INT: So FLY AWAY HOME. [CB: FLY AWAY HOME, yes.] So that was 1996. You were working with Robert Rodat and Vince McKewin. 

CB: I never worked with Rodat. Rodat wrote the first draft of it, and I wasn't involved at that point.

INT: How did that project [FLY AWAY HOME] come to you? 

CB: It came to me through the Producer. A guy named John Veitch who was an old-time Hollywood guy. Was president of Columbia Pictures at one time, but he was great. It's his movie more than it's mine. He was a guy who had done ‘em. He had done, he'd seen it all, and he was getting to the end of the road, and he was motivated to try to do one good movie. So the original script was very thin. It wasn't even a good, you know, 1953 television kiddie movie. I mean it was not good. This big Agent who died just recently... what in the hell was his name? Sandy, Sandy Gallin. Sandy Gallin, he owned it, and he was the big pressure behind moving it. And so they brought it to me, and then I did rewrites with McKewin [Vince McKewin] who was a very good guy, and then we just went and made the movie, and the movie was very easy to make.

INT: Easy? 

CB: It [FLY AWAY HOME] was very easy to make because the geese. We had the guy who the story is based on. We had that guy, and that guy knew how to do it all. He knew how to build the airplanes. He knew how to train the geese. He knew how to do everything, so it all just went like clockwork. Very well produced. Came in, you know, under budget. Yeah. [INT: How long was that shoot?] Not long. That shoot was only like three months. Two-and-a-half months, yeah. Two-and-a-half months. Also in Toronto. [INT: So it was easy to get the geese to their marks all the time?] Well, they were just really predictable, you know, like the little girl, we just imprinted the little geese on the little actress. [INT: You actually did that?] Yeah, and so she could climb a tree. She could do anything, and they would follow her, and you just film it. [INT: Did you believe that was gonna happen before--] No, I didn't. I thought it was gonna be difficult. But what I did is I ended up taking the script that they had and just turned it into this guy's story, which the original story wasn't, and so I turned it into telling the guy's story who was the real goose guy. [INT: And was that out of a studio?] It was Columbia. Sony. [INT: Oh Sony.] Sony. That's what it was. Wasn't Colombia.

INT: Oh Caleb [Caleb Deschanel] shot that [FLY AWAY HOME] too. [CB: Yes.] Did you do any shooting on that? 

CB: Yeah. Yeah, we always shoot together. I mean I discover an awful lot of the little details in my movies by shooting. I wouldn't discover it if I wasn't looking through the camera.

INT: How do you feel about video assist by the way? 

CB: It's helpful. It's very helpful, again, but again it's a crutch, and you gotta be careful you don't use the crutch at the expense of your legs, you know. [INT: It doesn't replace looking through the lens.] Right, right. [INT: Can you say why? This is a favorite topic of mine, but go ahead.] I don't know. It's just the immediacy of it. There's a reason I used to love the old Éclair camera, 'cause it had such a great ground glass, and you could see it. It was just like being in the theater. There it is. That's my problems with most of the electronic cameras is they have crappy viewfinders that you can't see, you know, nearly as well as a regular, simple ground glass. [INT: Is it possible that maybe looking at video assist is feeling like looking at the result while looking through the lens...] Is looking at real life, yeah. [INT: Yeah, looking at it happening.] Yeah. Could be.

INT: So there wasn't really much of a problem scheduling a film like this [FLY AWAY HOME], because the birds could always do whatever you wanted to basically when you wanted it? 

CB: Well they had to time when they were gonna hatch the eggs and do all that. All that had to be figured out. But we had an excellent Crew, and it was the best produced movie I was ever involved with. It just went like...

INT: I thought I saw a couple of rear projection shots in there [FLY AWAY HOME] with the kid, yeah, and then there was one shot that I didn't, I couldn't figure out how you did, unless it was computer. It was the bird's eye view of the birds over, the bird's eye view of the birds, which was over a suburban shot below. 

CB: That's real. [INT: That's real?] That's real. The only ones that are fake are the ones where they're going through the buildings. Going through the buildings, those are fake. Those are computerized geese. [INT: That's an amazing shot. What were you flying... you were in a helicopter over a helicopter?] Yeah. No, the helicopter is fake too, so it was just a helicopter shot of going through the buildings, and then we put in the airplane and the geese.

INT: So were you happy with that film [FLY AWAY HOME]? 

CB: Yeah. I mean it wasn't a movie that I was dying to make. It wasn't a movie that I was totally in love with. It was, you know, another one of the kiddie animal movies. But it was a wonderful experience for me because of John [John Veitch]. John was a great Producer, and he made it all really work well. [INT: And that was Toronto you said?] Yeah. He's an L.A. guy or was an L.A. guy, and he passed away just about a year after we did the film. Yeah. I was hoping to do another picture with him, 'cause he was such a good Producer.

