# Planes flying the "wrong way" in movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 9, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831 "2019-03-09T14:46:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/41 "2019-03-10T13:59:11Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I’ve never really got to grips with asking people who do this how they model the relationship between the map and reality. I use maps a lot in my work, and before that I was one of those kids whose favorite book was a street atlas, so when I’m out and about I’m thinking of myself as existing on the map rather than looking at a map to provide a crude description of my reality, if that makes sense. I also feel like I get more of a sense of what direction I’m going from seeing the little icon representing myself moving toward the lower left-hand corner than I do from some disembodied compass icon with the N pointing to the lower-right. > [@Riemann](#): > > Do you do any kind of mental rotation, or is it just automatic and unconscious that left of the road you’re driving on corresponds to diagonally up and right on the map? I’ve never really thought about it, so it must be pretty automatic. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/42 "2019-03-10T16:04:40Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I saw this documentary once in which a jet plane sounded like a propellor plane: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlpxl0WzaXg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlpxl0WzaXg) This one, too, at 4:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWuDzfKFf\_g ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/43 "2019-03-10T16:44:51Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I just watched “The High and the Mighty.”… Every exterior shot of the plane shows it flying from right to left, contrary to convention. It really bothered me. That always bothered me, too. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Given the time frame of _The High and the Mighty_, they were using stock footage and probably didn’t have any with the plane oriented another way. They filmed the scenes themselves, using a DC-4 (N4665V) operated by Transocean Airlines. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/44 "2019-03-10T18:06:30Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Cut them some slack. > > They had to work with what they had, and there’s not a lot of footage available. So they did the best they could, figuring only the most anal retentive viewers would care. Well, forgive my lack of ignorance! :mad: The film would have been fine and of the proper length without those shots. Just leave the damned things out. We’re talking about the Smithsonian here, not _ **Black Sheep Squadron** _. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/45 "2019-03-11T02:41:37Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I’ve never really got to grips with asking people who do this how they model the relationship between the map and reality. Suppose you’re driving, heading SE and you see a major landmark on your left. The track on your map shows you moving diagonally toward the lower right, and on the map the landmark is diagonally up and to the right of your track. How do you relate what you’re seeing in reality to what you’re seeing on the map? Do you do any kind of mental rotation, or is it just automatic and unconscious that left of the road you’re driving on corresponds to diagonally up and right on the map? More simply, what if you’re driving along and need to make a right turn at some point up ahead? I have my car GPS (not phone) set up to auto-rotate so that “up” is always the direction I’m heading, so that a right turn appears on the map like a … duh … right turn. If it appeared on the map as a left turn, or an up or down turn, it would be confusing as hell. The default “North” orientation on a paper map is a perfectly fine convention. It makes absolutely zero sense for a GPS. A dynamic navigation display on a GPS is not a “map” so much as a dynamic visual guide that needs to be as intuitive and clear as possible unless one wishes the driver to go off in random wrong directions and eventually collide with a telephone pole at some point. It needs to be a picture more or less as the driver sees it from his front windshield. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/46 "2019-03-11T05:30:09Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Hmmm… are you and OP of the strange breed that have your phone mapping set so that N is always at the top of the phone, rather than rotated so that N is pointing N? Absolutely not! But in a movie that shows a plane flying from west to east, and the external shots are all from one direction, why not use the standard convention that the plane is flying from left to right? