k now
we ha ve to be com petit ive" (Day) . Th e JetBlue exam ple
demonstrates how the commercial air travel business has
b e c o m e as much an enter ta inment venture as a t ransporta-
tion industry.
The introduction of regular and continuous l ive tele-
vision in the passenger cabin has genera ted an enormous
a mo unt of publicity for JetBlue. Othe r low -cost a ir lineshave found the outlay for in-f l ight enter ta inment to be
prohibitive. Delta 's Song airline, for instance, created to
directly co mp ete w ith JetBlue by offering an array o f
in-flight entertainment, folded after less than two years
of opera t ion. S outhwest AirHnes, on the other ha nd, does
not offer in-flight entertainment, preferring to keep costs
down. In-f l ight enter ta inment would not have been fea-
sible at all for regional carriers without the introduction
of t e le vi s ion pr og r a m m i ng . S hor t - ha ul f l ights , w hi c h
constitute the majority of routes for regional airlines, do
no t have a viable dura tion for featu re-length films.S ingapore Airlines provides a useful co unterexa mple. For
reasons of geography, the majority of Singapore Airlines'
routes are lon g-ha ul interna tiona l flights.The direct flight
from S ingapore to New a rk is possibly the longest non stop
passenger jet flight, lasting a total of eighteen hour s . T h e
scale of Singapore Airlines' network of flights means that
in-flight entertainment is a h igh p riority. Singa pore Airlines
believes its in-flight entertainment to be a key factor in
custo mer c hoice a nd loyalty. As one indu stry a nalyst put it,
"Ify ou are going to fly a 12-ho ur f l ight to S ingapore, a l l
othe r things being equa l, you will probably fly with th e o neproviding [a choice of| 50 mov ies" (Guh a) .E nter ta inme nt
is an essential and integral part of these air transportation
networks. Ma king sure enter ta inm ent f lows between global
cit ies is of paramount importance for the commercia l a ir
industry. Th e fashion in w hich these cides are ne tworked
via air routes affects airlines' decision to install new in-fught
entertainment systems, the nature of those systems, and the
array of choices they offer.
The Space of Flows, In-Flight Movies, and
Cultural Globalization
Co mb inin g rapid jet t ravel with view ing motio n pictures
exemplifies a new spatial mo de, dubb ed the "space o f flows"
by M a nu e l Ca s t e ll s, in w hi c h ne t w or ks of c om m uni c a t i on
and transporta t ion take precedence over the terr i tor ies
they connec t. This netw ork has reconfigured the space
of places (the destinations that tourism transforms into
commodities) into the space of flows.'^The space of flows
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10 Film in Air
is made of nodes and hubs and contains the com mu nica-
tion, transpo rtation, and informa tion netw orks. Airspace,
the spatial category necessary to air travel, constitutes an
imp orta nt p art of the space of flows.The passenger jet, by
transporting cultural commodities and forms of labor, is a
high-speed vehicle that moves through the channels of airroutes to network the nodal cities of the global economy.
Air routes tend to exemplify these standardized networks.
It is through this dominant spatial configuration that in-
flight films travel.T hus, the place of the passeng er je t ca bin
becom es a space of information flow Each flight transports
labor (in the form of business representatives or tourists),
goods, services, and culture along a network of air routes
between densely populated urban areas or global cities.
The exhibition of motion pictures takes place along the
same routes as their distribution; the space of flows enables
cultural transmission as much as financial transactions.
The passenger jet is important because it is a status
symbol: even though more goods are transported by ship
and railway, the possession of a robu st net wo rk of air routes
marks the ascendance of an urban region from a node to a
hu b in the global system. David Keeling has argued that "air
transport is the preferred m od e of inter-city mo vem ent for
the transnational capitalist class, migrants, tourists, and h ig h-
value, low -bulk goods; and airline links are an im por tant
co m po ne nt of a city's aspirations to wo rld city status" (118).
He introduces vivid, concrete examples of airline trans-
por tation as the key to a city's future. For instance, in theearly 1990s city officials of Pordand, Oregon, believed that
non stop flight service to Lond on or Frankfurt was vital to
the continu ed growth of their economy, while "Nashvil le
officials [touted] the city's recent successful bid for a non-
stop flight to London as a direct pipeline into the world
eco nom y" (Keeling 119). By 2005 the Nashville ch amber
of commerce claimed that, because of the airport's status
as a hub, "we 've actually h ad m ore success in rec ruiting
[corporate] headquarters in the last two years than probably
in the history of the city" (Priesmeyer). Evidently, inclusion
in the air transport ne two rk is vital to urban ec ono mies,
and the differences between number and type of routes
reaching a particular area are perceived as having a direct
effect on a city's status in the global capitalist economy.'^
Likewise, as previously noted, the inclusion of a film in
the l ineup of enter tainment choices on these international
flights, whose passengers have a disproportionate amount
of social and cultural capital, comprises an imp ortan t form
of publicity for the film industry.
