Wild Rivers Film Radio: Eric Eisenstein – The Telling of a True Story of Addiction Recovery in “Blueberries”

In this episode of Wild Rivers Film Radio, hosts Sue Wright and Ozy Pops sit down with filmmaker Eric Eisenstein to talk about his short film, Blueberries. Eric shares the motivation for this project and the process of creating a film in a forty-day film competition. The conversation weaves together concept development, writing, casting, shooting, […]

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Greetings, cinephiles.
I'm Sue Wright. And I'm Aussie Pubbs.
And welcome to the Wild Rivers Film Radio,
the official podcast of the Wild Rivers Film
Festival
here on KCIW
one hundred point seven FM.
Today, we're sitting down with Eric Eisenstein,

(00:28):
who is the director of one of the
films we're showing at this year's film festival,
Blueberries.
Thanks for being with us today. Thanks thanks
for having me. Yeah. Welcome, Eric. Thank you.
You traveled all the way here from Philadelphia.
I did. It's
it's funny. I would I submitted blueberries to
dance festival in Orlando last year, and,

(00:50):
he was good enough to accept it. I
made plans ongoing,
and I had emergency eye surgery. I had
to attach retina, which means no flying for
eight weeks.
So I couldn't go, and he emailed me
a month or so, a good two months
ago, and said, we well, I have this
other thing in Oregon, and we liked your
movie.
Would you like to enter it and come?
And I
said, yeah. I've never been to the South

(01:11):
Coast Of Oregon. I've been around the world,
and this is this is a bucket list
place.
So plan a vacation around it, and it
turned out to be a great decision. This
is wonderful. It's a wonderful community,
wonderful arts community. The people people have been
great. The weather's great.
Yeah. It's it's I'm I'm just really happy
I came. I'm glad you got to check

(01:32):
that thing on your list of Yeah. Since
I've gotta go. Yeah. And all the weed
stores are just a bonus.
Yeah. We we really lucked out with Yeah.
We really lucked out with the weather. It
only rained overnight. Yeah. Right? Got sunny again
today. Yeah. So it's all it's all good
here in Brookings.
Well, good. I had I had the pleasure
of seeing your film this morning. It was

(01:54):
a a film about alcoholism and recovery, and
our responses to that,
can you know? It's a life story lots
of people go through. Yeah. Well, do you
know what they they tell you? And it's
come up here on several occasions at at
the seminars. You write what you know about.
Yes. And,

(02:15):
a year and a half ago, I decided
to quit drinking and it was a journey
and I decided to chronicle part of that
journey and
it's it's based on it.
The the idea was Blueberries was originally made
for a forty day film festival.
And for those of you who don't know
how a forty day film festival works, they
email you on day one

(02:36):
and say this is the theme or there's
certain elements we wanna see in the movie.
It could be lighting. It could be
camera. You know, they wanna see a lot
of movement or they wanna see static shots.
They but this particular film festival
was
for,
forty days
and the email came
and
the,
what was needed on this particular film was

(02:58):
it had to be based on a true
story.
It could be historical. It didn't have to
be you, but it had to be based
on the true story. So I was about
a month out of rehab,
and I was finding and it might have
been in my all in my own head
or it might have been real, but I
found
I was perceiving
that people like me better. There were some
people who like me better as a drunk.

(03:20):
I can see. I I think that's not
an uncommon thing. And that was the genesis
of the story.
Mhmm.
From there,
I decided, yeah, it's my story, but
I'm 68 years old. I quit drinking.
I'm still sitting on the couch by myself
and watching baseball every night, but I'm doing

(03:42):
it sober. But I wanted to put the
story I wanted to give the story a
little more ramifications.
I mean, so yeah. Fine. I'm sitting by
myself. So we I I talked to Josh
who wrote the screenplay.
We worked on the story together.
Josh James who also acts in it and
he's wonderful.
And I said, I wanna move the story
I wanna give the story to a couple

(04:03):
or I want the story to have ramifications.
So the ramifications
for Josh who goes to rehab in the
movie is that if he doesn't get his
together, his fiancee
is leaving him.
So that's kind of the genesis of it.
And then really what it's about is finding
your middle. When you when you find
when you do something like quitting

(04:25):
or and making a life change like that,
sometimes you slingshot. You go like, I came
home from rehab.
I had affirmations all over the house, over
the toilet. So first thing I saw you
in the morning is, life is good. You
know, all that and all good stuff. Don't
get me wrong. And I applaud people that
do it. But I went to a little
bit of an extreme. And

(04:46):
this the film is about finding your middle,
finding what will work for you so you
can go on.
And that's what we did. And
that's basically the genesis of the story and
and what it's about. It's about
being able to handle change and finding your
place
in that change that's gonna make it work

(05:06):
for you. And I guess the people around
you, if you care about what people think,
I didn't think I did. I didn't give
a shit, but you do.
You do. So
I think we all do. Well, I think
we all do too. What a what a
cool way to channel some of that energy
you have when you're Yeah. You're fresh out
of rehab and you're you're, you know, you're

(05:27):
in you're in transition and all that and
Yeah. You you had an artistic outlet to
put it toward. Yeah. Because otherwise, the alternative
was chocolate. That's what they give you. There
you go. They give you a lot of
sugar and a lot of chocolate. Well, stop
you. I didn't.
I said, if I quit drinking, I'm losing
weight. I'm not eating chocolate and gaining weight.
So I gotta find something else to do,
and

