Virgin Airlines is trying to bring the romance back to flying. Departure Date is the first feature film to be completely shot and edited 30,000 feet in the air.
The entertainment portion of the Virgin Group, called Virgin Produced, premiered the movie before the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. It's a love story, from beginning to end, that takes slightly more than 30 minutes. It takes place over a span of three flights. Mad Men's Ben Feldman and Hall Pass's Nicky Whelan star as the the love interests.
According to USA Today, the plot goes like this: "They meet at the bar in the First Class section on a flight from London to Los Angeles and, thanks to some supernatural help (an in-flight visitation from his pathetic future self, played by character actor Philip Baker Hall), Feldman's character realizes that this is the girl of dreams and that if he doesn't woo her from her sleazy fiancé, his life is basically going to be like a coach ride next to a crying baby."
Despite a lack of leg room and potential turbulence, Feldman doesn't think the idea of finding your soul mate on a plane is too far fetched. "I can say it's possible to fall in love on these planes," he said.
It's possible to edit a film, too. The initials edits were done on Macbook laptops on the planes. All of the aircrafts used were Virgin planes. In fact, the movie makes use of all three Virgin airlines -- Virgin Atlantic (London to California), Virgin America (California to Dallas) and Virgin Australia (California to Australia).
"It was 20 hours of filming, three flights, four countries in eight days," said Rene Rigal Executive Vice President of Film for Virgin Produced. "The toughest part about it was sleep. One flight builds on the next."
While the project was unique in its circumstances, the actors didn't receive special treatment. They went through security screenings, where they were held to the same standards as their non-acting counterparts. Some of the flights' passengers are featured in the film because the actors filmed their parts in regular commercial flights, with regular passengers.
The movie will be shown on Virgin flights.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