Air travel does not make geography irrelevant; instead,
it emphasizes geography in n ew an d chan ging ways. Air-
planes traverse space and create airspace, a new form of
space that th e film in dus try seeks to exploit.^'' T he scale
and scope ofjet travel mea n these mob ile exhibition spaces
almost always traverse national borders. National bordersare not unimportant, but the fashion in which national
borders are overcome, negotiated, and transgressed is sig-
nificant. Indeed , it is doub tful that the travel indu stry w ants
to do away with national borders.Tourism's most valuable
com mo dity is, after all, the exotic, wh ich requires some
sort of barrier, real or imagin ed, to be ov ercom e.The space
conqu ered by network ed conn ections between global ci t-
ies is technologically underdeveloped and less financially
productive territory than th e global cities themselves.Thus,
transportation and communication networks themselves
create spaces of inequality by designating certain places asdestinations and endp oints, wh ile others are merely t ran-
sitory. Therefore, control of distribution takes precedence
over control of content in the generation of profit. In ad-
dition, the film indu stry utilizes transportation netwo rks as
exhibition spaces as ^veIl as conduits for product transmis-
sion.Thus, networks such as aviation routes reconfigure
global space so as to bin d o ne urban area to another, ig nor -
ing the intervening territory. In this fashion, in-flight en-
tertainm ent m ay eschew landscapes and com pel passengers
to ignore the "space of places" in favor of feature-lengthfilms. For the jet traveler the spatial relationship between
Ne w York and LosAngeles is not three thousand miles but
a safety announcement, two movies, snack service, and a
prom otion al travelogue. This furthers th e perceptio n of
global dominance by Hollyw ood: for the majority of the
world's wealthy, traveling internationa lly means jet travel,
which in turn means spending t ime with a selection of
f i lms f inanced and/or produced in the United States.
Th rou gh their ubiquity in the space of f lows, in the net -
works be twe en g lobal cities, mo vin g pictures increasingly
constitute th e exp erienc e o f travel. This may lead to th eimpression of cultural homogenization, the feared conse-
quence of cultural globalization.
Cultural globalization develops from an d enables finan-
cial and eco nom ic g lobalization. Th e logics of free trade
and copy right law, coup led w ith th e collapse of the N ew
World Information and Com mun ication Order , have led to
increased global traffic in cultural goods and communica-
tion technologies. Mass culture manages to both accentuate
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Stephen Groen ing I I
and erase difference. The global capitalist system sells
whatev er people are willing to buy, wh eth er Ho llyw ood
action films, Bollywood musicals, or kung fu classics.This
requires netwo rks of centripetal flows of profits and cen -
trifugal flows of goods, often cente red at global cities such
as Ho ng Kong, L ondon, Tokyo, Ne w York, Los Angeles,and Ne w D elhi. Such networks require the te chnologi-
cal potentials of rapid communication and transportation
systems to compress space and time .Th e financial bu rden
of creating these networks is so great that only a handful
of conglomerates (with the assistance of governmental
subsidies) can afford to create an d ma intain t he m . Th us ,
it is maintaining and accessing distribution networks and
not producing films that is of paramount importance.^'
In-flight entertainment turns the distribution network
into an exhibition venue, generating additional revenue
from the space of flows by taking advantage of the new
spatial configuration necessary for maintenance of the
global economy.
Conclusion
Distribution is the key to ancillary markets such as home
viewing and other nontheatrical spaces, including airplanes.
The increasing control of a few distribution companies
over the ever-expanding range of media products, originat-
ing in some fashion from Hollywood, is crucial to the film
industry's survival and g row th, even as it provides p resum edevidence of Am ericanization or a "Global Hollywood." In
other words, managing the channels of distribution and
the flows of media takes precedence over the content of
those forms. For the film industry the scale of distribution
determines the scale and content of production.
Th e instru men ts of mass culture, be they cin ema ,
television, or other communication technologies, have
initiated new ways of dividing and connecting the world.
For Hollywood to continue controlling key financial and
distribution hubs , international law must continu e to cre-
ate spaces of inequality. Likewise, the travel industry needspolitical and geographic barriers to create a sense of the
exotic and strange, wh ich can then be accessed by a privi-
leged few thro ugh the use o f travel services. A n analysis of
in-flight entertainment demonstrates that the extraction
of surplus value necessitates regions of u nderde velopm ent,
overdevelopm ent, and the reconfiguration of space to suit
the imperatives of new econom ic and cultural orders rather
than a radically egalitarian (or "flat") globa lized w orld
in which every space and place is equally acceptable. In
order to continue its economic and cultural domination,
the film industry needs to continually pro duce new spaces
for exhibition and exploit new networks of distribution.
