Interview: Caroline Baron
Caroline Baron has worked in film for more than 20 years, producing projects as diverse as The Santa Clause, Monsoon Wedding and Capote. This year has bestowed Baron with wide acclaim for the latter, including an Independent Spirit Award nomination for the AMC/American Express Producers Award.

Capote was a gamble despite Baron's experience and the names attached at the beginning, including writer Dan Futterman (best known as an actor) and star Philip Seymour Hoffman. Futterman was a first-time screenwriter, and the project was a narrative debut for director Bennett Miller, whose last credit was the acclaimed 1998 documentary The Cruise. But Futterman, Hoffman, and Miller had been friends since high school and were willing to go to great lengths to bring their movie to fruition. In Baron, they found a solid supporter who joined them in going the extra mile despite funding obstacles, not to mention the fact that a competing project (by Quills writer Doug Wright) was also in the works.

Baron's producing experience also extends to the founding of FilmAid International, a humanitarian organization that uses film and video to entertain and to educate refugees around the world. In Los Angeles for awards ceremonies and the birth of her second child, Baron—who is usually based out of New York—spoke about juggling art and business, as well as film's responsibility in the world today.

All the recognition that Capote is receiving seems like great payback for the struggle you went through to get it made. Was it surprising that investors kept coming and going or that it was such a struggle, given the names that were involved?
I guess it's not surprising; as we know, it is very challenging to get independent films made. You hear it constantly at all the awards ceremonies now, what a struggle it was and how long it took. In retrospect I think it was three years ago that we started. That's not terrible when you think about ten-year struggles or longer for other films. But that first year and a half all I was doing was trying to set up the movie, all day every day. So it did feel very, very challenging, but for some reason—and I still find this remarkable and wonderful and it speaks to us as a team and the spirit of the film—we never gave up. We always thought that we were going to make the movie and had so much confidence in the team and in our project and in the script that we just kept going.

I think that speaks to the artistic aspect of film, which is frequently forgotten since film is so often considered product or disposable entertainment. When you're creating art, it's really difficult to say, "This is a sure thing," or decide when to quit. You just have to believe in what you're doing. Producers are the stalwarts in the background driving everything forward to make the art happen, but deciding when to stick with something and give up everything else for it doesn't necessarily seem like smart business. So as a producer, how do you balance making art with making business decisions?
Well, that's what making movies is about. We're not painters; we don't sit in a room by ourselves and spend as much time as we need to make a painting. It's ultimately an art form where one needs to be extremely fiscally responsible and aware of money and of economics. I'm working on a film now, as an example, a lower-budget movie where it feels that we need to cap the budget at a certain amount of money in order to make sure that the investors make their money back. I think with films it's important to be realistic about what the endeavor is and what the elements are, who's paying for it and how they'll get their money back. And then as far as making the decisions on the day, I think that makes it an even more creative business. For one thing, I have a tremendous amount of experience as a line producer; that's what I did for years before I started "creative producing".

I always found it funny that people would look at line producers not as creative people first, when in fact that aspect of the business I find enormously creative. To have to make decisions—fast decisions—having to do with money that will benefit the movie and the artistic vision is really challenging and very creative. Often when you're faced with making smaller films, it has been said over and over again, "Necessity is the mother of invention". It's true—you really can come up with a better solution when you are limited in what you can spend or how you can spend.

I'm very lucky to have worked on budgets of various sizes that have allowed me to have a big perspective so I can draw on what we did in India on Kama Sutra or Monsoon Wedding or some of the bigger films to really think about when the money should be spent and how. It's also about working with people whom you trust enormously creatively and financially. I knew that Bennett wasn't going to be demanding about spending money when he was very aware that we had a budget. We were all very, very conscious of making this film within the means that we had. That makes it very hard but it makes it very challenging and very exciting, and I like that.

I've read that you're talking about Capote as a very American story; in particular, about it being a story of his ambition as a reflection of ambition we all have about what we want to get out of life and how far we'll go to get it. In terms of what you're saying about making the movie happen, did you ever take a step back and think, "Whoa, maybe we're going a little too far the way Truman might have!"
Definitely! (Laughs) It's very funny that you pick up on that because we did at several times over the course of the making of this film, whether during the financing stage or during the shooting, take a step back and chuckle, saying, "How far are we gonna go to get what we want?" In a way, it helped to keep it all in perspective, thinking about the story that we were making and our desires, individually and collectively, in making this movie. It was humorous and also deadly serious.

Capote also raises questions about the concept of nonfiction; many people are tying the film in with our modern-day obsession with reality television, but I'd like to take it back to the notion of storytelling, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, and how In Cold Blood and Capote demonstrate storytelling on those different planes. For the projects you pick, what's important that the story have, whether it's fiction or nonfiction? Also, what responsibility do storytellers have, whether they're telling a nonfiction story or a fiction story?