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/47 "2019-03-11T09:54:06Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > …The default “North” orientation on a paper map is a perfectly fine convention. It makes absolutely zero sense for a GPS. A dynamic navigation display on a GPS is not a “map” so much as a dynamic visual guide that needs to be as intuitive and clear as possible unless one wishes the driver to go off in random wrong directions and eventually collide with a telephone pole at some point. It needs to be a picture more or less as the driver sees it from his front windshield. I don’t think there’s really any distinction between use of a GPS map and a paper map. If you’re navigating with a paper map the technique is the same - the first thing you do is to find where north is in the real world, and then rotate the paper map in your hands so that north on the map is pointing north. A GPS map just does the rotation automatically for you. > [@panache45](#): > > Absolutely not! But in a movie that shows a plane flying from west to east, and the external shots are all from one direction, why not use the standard convention that the plane is flying from left to right? You’re assuming your conclusion that this convention exists. It doesn’t. A film of a plane flying through the sky is not a film of a map, it’s a depiction of reality. There is no convention that _reality_ is oriented with west to the left. That would be equivalent to a convention that when we’re not doing anything much, we always turn to face north! When you’re trying to find your way around, you rotate your map to orient it to reality, you don’t rotate reality reality to conform to your map. As I asked above, would you depict a plane that’s flying south to be flying vertically down toward the bottom of the screen? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/48 "2019-03-11T10:06:46Z")
If you film somebody walking down the street, does this “convention” exist? Of course not - whether the shot shows the person walking the wrong way would depend on defining features in the background - buildings, etc. Or is it wrong to show a shot of a car driving west from behind, with the sun setting in the background? Why do you claim this convention exists solely for planes, and solely when flying due east or due west, since clearly your convention doesn’t work if they are on any other heading, unless you propose showing planes flying diagonally or vertically on the screen. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/49 "2019-03-12T16:38:04Z")
The filming convention that going left means going west and going east means going right applies not just to planes, but for all sorts of travel, be it planes, trains, or motorcycles. The reason is because the sun is to the south, and so you want to make sure that what you’re filming is lit properly-- instead of being in shadow and backlit. Roger Ebert mentions this in his review of “The Book of Eli” when he points out that the character is going the wrong way if he wants to go West (although if you’ve seen the movie, you may realize that there’s probably a good reason for the character to do so) [The Book of Eli movie review & film summary (2010) | Roger Ebert](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-book-of-eli-2010) ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831/50 "2019-03-12T17:37:29Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Why do you claim this convention exists solely for planes, and solely when flying due east or due west, since clearly your convention doesn’t work if they are on any other heading, unless you propose showing planes flying diagonally or vertically on the screen. You might not agree with it, you might not have noticed it, there isn’t really a good reason for it, but the convention definitely does exist. From [here](http://painterskeys.com/the-west-east-convention/): > [@](#): > > If a motion picture shows a jetliner flying from the left of the screen to the right — you can be pretty sure the implication is that the plane is flying in the direction of New York from LA — or from London to Moscow. Mess with screen-direction and you are in film-editor’s purgatory. And [here](https://www.videomaker.com/article/7468-edit-suite-five-types-of-continuity): > [@](#): > > First you have to get your heroine to Paris, so you start with a shot of a passenger jet flying across the Atlantic. And which way does it fly? Left to right, of course. Its screen direction could just as easily be right to left. However on a world map, North America is on the left of the Atlantic Ocean and Europe is on the right, so the plane “must” fly toward screen right. (A screen-left direction would have your heroine flying towards Tokyo.) That is a continuity of convention, meaning, there’s no logical reason for it but the audience expects it and gets confused if it’s ignored. Sometimes the [reverse is done](https://books.google.com/books?id=EIVGg4BXxCAC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=movie+convention+flying+west+%22right+to+left%22&source=bl&ots=5dyAB4K8ql&sig=ACfU3U0t2CpmUb_ItzA3-gW9Lhyqa3eAFA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw65-tj_3gAhVFCTQIHfTmAEoQ6AEwA3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=movie%20convention%20flying%20west%20%22right%20to%20left%22&f=false) for artistic reasons. > [@](#): > > When he returns to Brigadoon for good, his plane flying from New York to Scotland, we see it moving from right to left across the screen. Although this seems odd in terms of geography alone – since the usual convention in map-making is to locate the East on the right and the West on the left – it makes perfect sense as a visualisation of a journey into the past, where the conventional representation of time’s movement from the present to the past is from right to left. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/planes-flying-the-wrong-way-in-movies/830831.md?page=2)