As the case of in-flight entertainment demonstrates, the
content and quality of films are secondary considerations.Nontheatrical exhibition spaces continue to be an im-
portant destination for theatrically released films. Because
non thea trical e xhib ition occu rs after theatrical release, it
wou ld appear to be a secondary consideration for the film
industry. How ever, since nontheatrica l e xhibition enables
ubiquity, it is actually the primary interest for the film
industry's continued growth.
Brought about by economic pressures in a changing
media and air travel industry, in-flight entertainment marks
a lasting partnership between the commercial aviation
industry and a f i lm industry dominated by Hollywood.Initially, airlines assumed that in-flight films wo uld serve to
pacify and occ upy passengers. Bu t the airlines' co m m i tm en t
to the technology has deepened to the point that, starting
with the Boeing 747, planes have been designed as movie
theater s, and the software used to ex hibit in-flight films
can be more complex than the software used to fly the
plane. Billions are spent each year by airlines on in-flight
entertainment, despite falling revenues and bankruptcies.
Air travel created an entirely ne w spatial category, airspace,
for the industry to use as part of the project to create and
reach new audien ces. T he in-flight m ovie exemplifiesthe film industry's efforts to open even more exhibition
windows, pardy in response to the rise of television.
The revenues generated from this window may be
small in comparison to network television deals or DVD
releases, but the market awareness and publicity generated
by screening films to a small, elite segment of the popu-
lation before these films reach the home rental or cable
television windows are incalculable. For the airlines, the
benefits of in-flight entertainment are less clear.The ability
of these systems to create customer loyalty is the subject
of debate within th e travel industry.The seatback in-flightentertainment technologies often cost more than the seat
itself, and the installation of these systems adds enormous
weight to the airplane and brings with it the potential for
electrical fires.
Even the ability of films to pacify passengers is ques-
tionable, given the recent surge in incidents of air rage
(Carey; Ha slam ).Th e fact that airlines contin ue to install
and upgrade these systems in their planes despite these
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12 Film in Ai rproblems epitomizes th e widespread a nd deeply felt social
expectation that visual media should be a readily available
distraction.JetBlue's acquisition ofa distribution network
seems the only logical cost-cutting (and potentially profit-
making) m ove for airlines com mit ted to offering in-flight
ent erta inm ent. Give n these social and financial pressures, itappears likely that the transportation industry will continue
to look more and more like an extension of the film in-
dustry, raising the possibility of further exhib ition win dow s
for füm and furthering the proliferation of screens.
Notes
Research for this paper was conducted under the Graduate
Research Partnership Program and Harold Leonard Memorial Film
Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. I am grateful to the
numerous people who have offered insight and commentary on the
numerou s early drafts of this article: Andrea Christy, Zoe Druic k,Keya G anguly, Ron ald Greene, Eva Hu decova, Helga Lietner, Lindsey
Simms, and Haidee Wasson.
1. For accounts of this event see "Mo vie Sent to Plane"; Serling. I
have been unable to ascertain which film was shown. Loretta Young
appeared in over a dozen films in 1931 and 19 32.The NewYorkTimes
article remarks that th e film was "one of her latest," which is indicative
of the status of this experiment as a publicity stunt but not precise
enough to narrow the field of possibility.
2. "Inflight Editing Standards:Varies somewhat by airHne and by
region, bu t generally inflight editing standards (for main-screen e xhib i-
tion) are similar to, but more conservative than TV-editing standards.
N o a irline crash scenes or references to airline disasters; careful abo ut
terrorism or references to terrorism; no nud ity/sex scenes (U.S./Asia
more conservative than Europe); no profanity; no images of/referencesto other airKnes; no racist comments or denigrating references to
culture, religion, or nationality; careful about violence and bloodshed
(U.S./Asia less sensitive than E urop e); carefiil abo ut references to gun s,
drug abuse, physical abuse. Most ideal inflight film genres: comedy,
romantic-comedy, light adventure" (World Airline Entertainment
Association).
3. Thanks to Mark Frank and Haidee Wasson for bringing this
article to my attention . Given the description of the in-flight system
and the time period, it is Hkely that Robson saw his film on the
Astrovision system, described later in this article.
4. Some films skip windows. Films that have no theatrical release
are referred to as "straight to video"; many ofWalt Disney's sequels
to animated children's films follow this pattern. Occasionally, a filmwiU mov e in reverse, from nontheatrical to theatrical, such as The Last
Seduction (1995).
