Editors Note: On April 1, 1996, the film, The Journey of Butterfly, will be released for distribution to public television stations nationwide by the American Program Service.

Filmed at Terezin, Czechoslovakia (now part of the Czech Republic), this documentary features The American Boychoir's performance of I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a work that has been part of the repertoire of The American Boychoir since its 1968 premiere. Composer Charles Davidson set to music the extraordinary and moving poems written by children while incarcerated in Terezin, a "model ghetto" set up by the Nazi regime.

Because of the large number of artists and musicians held prisoner there, art and music flourished despite the surroundings. The Nazi's attempted to deceive the outside world as to the real nature of the camp; it was a collection point where people were kept before "going east, " usually to the death camp Auschwitz. Of the 15,000 children interned at Terezin fewer than 100 survived, making these poems particularly heartbreaking. Over the years the Choir has sung this work in towns and cities all across North America.

In 1991, as part of Czechoslovakia's official observance of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the camp at Terezin, the Choir was invited to perform Butterfly at Smetana Hall in Prague, at the Jesuit Cathedral in Brno, and at Terezin itself for an audience of survivors.

Robert Frye, producer of The Journey of Butterfly, is a veteran television journalist and former executive producer of "ABC World News Tonight," "World News This Morning," and "Good Morning America. " He has received every major broadcast journalism award, including the Dupont-Columbia, the Peabody and the Polk. His documentaries include (for A & E cable network) Heroes, profiles of Victoria Cross, French Legion of Honor and Congressional Medal of Honor winners; and In Search of the Dream, about growing up black in America; and (for PBS) the award-winning Kristallnacht: The Journey from 1933 to 1983. In the conversation below, Bob Frye talks about the Butterfly project and the film that has emerged.

How did you get involved in this project in the first place?

Not long after my TV documentary Kristallnacht: The Journey from 1938 to 1983 was aired in 1988, I got a call from Steven Howard, then president of The American Boychoir School. He wanted to discuss the possibility of creating a film based on the Boychoir's performance of I Never Saw Another Butterfly.

I was intrigued. Having produced Kristallnacht, which had opened up an avenue of exploration and understanding of the events that took place during the Holocaust, the idea of filming Butterfly was something I found interesting as a concept. Of course, concepts have a long way to go before they become fact, but that was the beginning of it.

At what point did you realize the concert could be filmed in Terezin?

While producing Kristallnacht we travelled to Austria and Germany. It was obvious that there were a lot of changes taking place throughout Eastern Europe. One couldn't say exactly what is was. Then, November 9,1989, the day of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Wall fell in East Berlin. When Steve and I first had conversations, we never envisioned that we would actually be able to take the boys to Czechoslovakia, but it suddenly did seem a possibility.

As time unfolded, I was not able to raise the money to do the project. In a lot of cases when you are an independent producer you self finance things to get them started. But I stayed in touch with The American Boychoir School throughout this time. John Ellis had become president of the School in 1990, and in the Spring of '91, we discussed taking the Boychoir to Czechoslovakia for the filming, and decided to go forward.

I had a contact, Frank Reiss, who had worked on Kristallnacht and had himself been incarcerated in Terezin as a child. He had retained ties in Prague and was able to arrange an invitation from the "Terezin Initiative" for the Choir to perform at Terezin. This group was planning an event in October 1991 for the 50th anniversary of the opening of Terezin ghetto. Arrangements would also be made for the Choir to perform in Smetana Hall in Prague and in the Jesuit Cathedral in Brno, as well as at Terezin.

We had decided four people should go on a survey trip in September. By the end of August we realized we didn't have the money for four to go, so James Litton went with Michael Baumbruck, the director of photography.

It was very difficult for me not to go, but I knew it was important for Jim to go to give him a sense of the perspective of the story. He came back very excited about the prospect of the Boychoir performing there, and he realized what the significance of this journey would really be. He gave his report to John Ellis and Board Chairman Herb Hobler.

What was your strategy for the actual shooting of the film?

Well, I had to keep the project going both here and in Czechoslovakia, even without the money in hand. It required a good deal of coordination. I was making arrangements for all aspects of production, including assembling a crew, which ultimately numbered 35 to 40, including a production team from Czech TV. We would have four cameras recording the concert, along with the finest state-of-the-art audio equipment. We needed buses, drivers. There is even a person listed in the credits who made risers for the boys to stand on. All this on top of the coordination of the Boychoir's movements. We had assembled what became a traveling cavalcade.

This sounds like an enormously complicated project.

Yes. This was not just a matter of putting the Boychoir on a plane and flying to Czechoslovakia. We were still discussing how to get financing. With all good intentions there has to be money, and in order to do this we needed quite a bit of money. We were very fortunate in getting involved with people who were able to help us. Czech Airlines gave us an amazing rate for the 26 boys and some free tickets as well. Also, Prague was less than two years out of the "Velvet Revolution." It was really a new environment for them. The production costs were much less than they would have been in the States, so we were in a very good position to pull this off. If we got the money.

