When the Red Baron Wasn’t a Pizza: The Making of 'Flyboys'
September 20, 2006 in eFilmCritic.com
This plane was featured as part of the promotional tent for �Flyboys� at the airport.
by Dan Lybarger
There are a lot of things that can make interviews difficult: fussy subjects, interference from oblivious outsiders and malfunctioning tape recorders. Still, it’s rare to have to maintain a conversation over the roar of speeding jet fighters.
Last week, the makers of the new movie Flyboys, which opens September 22, were probably not upset when yet another plane briefly drowned out what they had to say. The film celebrates the achievements of early pilots who made modern air warfare possible.
While the Blue Angels were demonstrating their aerobatics to a massive and enthusiastic crowd outside the hangar, producers Dean Devlin and Kaerie Peak and actors James Franco and David Ellison discussed the joys and the challenges of making a movie about the Lafayette Escadrille, a group of about 38 American volunteers who flew for France during World War I before the United States entered World War I.
The filmmakers couldn�t have picked a better backdrop to discuss the movie and its subject matter. Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport in Kansas City, Mo was hosting the Mid-America Youth Aviation Association�s Kansas City Aviation Expo and Airshow, where a B2 stealth bomber flew over the spectators.
Like the movie, the airport is loaded with history. Charles Lindbergh dedicated it in 1927, and it served as the hub for Howard Hughes� Trans-World Airlines.
Flying Pioneers
The Escadrille helped make current military aviation possible. Sadly, their most famous pilot is Charles Schulz�s fictitious dog Snoopy, who regularly flew make-believe missions against the Red Baron. The real flesh-and-blood pilots have become obscured by history.
Devlin says, �It�s been 40 years since Hollywood made a picture about these guys. These are really kind of unsung heroes, the first American fighter pilots.
�It�s something that�s hard for us to fathom. It would be something of the equivalent of us going on a spaceship to Mars. That�s how wild it was. When we get into an airplane today, we have an enormous amount of confidence in the machine we�re getting into. They are sturdy.
There�s less risk flying than there is driving your car.
�In those days, the planes were made out of fabric and wood. If you stepped on the wing wrong on your way to the cockpit, you could knock the wing off. It was a very delicate machine. And yet these guys, not only had to figure out how to be test pilots, to learn how to fly, they were inventing aerial combat. Everything they did was the first time it had ever been done.�
From listening to Devlin talk during the roundtable interview, it�s obvious that he�s devoted years to the project. Since reading the initial script by then-novice screenwriters Phil Sears and Blake Evans in 1999 (David S. Ward who won an Oscar for The Sting revised it), the producer has immersed himself in Great War lore. Ask him a question about World War I battles, and he�ll probably have an answer.
When questioned about the difficulties of combining flying and shooting, he replies, �In the beginning of the war, they shot off their own propellers. And then they moved it to the upper wing, but it was much harder to aim and control their shooting. A French designer using the principles of a movie projector figured out a way to synchronize through the propeller, but they made only one prototype. And that prototype got shot down.
�The Germans took the plane (and) recreated it. And for a year or close to a year, the Germans absolutely dominated the air battles because they had the technology. Ultimately, it was created on the Allied side as well, and that�s about the time that Flyboys begins is when it�s a level playing field.�
From watching the room, it�s obvious the cast shared Devlin�s fascination with the subject. Franco, who�s best known for playing antagonist Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man movies, spent four months learning to fly before shooting and is now a pilot just like his character , Blaine Rawlings, who is modeled after Frank �The Balloon Buster� Luke.
�I watched the old films (like Wings and Hell�s Angels),� says Franco. �One thing that was good about the old films was that they were a lot closer to the actual war.
There are things about it that you can pick up there.�
At the air show the actor seemed like a kid in a candy store. As the shuttle cart was taking him to the round table, he asked to get out so that he could obtain a hat and a T-shirt for the Expo.
While he�s happy to have acquired another skill, Franco doubts he would have gotten in the cockpit without having played the role. �I have a hard time motivating myself to do things,� he says.
A Different Kind of Special Effect
Devlin came to prominence by producing or co-writing Stargate, Universal Soldier, Independence Day and the derided American version of Godzilla with German director Roland Emmerich. He and Emmerich also teamed up on the American Revolution epic The Patriot.
When asked if it was harder to make a fantasy world or to recreate the past, Devlin�s producing partner Kearie Peak explains, �In my opinion, it's harder to re-create reality than it is fiction because you can take license with something you create and invent and you don't have to stick to anything.
�When you do something that is period and has been documented so thoroughly. And people are out there looking for mistakes. You have to be incredibly accurate. So a lot of thought has to go into it, a lot of argument and a lot of research.�
Because of the time that has passed since the Escadrille was fighting over the skies of France, their history seems astonishing and even a bit unbelievable. But according to David Ellison, who plays the not-so-straight shooting Eddie Beagle, “There are some things that are stranger than fiction. I was going through the script, and I didn't know that much about the period. There were certain things that I didn't think were accurate. So I read about the lion and that jumps on James, so I went, ‘Oh, that's gotta be fake.’
“Then, I opened the book that Tony (Bill, the director) gave me, and then there's a picture of two Lafayette Escadrille members holding two baby lion cubs. As you went through there, you realize how accurate the film is.”
Not So Mainstream
While Flyboys is as large in scope and full of special effects (its 850 special effects shots are more than twice the number in the space alien fantasy Independence Day), Devlin says that he had to work outside the Hollywood system to make it. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is distributing the film, but all the financing for it came from independent investors.
From listening to Devlin talk about filmmaking, he almost sounds like a John Sayles (Lone Star) or Alexander Payne (Sideways). “Even if I had convinced the studios to get behind the film of this genre, the process of developing a script in the studio system is a very cynical process. And there's this huge fear at the studios that everything has to be hip and edgy and have an MTV feel and mentality.
“And I think it would've destroyed the movie I wanted to make. I think, had we done it in the studio system, we never would've had Tony Bill (My Bodyguard, Five Corners) as the director.
�We would've had some kid, just out of film school, someone who's done a lot of rock videos. We would've had some kid writing the script, who didn't understand classic movie structure. And I would've had a lot of pressure on me to hire the celebrities of the day. And as we know, the celebrities of the day are celebrities based on who they date, not on their acting skills.
�So we were actually able to do a movie and get the very best actors we could find who were great for the parts, who were enthusiastic about doing it, and we didn't have to concern ourselves with who�s on the latest sex tape to go up on the Internet.�
As a producer, Devlin doesn�t sit at a desk while others do the grunt work. For example, during the simulated dogfight scenes Devlin would describe the scene to the actors using a microphone that broadcast into small radios placed in their ears.
“It's a real tribute to our director, because most directors are too threatened to have someone else involved creatively. And Tony's not like that.”
“It doesn't always happen. I've had directors, who were really frightened by it. And they don't want the producer involved. But it's just the way that I make films. Depending on the director, I'm either the best partner you ever had or your worst nightmare.”
A Real-Life Ace
One such casting choice was the relative newcomer Ellison. One advantage he had over some of his peers is that he’s been flying aerobatics planes since he was 13 years old.
He says, “My heroes growing up were people like Bob Hoover and Chuck Yeager and guys like that. The first time I met Bob Hoover was at Oshkosh, and then I got to know him over the years. The highlight for me screening the movie so for happened at Oshkosh, where Bob Hoover, Chuck Yeager were at the screening. Bob stood up and said it was the most inspiring aviation movie he had ever seen. For me, that's better than an Oscar.”