5. Since 1985 the revenue from the theatrical window has repre-
sented a quarter or less of total revenues, while revenues from selling
rights to free-to-view TV have exceeded box-office revenue. Since
1990 VHS/DVD sales (including rentals) have exceeded box-office
revenue (Epstein).
6. In 2003 profit from free-to-view TV was roughly $10 billion;
profit fk)m DV D/V HS sales and rental profit was $12 billion (Epstein;
see also Litman).
7. Worldw ide, airhnes cut spending on in-flight entertainm ent
about $500 million (Guha).
8. For a discussion of airplanes as the site of media convergence
see Freedman.
9. For accounts of this first see Friedlander, "Movies"; Serling;
"Transport New s: Movies in the Sky."
10. For supporting figures see Archer; Friedlander, "Airlines";
Friedlander, "Movies"; Serhng;"T.W .A. 707 Fhghts."
11. The system cost American $52,000 per plane ($350,000 in
2007 dollars), and the airline paid $1 million ($6.6 million in 2007
dollars) for the rights to fifty-two films ("Coffee").
12. For more on Astrovision see "Second Airline"; Serhng;"Trans-
port News: In-Flight Movies." Govil reports that this practice was
resumed for a time by Air New Zealand (245). For more on ride
films, IMAX, Hale's Tours, and immersion cinema see Rabinovitz.
13. In 1998 faulty wiring in the in-flight entertainm ent system of
a Swissair McDonnell Douglas 11 was determined to be a contrib-
uting factor to the crash of flight 111 ofï" the coast of Nova Scotia,
which resulted in the deaths of 229 people. Th e crash promp ted
Swissair to shut off entertainment systems in its planes in the fall of
1998 (Mathews).The in-flight entertainment system in question wasbanned a year later (StoUer). Between 1998 and 2 003 sixty incidents
of malfunctioning in-flight entertainment systems, including fires and
smoking wiring, were reported to the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion, prompting safety concerns (Donegan). In-flight entertainment
systems may add mo re than four miles of extra wiring to an airplane,
increasing the chances for electrical fires and system malfunctions
(not to mention extra weight).
14. "CurrentVisual Entertainment System Options 747 Standard
Detail Specification (D6-331 11 & D6-33191, Section 10)":"A com-
plete projection system, accommodating 8 mm BFE motion picture
projectors shall be installed at four locations in the main cabin, zones
A,B (SP Only), C,D and E (not on the 747SP).BFE projection units
shall conform to the requirements of the 'basic passenger m ovie system
equipment interface requirements.' . . . Seller Furnished Equipment
(SFE): Projector structural and wiring provisions, Screen provisions.
Projector electrical controls at attendant panels. Buyer Furnished
Equipment (BFE): Movie projector. Scree n... . 8 mm movie system:
Upper deck. Zone B 747-100/200. 16 mm Movie system: Upper
Deck, Zone B, Center Beam Instl-standard screen. Center Beam
Instl-raised screen" ("Introduction").
15. Marco Lanza, president of B /E Avionics, as quoted inWilson.
16. See accounts in"Flying for 'Free'";Hozee,"What Revenues";
"Inflight Shopp ing"; Paul; Pfanner; Seding.
17. See, for instance. Cook; Gräser; Guha; Hozee,"ln-Flight En -
tertainment"; Hozee, "W hat Revenues"; Sharkey.
18. According to Castells, the global information economy requires
networked homo geneity and standardized systems and regulations tofunction properly. Castells demonstrates that the information economy
carries with it a new spatial logic dom inant over the traditional "space
of places," a category correspond ing to stationary physical locations
with distinctive traits.The space of places relies on territorial contig u-
ity and nonnetworked heterogeneity.
19.The developm ent and m aintenance of airports were seen as key
factors in the establishment of a new system of core and peripheral
cities in Europe during the 1990s (Sutton).
20 . The term airspace has its origins in the Paris International
Conference of Air Navigation in 1910. See Butler.
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Stephen Groenit)g 13
21.As Aksoy and Robins point out, one of the problems in sim-
ply counting the number and types of films produced is that such a
"horizontal network" thesis does not take into account box-office
revenue.This thesis, promoted by Christop herson and Storper, claims
greater heterogeneity and diversification in the film industry due to
an increase in the numb er of firms and films. Aksoy and Ro bins show
that even though the share of films produced by small firms increased,
the share of box-office revenue going to small firms actually shrank.
If one were to focus on the distribution of Hollywoo d prod uct rather
than its production, the dominance of large firms becomes readily
apparent. Global distribution requires a vast amo unt of resources that
only a large firm can provid e. As a result, the pressures of distrib ution
have led to the collapse of smaller firms. Aksoy and R obin s go on
to demonstrate that distribution is the financial center of the film
industry; financial investment firms, banks, and so on are attracted to
distributors, not to production companies.
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