For me, it's all about the story. I have this barometer and I think it has to do with FilmAid because I feel extremely responsible about bringing films into the world that I feel should be brought into the world, not just make a movie for the sake of making a movie or because I need to pay my rent, especially now that I'm choosing the projects and not being hired to produce people's films. The stories are what the movies are. I feel like you need to have characters that you can really relate to or respond to in some way that makes you want to sit with them for an hour and a half or three hours.

With Capote, I felt, "Here's a guy who is a very complicated character," but when I first read the screenplay I also felt that people would be able relate to different aspects of him and see themselves in him, which is a complicated thing as well because he's not a very sympathetic guy for some of the movie. Yet he's doing things that we have to ask ourselves all the time if we're gonna do or not. I think many writers are in that situation all the time. And you, as a journalist! It's funny: when I speak with journalists, I'm like, "Are they gonna manipulate what I say to fit into their story and the angle that they're trying to do?"

I knew that Capote would really strike a chord especially with artists and writers, and people would really see themselves in him, which I do think is important. Those are the movies that I love to see. We were talking about a film we saw at the Telluride Film Festival, Spirit of the Beehive, which is a Spanish film from the 70's about family. There were a lot of contemporary films at the festival like Bee Season that were trying to talk about the same themes, but for some reason that film from 35 years ago did it in a way that really, really struck me and stuck with me. I aspire to make films that do that, that stick to your gut and that you have a hard time letting them go.

It's got to be very gratifying that you are at a point in your career when you can pick those kinds of projects to work on and not have to compromise your goal in order to make money or survive. But many people reading this are just starting out; they don't necessarily have that choice.
The irony is that financially it's so much harder to do what I'm doing now. Being in the line producing business was far more lucrative. And actually what I've done now is take stock for the moment, take a step back, and realize that what I need to be a fulfilled individual and to be happy is do this. Hopefully the benefits will be reaped at some point, but without taking the risk, you'll never get there. I think line producing is amazing and I loved doing it and could do it again, but I prefer to be in more control creatively of what I'm working on so I can be proud of what I've put my energies towards and what I've brought into the world.

Do you think a lot of this came out of the work that you started with FilmAid, or was it something that was always within you that you worked to attain?
I think both. The reason I started FilmAid was that I've always been someone who cares deeply about other people, and I traveled a lot in my 20's and 30's to places that were uncommon. I was in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the mid-80's before the fall of Communism, and Southeast Asia; I was by myself a lot. This sounds so cheesy but I felt I was really part of the world and not just a part of LA where I was living at the time or just the U.S. So when bad things were happening in other places, I felt them personally. Through all the traveling I had done, I had always met filmmakers wherever I was, so I felt like this community of closeness came from film and it connected me in various parts of the world.

In 1999 I was so distraught about what was happening and it was actually affecting my life in a very negative, personal way—I literally couldn't bear it and I had to do something. I heard a report from Macedonia on NPR and it said the biggest problems for refugees were not problems of lack of food or shelter or medicine, the problems were psychological—boredom, idleness. I had this idea to bring what I do—that was it. It was like, "What do I do and what value does it have? Does it have any value?" I realized it has enormous value! It's limitless and it's been limitless in my own life. I've learned so much from films, I've learned so much from making films, from other people that are in the film world, and I just felt like this would be something that I could do.

Logistically it was a piece of cake for me because I was a line producer. (Laughs) Shockingly, from the UN's perspective; I said, "We'll be ready to go in two weeks," and they were like, "Uh, right." Six weeks later we were there. Then watching people watch the movies, people in Africa who'd never seen a movie before or kids who had never heard music before in Afghanistan—seeing the impact that it had and watching little brains exploding made me feel like what I do has potentially enormous value. It can also be enormously damaging if it's a film that has a negative affect on somebody.

The films that I make I want to make are the ones that I feel bring some value. I think films like Monsoon Wedding and Capote and the ones that I'm working on now will have—whether it's comedic or educational—some value to them. People will walk away from the film and feel like they've had a satisfying experience; it will in some way enhance or alter their lives, either in a very small way or maybe in a big way. I feel that what we do has a powerful affect on people and that we should be aware of that when we make these choices.

Given how difficult it can be to get a film made, whether it's in terms of obtaining funding or all of the manpower and energy that goes into producing a film, why do you think more projects with that kind of fulfilling value you're talking about aren't being made?
I hope that after this year they will be made. It's been an incredible year to be in the same company as Good Night, and Good Luck., and Brokeback Mountain and Munich and Syriana. All these films are striving to talk about something and go deeper.

Why Hollywood isn't making those films? From my perspective it's all about money and what makes money. It's a business, ultimately, and the people who invest in the films wanna make money, whether it's an independent film or a big Hollywood film. The studios are huge machines and they need to churn out product that will be profitable. I think sometimes what happens is a feeling of "What do the masses wanna see?" instead of telling a personal story, which as a human being will most likely affect the masses because we're all human beings.

