The Perfect Turn
For summer airline operations in 2021, American Airlines pushed an initiative surrounding constructing "The Perfect Turn". In aviation terms, a Turn is the process of bringing an aircraft into an airport, unloading and boarding passengers and bags, then sending the aircraft back out. Every aircraft has a minimum ground time, sometimes less than thirty minutes, where an aircraft is parked at a gate. Teamwork is key for each of the airline's departments to get the aircraft in and out on time.
In order to better illustrate the process, we created this video to highlight the aircraft turn from all different points of view, including the ramp agent, gate agent, flight attendant, pilot, and tower. Rather than use linear editing for the final product, I was inspired by the use of split screen in the films of Stephen Soderbergh (particularly Ocean's Thirteen) and Brian De Palma, and incorporated the effect into the final product. Not only did this creative use of editing help condense the final product and illustrate different positions, it also gave the video a unique energy, perfect for social distribution. The inspiration also fed into the soundtrack choice and natural sound, as I wanted the final product to feel breezy while also showing the intricate nature of the turn process.
We shot the video over a series of different video shoots in PHL and CLT, all during live turns. In addition, we worked in the airline Cabin Trainer and simulator to gather some additional footage for our pilots and flight attendants, as we could not film with passengers on a live flight.
I created a detailed shot list to make sure we got every angle we needed for the final split screens. I created several storyboards to plan out the overall layout of shots and time out the pacing of the final edit.
Sample selection of project Storyboards, created by Arthur Lembo.
The Perfect Turn Title Animation. Graphic Design by Sarah Bowler, animated by Arthur Lembo.
The campaign also fed into several social media posts used on Instagram Stories and LinkedIn advertising. The engaging and energetic feel of the video helped push our overall recruiting goal of "One Team, One Turn".