INT: And the post on that [FLY AWAY HOME]? There was nothing, anything special about that obviously, 'cause there were only a couple of... 

CB: Well, at the time it wasn't easy to do the few shots I just mentioned of the geese, but most of the shots of the geese following the airplane, 90 percent of 'em, were real.

CB: I had a great second unit shooter on that film too. The guy who did all that stuff. He's the same guy who did the aerial stuff in WIND. [INT: Oh I see.] Gary Capo was his name. Great second unit guy. [INT: Wow.]

INT: And what about the Cast [of FLY AWAY HOME]? How did you feel about the Cast? I mean did you get your first choices or... 

CB: No, but it was kind of pre... the studio had pretty much made the calls. I didn't get much input. [INT: I see. Okay, so--] I could have nixed somebody, but I didn't. [INT: Oh I see. So this, in some ways, this was the antithesis of the way you actually worked.] Yeah, I know. These were all studio choices. I liked everybody. Terry Kinney was the only one that I brought on. [INT: Oh he's a wonderful Actor.] Yeah, he is.

INT: So was your, your shooting ratio on that one [FLY AWAY HOME] must have been less than it was on-- 

CB: It was. It was a fraction of what most of my movies were.

INT: And that film did how? I mean how did it make out in the box office? 

CB: Not well. It broke even. Maybe, maybe it made 15-20 percent. Not much more. It only cost I think 19. [INT: Wow.]

INT: So the last one is DUMA, and that was a huge project. 

CB: No, it wasn't a huge project. [INT: It wasn't?] No. It's one of these projects that, you know, people have got invested money that they're trying to get out, which was the same story with FLY AWAY HOME. Both of those films happened because people had money tied up that they wanted to rescue. [INT: I see. I see.] Another kiddie movie you know. Another kiddie animal movie that didn't have much of a script and didn't have hardly any script, but it had a lot of money tied up in it by Gaylord [Gaylord Films]. And Gaylord, you know, is a big sort of a rightwing radio station, religious radio stations from Oklahoma, Texas, and they had tied up a lot of money in it that they wanted out. [INT: This was South Africa?] Yeah, they had money tied up in South Africa, yeah. And so they wanted to do this movie, so they paid for the movie. Warner Bros. didn't pay diddly squat. Warner Bros... eh. So another guy and myself sort of put the story together. I mean I stole, as I say, from a few places, Huckleberry Finn and a few other places, to try to make it work. And it was a studio deal from the get-go, but it again involved a good Producer, John Wells, who was a really good guy in the end. He ended up sinking quite a bit of his own money in it, because Warner Bros. was impossible.

INT: And I mean there's a case of the fish out of water where the animal and the human sort of switch places. 

CB: Right, right.

INT: What was the experience of filming that [DUMA]? 

CB: It was a real straight-ahead production. I mean, you know, and I think our budget was around 12 in South Africa, and so it was produced mainly through South Africa. I brought in a Producer--[INT: Doug Claybourne.] Doug Claybourne. And it was done, you know, pretty straight-ahead. And we came in on time, on schedule, everything. Delivered a... [INT: Yeah, the boy's name was Alex Michaeletos.] Alex. Yeah, Alex. What's interesting about that is that, again, we had the same problem. "Well, how are we gonna do the boy?" And well, the boy had to be around these cheetahs which cheetahs are bizarre creatures, 'cause they're really not cats, and they're really not dogs. They're something else, and you know when they're sitting there about that high, you know, 'cause they're so long. And so we tested quite a few boys, and most of the boys, when it came to getting very close to that big cat, they were not too interested. But the kid Alex, his father had a game farm, and he had his own cheetah. He slept with his own cheetah, so... and he was a good kid. I could feel he had a huge amount of magic, but I didn't feel that the movie really required that either, so...

INT: Are cheetahs reliable? I mean are they difficult to work with? 

CB: Some of 'em are. Some of 'em, they're a bit unpredictable. They live in a whole other world, those critters. They really are different. [INT: But on a film like that, I mean, are you worried about risk and danger?] Yeah, I was. I was. And the boy was attacked once. [INT: He was?] Yeah. We had one cheetah who was a little crazy. [INT: How did he attack? I mean how bad was it?] Jumped on him. [INT: And what happened?] Didn't hurt him. Scratched him up a little bit on the back, but it was... [INT: At what point during the filming was that?] We were shooting out in a field somewhere and I don't know... [INT: I mean how deep into the schedule? I'm just wondering whether or not that sort of inhibited him afterwards.] No. No, we had been shooting on the film for six, seven weeks or more.

