[IP] Editing of inflight movies

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peter Capek <capek@ieee.org>
Date: January 16, 2007 11:01:05 PM EST
To: ole@cisco.com
Cc: Dave Farber - IP <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Fwd: Editing of inflight movies

Ole (may I call you that?)

I sent your note to the PR person for the World Airline Entertainment  
Association.  Here is his (rather surprising, I think) reply,  
mistakenly addressed to you at my e-mail address:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: AssocHQ@aol.com <AssocHQ@aol.com>
Date: Jan 16, 2007 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: Editing of inflight movies
To: capek@ieee.org

Dear Mr. Jacobsen:

While there is no absolute industrywide editing guideline, typically  
the word "God" would be considered for edited out of an inflight film  
(shown on main-screen) if the word were part of an expletive (e.g.,  
"God Damn").
I cannot speak for the film distributor ... but my understanding is  
that for the airline-edited version of "The Queen," the word "God"  
was mistakenly edited out throughout the film ... and that the  
distributor of the film has already created a corrected version of  
the edit and made this available to the airlines.

You can contact the Distributor directly at:

Jaguar Distribution -- 818.508-3377.


The following is from the WAEA website (www.waea.org):

IFE Editing Standards

Inflight Editing Standards
Varies somewhat by airline and by region, but generally inflight  
editing standards (for main-screen exhibition) are similar to, but  
more conservative than TV-editing standards. No airline crash scenes  
or references to airline disasters; careful about terrorism or  
references to terrorism; no nudity/sex scenes (U.S./Asia more  
conservative than Europe); no profanity; no images of/references to  
other airlines; no racist comments or denigrating references to  
culture, religion, or nationality; careful about violence and  
bloodshed (U.S./Asia less sensitive than Europe); careful about  
references to guns, drug abuse, physical abuse. Most ideal inflight  
film genres: comedy, romantic-comedy, light adventure.

I hope this helps!

Rob Brookler, WAEA Spokesperson


In a message dated 1/16/2007 3:21:54 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
capek@ieee.org writes:
Hello....

I wonder if you can shed any light on the question posed in the
following.   (I realize that you work for a trade association and  
that the
editing has been done on behalf of the airline in question, but I
suspect you're at least familiar with the reasoning...)

Thank you.   I'd like to post your response publicly; if you want your
name not included in that, please let me know.

                          Peter Capek

"United Airlines is Pleased to Present" ... "This movie has been
edited to fit your screen and for timing..."

Last week I flew from San Francisco to London and watched "The Queen"
starring Helen Mirren, now a Golden Globe Award winner for this movie.

As often happens, I didn't catch the start (dinner), so I ended up
watching the whole movie 2 or 3 times to get the parts that I had
missed. The first time around I noticed a few places where I thought
there was some kind of audio problem, but on re-watching I realized
that EVERY time someone utters "God" it is silenced. The most amusing
example is when the Queen is giving a live address to the nation and
you can see the auto-cue which has the word "God" scrolling by, but
you cannot hear her say it in this United-edited version.

I have asked several people why this editing was done, but so far we
all remain puzzled. Is it that post 9/11 we can no longer say "God"
without adding "or Allah or Buddha or..." ???

Tell me I am not crazy, please...

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   GSM: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: ole@cisco.com <mailto:ole@cisco.com>  URL: http:// 
www.cisco.com/ipj




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