Carroll Ballard
Carroll Ballard (born October 14, 1937) is an American filmmaker. Originally a documentarian, he became known for directing sweeping, visually striking films with natural and ecological themes. His body of work includes the films The Black Stallion (1979), Never Cry Wolf (1983), and Fly Away Home (1996).
Carroll Ballard
- Name
- Carroll Ballard
- Born
- 14 October 1937
- Birthplace
- Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Occupation
- * Director
- Nationality
- United States.
- Education
- University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA School of Theater and Film and Television.
- Languages
- English.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Carroll Ballard (born October 14, 1937) is an American filmmaker. Originally a documentarian, he became known for directing sweeping, visually striking films with natural and ecological themes. His body of work includes the films The Black Stallion (1979), Never Cry Wolf (1983), and Fly Away Home (1996).
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
Carroll Ballard (born 1937) is an American camera operator, cinematographer and director, among other activities. The camera operator was born in Los Angeles. Carroll Ballard studied at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and University of California, Los Angeles.
Languages used include English. Works by the camera operator are held at Harvard Film Archive.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Carroll Ballard. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q1045172 · wikipedia · Carroll Ballard
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Carroll Ballard • Born — 14 October 1937 • Birthplace — Los Angeles, California, U.S. • Alma Mater — University of California, Los Angeles • Occupation — * Director • cinematographer • Years Active — 1965–2005
Early life
Early life
Ballard was born in Los Angeles in 1937. After serving in the U.S. Army, Ballard attended film school at UCLA, where one of his classmates was Francis Ford Coppola. He made a well received student film called Waiting for May in 1964.
Documentaries
Documentaries
His early credits include the documentaries Beyond This Winter's Wheat (1965) and Harvest (1967), both of which he made for the U.S. Information Agency. The latter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He directed a short subject called The Perils of Priscilla (1969), which was filmed from the point of view of a cat who escapes from home. Rodeo (1970) provided an intimate look at the 1968 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. He shot the title sequence of Coppola's 1968 musical Finian's Rainbow and was second unit cinematographer on Star Wars (1977), for which he handled many of the outdoor desert scenes.
As director
As director
• Year — Title — Notes • 1965 — Pigs! — Documentary short • Beyond This Winter's Wheat • 1967 — Harvest — Documentary • 1969 — Rodeo — Documentary short • The Perils of Priscilla • 1971 — Seems Like Only Yesterday • 1974 — Crystalization • The Hello Machine • 1979 — The Black Stallion • 1983 — Never Cry Wolf • 1986 — Nutcracker: The Motion Picture • 1992 — Wind • 1996 — Fly Away Home • 2005 — Duma
Other production credits
Other production credits
• Year — Title — Director — Notes • 1964 — 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt — Tommy Noonan — Production designer • 1968 — Finian's Rainbow — Francis Ford Coppola — Second unit cinematographer • 1977 — Star Wars — George Lucas • 1995 — My Family — Gregory Nava — Cinematographer: River crew
Feature film director
Ballard finally got the chance to make a feature film when Coppola offered him the job of directing The Black Stallion (1979), an adaptation of the children's book by Walter Farley. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Mickey Rooney). In 2002 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry. He then directed Never Cry Wolf (1983), based on Farley Mowat's autobiographical book of the same name, which detailed Mowat's experiences with Arctic wolves. In the 1990s, he made two films: Wind (1992) and Fly Away Home (1996). His most recent film is Duma (2005), about a South African boy's friendship with an orphaned cheetah. Duma had tested badly and Warner Bros. planned to not release this film in the United States theatrically, but the film received acclaim from influential film critics like Scott Foundas and Roger Ebert, and it led Warner Bros to reconsider. Warner Bros. finally gave Duma a limited theatrical release in the US. Ballard has received acclaim from film critics. Pauline Kael was an early admirer. Kenneth Turan once wrote: "[Ballard] knows how to be both caring and restrained, minimizing a movie's saccharine content while maximizing the sense of wonder."
Awards and nominations
• Award — Year — Category — Work — Result • Academy Award — 1968 — Best Documentary Feature Film — Harvest • Christopher Award — 1997 — Best Motion Picture — Fly Away Home • Los Angeles Film Critics Association — 1980 — New Generation Award — The Black Stallion • Western Heritage Award — 1984 — Best Theatrical Motion Picture — Never Cry Wolf
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Wide Angle / Closeup: Interview with Director Carroll Ballard. www.wideanglecloseup.com.
- 2.Carroll Ballard - Visual History Interview. www.dga.org.
- 3.Schumacher, Michael (1999). Francis Ford Coppola: a filmmaker's life. Three Rivers Press, , p. 237-238.
- 4.Steve Vineberg, "The Magician", The Threepenny Review, No. 108 (Winter 2007), p. 28
- 5.McCarthy, Todd. New York Film Festival Wrap: Special Events, Fortuitous Encounters and Spontaneous Combustion. The Hollywood Reporter. October 24, 2011.
- 6.Sragow, Michael. An Honest Bull Session with Carroll Ballard. The Criterion Collection. June 20, 2017.
- 7.Phipps, Keith. When Kids Movies Were Dark and Beautiful. The Daily Beast. July 31, 2015.
- 8.Holloway, Ronald. Review: Never Cry Wolf. Variety. August 31, 1983.
- 9.Dargis, Manohla. Inching Toward Adulthood With a Cheetah for a Friend. The New York Times. September 30, 2005.
- 10.Taylor, Ella. The Secret Lives of Cheetahs. LA Weekly. 2005-08-25.
- 11.Greenberg, James. Carroll Ballard's Second Chance. The New York Times. July 31, 2005.
- 12.McClintock, Pamela. Inside Move: 'Duma' producer pays pic's way to Gotham. Variety. Reed Business Information. September 22, 2005.
- 13.Vineberg, Steve. "Critical Fervor." The Threepenny Review, no. 50, 1992, pp. 25–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4384114. Accessed December 24, 2020.
- 14.Turan, Kenneth (2004). Never coming to a theater near you: a celebration of a certain kind of movie. New York: Public Affairs. .
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
Carroll Ballard studied at University of California, Los Angeles and UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
The recorded source classes are reference work. Every statement above restates one of those records; where they are silent, this article is silent.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,408 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Carrie NgPerson
- Carrie NyePerson
- Carrie PrestonPerson
- Carrie-Anne MossPerson
- Carroll NyePerson
- Carroll Parrott BluePerson
- Carrot TopPerson
- Carsta LöckPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Carroll Ballard?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.