INT: And then the studio insisted on the American Actors. I mean on Campbell [Campbell Scott] and Hope [Hope Davis]? 

CB: Yes, and I got in a big fight with the studio because--which I was not prepared for, because... I indicated that they should be South Africans. They should be playing South Africans. I mean it's a story [DUMA] that takes place in South Africa, and so I had 'em, you know, put on a little South African twang. And the studio went ballistic over that, because they felt that it was, you know, that I had overstepped my bounds and so on and so forth. So they wanted 'em to be American, because Americans are gonna see... [INT: Yeah, I thought I heard some looping in there. Was that because you pulled back on some of that?] I may have, and I've forgotten it now. I mean it was... [INT: So that brings another question.

INT: I mean did you feel, from... I mean it's sort of a rhetorical question, but I'll ask it anyway. You know when the studio says, "You've overstepped your bounds," I mean that sounds, that's not the way it used to be, right? I mean… 

CB: It wasn't my experience, but each successive film that I've made… the first film I made, didn't have any problems at all with. Ever since then, every single film after that has been more and more restrictive in terms of marketing program, and you couldn't vary from, you know, this couldn't be this way. It had to be this way, in terms of having a predictable product. It just became more, and more and more that way. [INT: Yeah. That's true everywhere of course.] Yeah.

INT: Well anyway, I mean it's a film [DUMA] that's certainly entertaining, and well we didn't mention the... 

CB: Well Eamonn [Eamonn Walker], I really liked working with Eamonn, 'cause Eamonn is a fantastically good, incredibly gifted man. I would love to work with him again. He's a very gifted man.

INT: You want to talk about the kind of films that you, interested in for our American history. 

CB: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm the kiddie movie guy that, you know, really I've always wanted to make films based on American history, because I think there are so many great stories in American history. And to me the visuals, even in ground that has been gone over so many times before, like the American western, or the, you know, the Hollywood version has always been this little corner over here. There's a million other vistas that are possible for what the old west was really like. And it's just so rich, and yet for some reason it hasn't really been a fruitful way for me to try to get something off the ground. All the projects that I've developed based on American history have… but I'm still working on, I'm working on one right now for a... what do you call 'em? Long-form television. How the country actually came together. Not the story of Plymouth Rock and Myles Standish, but the story that happened 50 years before that with the Spanish, and the runaway slaves, and you know all the craziness that now is beginning to be understood about what really happened. The Roanoke, the Lost Colony, etcetera. [INT: Yeah, that's great for long-form.] Yeah. [INT: Yeah. We're so different from the British in that way, and the British really know how to...] The British know how to do it. [INT: Yeah, well they are great storytellers. They really are great. But they know how to mine their history.] Well, there's great stuff to mine there. There's great stuff that hasn't been mined there too, because this story, see, it bridges, you know, what happened in England and what happened here. You know, it goes back and forth. [INT: Is it something you're still just developing, or do you have some place that's interested?] We're about to go out with it. I'm developing with Francis [Francis Ford Coppola]. Yeah.

INT: Well thank you. 

CB: Thank you. [INT: It's been a joy both just to look at your films and walk through them with you.] Okay, good. Good.

INT: So a little bit about your history with the Directors Guild [DGA]. When did you join? 

CB: I think, I'm not sure, but I think I joined at BLACK STALLION. I wouldn't have joined if I hadn't had to--[INT: In '77 [1977].]--because I had such problems with unions because, you know, when I started out, the union was as big an obstacle to try to get over, to get into making movies, as... [INT: But not the Guild.] Well, you know, I kind of put 'em all in the same bag, and I just didn't know. Interesting thing about the, I mean what I have to say about the Directors Guild is that I'm very thankful that it exists, and I have benefitted greatly without really participating very much, because it wasn't until I retired that I began to, "Wow, you mean I've got a retirement? How amazing," 'cause I simply have avoided getting involved in much of anything, because for me every movie that is out there is like a big piñata in the sky, and people are trying to get, you know, knock all the goodies out of it. And it was such a closed society when I started out. The film business was so, the early '60s [1960s]. I mean the film Directors would come to UCLA. I mean they were like Confederate generals. They were a pretty tough bunch of guys, and they guarded their turf ferociously, and there was no way. You just couldn't get in there.

INT: My name is Robert Markowitz. Today is June 1, 2017. I'm conducting an interview with Carroll Ballard for the Directors Guild of America's Visual History Program at Carroll Ballard's home in St. Helena, California.