A week before we were to leave, I called John Ellis and shortly afterwards found myself at the Nassau Club, in Princeton, at lunch with Herb Hobler and John explaining the situation. Herb asked a lot of questions. A lot. Then I went away.

On the Friday before we were to leave I was scheduled to make a noon I call to Prague to give them the answer: Yes or No. At 10:30, I got a call from Herb to say he would personally advance $100,000 to fund the project. This film would not have happened if it were not for Herb Hobler's intervention on the financial side. There is no question about it. He made it possible for us to go on this trip.

Once you arrived in Czechoslovakia did things go as you had planned?

There was confusion as to our arrival time; the buses weren't there, the cars weren't there. But within a half hour we were besieged by buses and cars, and things went off like clockwork in

that regard. Remember there was not only the matter of what the Boychoir normally does on tour, there was the overlay of trying to get it all on film. While we coordinated plans for filming, the Boychoir went into rehearsal. Blanka Kulinska and Buhomil Kulinsky, directors of the Bambini di Praga (the Prague Philharmonic children's choir), had arranged for rehearsal space, and for the boys to be housed with their children's families.

On the day of the first concert, Sunday, October 13, I walked up to Smetana Hall and saw the poster which, although in Czech, said quite clearly The American Boychoir from Princeton, New Jersey, James Litton, Conductor, and the name of my production company. It was an indication that this was really happening. With only four days of rehearsing, here was the performance!

We then took the boys to Terezin for three days where they were hosted by the local Boy Scout troop.

It was incongruous. We were there to tell the story of this ghetto, in many ways a concentration camp. Yet today it is a town. It has reverted to what it was before World War II. The boys, and all of us who accompanied them, stayed in what was a Czech army officers' barracks. We were given passes that needed to be shown to get in and out of the barracks. Every time the young men at the front door looked at us it was like we'd come from another planet. They couldn't quite believe it. After all it hadn't been that long since the fall of the Wall and the Velvet Revolution. What changes!

Charles Davidson tells in the film the remarkable story of the butterfly flying in during a rehearsal on a rainy, grey day, circling around the Boychoir, circling around Charles and flying out again. I'm glad we didn't film it because people wouldn't have believed it. But we did film butterflies at Terezin a few days before the boys arrived. It was a warm day and butterflies were all over the place. The image of the butterfly was such a dominant theme in the children's writing. Once gain, it gets back to the idea of hope. A butterfly flies free. Fifty years later, it is perfectly understandable how the young children would have chosen such a beautiful image for their poems and paintings.

Once you finished the film and got a rough cut, how did the fund raising go?

Not long after we returned home I put something together to show we had indeed filmed, and invited several people to a screening. No one responded--zip, zero, nothing.

I ended up keeping the film reels myself and they sort of had their own diaspora, because I and they moved offices three times in the next three years. In those three years, I must have sent out 300 proposals and talked to many people. But I always knew I would finish the project. Finally, in 1994, I showed a rough cut to Lillian Vernon [of the Lillian Vernon catalogs], and she provided the funding for the editing and other post- production work.

Last summer I submitted the film for a CINE [Council on International Non-Theatrical Events] Golden Eagle award. Normally you don't do this until a film has been seen, but I did it on a hunch, and in November I got a letter saying the documentary had, in fact, received a Golden Eagle Award.

I'm glad that the film will be shown nationwide this Spring and over the next several years, and that it will be available on cassette, along with a study guide, for use in the classroom.

You had such faith in this from the first. What motivated you?

Charles Davidson and I have had conversations about our feeling that this was meant to happen. My attitude from the very beginning was that it would be finished. A lot of people looked at me in a very peculiar way because I talked about this constantly.

It's because the message is an important one. It's about humanity. It is a journey for all of us to explore. I was watching the film just last night as I was doing the final editing for public television. Every time I look at the film I learn something new. The words as spoken and sung by the Boychoir. The sense you get from the survivors. The images of the paintings. I don't get tired of it.

When you look at the credits for the film every person in one way or another had a role to play. There is a story behind every name. Of the individuals at the beginning of the credit most, most of them did not survive. It is their work, after all, that we are showing. Their drawings their poems.

The mission here was pretty straightforward. It is a legacy piece for present and future generations.

How do you think this trip affected members of the Boychoir?

From my perspective these boys, of 10 to 14 years of age when they took this journey, had nothing in their life experience to help them understand the adversity of those other children. On the other hand what the members of the Boychoir were doing. essentially, was bringing the words, through music, back to where they were created. To me they were the messengers. The transcendent quality of what they performed was what the audience heard, and was more important than what, as individuals, they felt at that time.

At the end of the film you hear three former choristers voice their impressions of, and their feeling about, having performed Butterfly at Terezin. These statements were made three years after the filming. The impact that the journey had on these young men was felt by them over time. It is clear that this experience made, and will continue to make, an enormous impression on their lives.