Woodsong wrote:Since we are talking about marketing materials, I thought you all might enjoy this "classic" marketing video I found online quite some time ago of the hatteras 53:
For the period, this is a pretty good marketing video.* We have a very similar one in terms of style, music, etc., in our archives for the Boeing Model 377 Stratocruiser.* This was the airliner that was derived from the B-50 which in turn was derived from the B-29.* The Stratocruiser was a double-deck plane and featured a lounge on the lower deck accessed by a spiral staircase.* The promotional film--- it was made by Boeing--- calls out all the features and amenities of the plane.*
Like the Hatteras film it uses professional models to show off the "wonders" of flying in the Stratocruiser.** The scenes in the lower deck lounge are particularly interesting in today's world--- everyone down there is smoking up a storm and men lighting ladies' cigarettes is one of the main pieces of "business" the director came up with.
I particularly like this film because the first plane I ever flew on as little kid was a Pan Am Stratocruiser from San Francisco to Honolulu when we moved to Hawaii.* A flight attendant took me up to the flight deck (somewhere I still have the wings the captain gave me) but they wouldn't let me go down to the lounge because it was for "adults only."
An even more valuable film in our archives is a promotional film made for the Boeing Model 314 Clipper (flying boat).* Made just prior to WWII, this one is in color and shows all the aspects of flying in the plane, from a mechanic crawling out through the tube in he wing to "service" an engine in flight to a "porter" making up a passenger's berth.* Meal preparation and service, the navigator plotting courses on a chart, the whole Clipper "experience" is in the film.* There is no sound track, however.
I found the Hattaras film interesting because of the repeated reference to the one-piece fiberglass construction.* Fiberglass was a new material to the builders of large boats in the '70s and I expect the move to fiberglass was a really big deal at Hatteras.* One of the principle people in helping move Hatteras into fiberglass was Howard Abbey, who just prior to this had built the new fiberglass molds for American Marine's Grand Banks 36 and 42 models in Singapore and then spent a year personally supervising the layup of every GB hull.* Our hull is a "Howard Abbey" hull, and I have been told by a fellow whose father (the "Kong" in Kong & Halverson") was an engineer for American Marine, that the hulls made under Abbey's supervision are the best hulls the company every made.
We have a whole library of the type of music used in the Hattaras film and every now and then one of us gets the notion to resurrect it and try it in a new marketing video for the company, but so far we've not actually done it.* The current president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes is a major rock music fan, so we generally use something in that genre for anything that has to be approved by him.* When we made videos for Alan Mulally when he was the BCA president, we tended to use jazz or more contemporary music--- Alan isn't a hard rock fan.
-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 21st of December 2010 02:10:40 PM