It also seems like a vicious cycle where the masses will turn out for lowest common denominator kind of stuff just because that's all that's out there.
I think that's true but I also think there's a large appetite out there for distraction, especially now that we're living in a very serious time. So there is tremendous desire to escape. Some people want to go to a film and be challenged or educated or informed or brought to a new world, and some people just want to totally check out.

I can't make a film that's just gratuitously violent; I've been in too many violent places to do that. I've seen the impact. One of the things that's been remarkable with FilmAid is to be in a place like Kenya or in a refugee camp in Tanzania and see someone watching a video player with a really violent American movie on it. Little kids are watching that! There was a really chilling story in the Times a few years ago about a town called Bunia in the Congo. The town was just devastated but the movie theater was operating and they were showing really violent American films. Kids who were child soldiers were going to watch these movies, then getting back on pickup trucks with AK-47's. That for me was like, "God, we've gotta get our good films out there! We've gotta get them the hopeful films, the films that are really life-affirming." We have a lot of choice, but not everybody does.

Do you think a producer has a responsibility with getting their film out there in the end?
Every producer, I would think, wants to be involved in that process and wishes he or she had the ability or the power to get it out there. But ultimately we don't have that power and it's really the distributors that do. And then they are at the mercy of the theater owners, who are at the mercy of the audiences. But I will say that I feel very fortunate that we're with Sony Classics because, with Capote at least, they understand the movie and understand how to get it out as well and are doing it in a very intelligent and strategic way.

I think it's important as a producer—if you have the choice, which is also not often the case—when you're making the deal with a distributor to think about the long-term, think about the connection that the distributor has with the movie and what it means to them to get it out there, why they want to get it out there, and how they want to get it out there, and to work closely with them as much as you can. But unless you start to self-distribute, which is a whole other business, you don't have the control.

How did you become a producer in the first place?
I fell into the film business, literally. I graduated from Brandeis in 1983 with no direction, no clue. At the time I'd say the vast majority of my classmates had very specific career direction; they were going to medical school or law school or at least they were taking the next step of education. We were all so young at the time that I'm sure many people were influenced by their parents; I had so many friends who were going to be doctors and I was like, "You are kidding me! If I ever walk into a waiting room and see you I'll just run!" (Laughs) But they were all pretty directed, and I wasn't. I had gone to Italy for a semester junior year and got very interested in art and in traveling, but didn't really know what to do with those interests. Back home, my brother and sister were at a party and they heard about this really low-budget film that was being made in New York. At the time, Brandeis had one filmmaking class and I had taken that and made a little short movie, which if anybody ever finds I'll die. (Laughs)

Anyway, my brother got a job working as assistant casting director on the film, which was The Toxic Avenger. He said, "Caroline, you should definitely come work here—it's fantastic! It's just like camp!" (Laughs) So I got a job volunteering as a PA and then I became the costume designer like the second day. Anybody who had any experience on that film quit instantly, because it was seven days a week and we were in Hell's Kitchen in New York in the middle of the summer with no air conditioning. But for me it was great! I became the production manager a week later because there was nobody else; I had really good leadership and organizational skills from being student body president in 9th grade and Colorwar General in summer camp, and I loved it. (Laughs) I just gave it everything and that's how I started.

So in the spirit of self-reflecting upon all this experience, what's the most important advice you'd give to fledgling indie producers or any filmmaker in general?
I took a really long road to producing; I think I felt for a long time that I was not ready yet or didn't have the particular experience. Now at 44 I'm looking back and thinking, "I could've done this 20 years ago!" But people need to, without sounding cliché, follow their bliss and really think about what they want. I think a lot of people think they want to be producers or think they want to be directors but have never done that job or been around that job, so for really young people I always tell them that I worked for free and there's a lot of value in that because if you're in a position to intern and you get the right mentors, then the mentors usually want to make sure that you're getting something from the experience because they're getting something from your working with them. There can be a lot of value and exposure when you're doing that.

On the other hand, I think that if you want to be a producer and you have a good sense of material and what you think would be a really good movie, then just do it. I've worked with a lot of other producers who haven't spent the last 20 years or so in production and they bring different experience. It's not necessarily better or worse, it's just different. But I think that it is very good to be around movies or work on films to understand them; I always felt that if I owned a restaurant I'd want to know how to wash the dishes and cook the food and really be able to do a lot of the jobs or understand the jobs, more importantly, so I would be able to be understanding and sympathetic to those people who were doing those jobs.

You're a better collaborator that way.
Yeah! So I think to be working on films is really, really valuable, in any position. But ultimately it's about telling stories and understanding what your own abilities are.