(05:48):
it's been a great outlet. It's been very
therapeutic.
And, hopefully, it it resonates with with with
people.
I do think that we need those kind
of stories out there to to
give voice to that process, but also to
give hope to others who
aren't there yet or who have tried and

(06:09):
failed. And I think and you're allowed to
fail. You're you're allowed to fail. I've been
lucky. I'd I've gone
I I maybe because I was so bad.
Once I saw that I could do it,
I said I'm not doing it anymore.
And, honestly,
as a retiree,
it's like another pension. The money

(06:30):
I was spending on booze, and I say
that half jokingly. Yeah. And it's
it was like getting another the money I
was spending on booze,
I I I would say roughly I'm spending
I'm saving about $900 a month with all
the drinking and
eating in bars and all that.
You used one of the words that I

(06:51):
that
it it worked for me. Like, I I
saw that you were trying to tell a
balanced story in it.
And from my own life experiences, you you
made me laugh a few times. Well, thanks.
Because you gotta have it's a serious story
but you gotta laugh too because you get
It didn't it didn't It can't be all
serious. You gotta you gotta be able to
laugh at these things a little bit and

(07:11):
and find humor.
And I think that's what that was the
goal. We wanted to make it a bit
of a
little bit of a crazy situation, and we
had not crazy, but an interesting situation, which
I think we did.
And when it was time to approach the
subject seriously, we made that shift
Into the ramp the more serious ramifications and

(07:34):
things like that. But we had fun in
the beginning. It's,
it it's fun. And I think we talked
about,
I was talking about this earlier. What what
I enjoy doing is, and you've seen it,
you've seen the film.
And I I I've done it in every
film I've I've made and I love doing
it. We we basically told you
what the movie's about in that first shot

(07:56):
with him talk and we said this guy's
got problem. You see it from the first
shot. This guy's got problems. He's a loud
mouth and he needs a change. His words
don't even
there's a until he holds up that cask
and says, but drinking is good for you
or whatever the line is,
it doesn't matter what he said, but it
was all b s. Well, you're just learning
in this guy. So we've told you in
the very first shot

(08:17):
what this movie is about Mhmm. Which I
love doing.
And,
yeah, you just see that that you know
this movie is probably gonna be about this
guy changing.
You know, we we pretty much foreshadowed the
whole movie in the whole first minute.
So,
yeah.
It was a lot of fun. It was

(08:38):
a great
it was a perfect storm of a great
crew.
Small,
small budget. We shot it in three and
a half days,
but
just fun people. And that's a recommendation I
make for people. Do you get you gotta
work with people you like.
Don't hire your friends. That would We talked

(08:58):
about it Because they all know we talked
about that in the seventh. Don't hire your
friends, but you you can become friends eventually,
but hire good people. I I like what
you mentioned earlier today when I was talking
with you about when you shot it in
three and a half days. How you,
you were mostly in just one house. Yeah.
Well, we did. And you did it in
succession? Like we talked about in the seminar.

(09:20):
We we literally started at the back of
the house in the kitchen in Philadelphia, row
out,
moved to the living room, shot the scenes
there, and moved outside to the very cold
weather. It was cold. It was like 20
degrees that day when we were shooting the
scenes outside on the
on the car. And
and the funny thing is
you never know. There's when I talked about

(09:42):
this early a little bit too,
a lot of,
nothing wrong with appreciating a little luck. You
can't plan everything and some and sometimes luck's
coming into play.
There's a very critical scene in this movie
that takes place after
takes place on a little bridge in Philadelphia.
And I drove and I know Philly pretty
well. I drove all over the city looking

(10:04):
for a place to shoot the scene.
The house we were in, we're shooting and
just to take a break and I know
when I need to walk away, so I'd
I'd take a walk around down the block
towards the river.
A block from where we were shooting the
movie is the most perfect
it was literally perfect. I said, this is

(10:24):
it. Cancel the scene. Cancel tomorrow where we're
going.
Leave we can leave everything here. We're just
going right down the street tomorrow.
So you never know. It was it was
great and,
we lucked into a couple things. You do
need some luck. You do need luck.
But
luck is also the residue of design. So
if you do your pre pro and

(10:45):
you you luck into some good things. I
I told this story to somebody today. The
very first film I made
was called, Reset
with 10 film.
And
it was also dealt with alcoholism,
but
I shot it, oh, God, it'll be three
years ago, three years in October.
I was drinking heavily, never drank on the

(11:07):
set, but as soon as we were done,
and I didn't consider myself an alcoholic,
at the time we made the movie. But
we did it we made it like a
Twilight Zone thing where he was literally fighting
the bottle.
He would throw the bottle away, come upstairs,
and there's the bottle again. So and I
shot it that sequence in black and white.
And people said, why'd you do that? Is

(11:29):
it and that might have been a mistake
because people took that as a dream, but
really wasn't it wasn't. It was real time,
but it was sci sci fi. And it
was simply people said, why did you put
black and white? It was an homage to
the Twilight Zone that I grew up watching.
It was an homage to the Twilight Zone
to, Outer Limits Yeah. Shows I grew up
watching because it was a similar story.

(11:50):
And, but the reason I even bring that
up is
there was one critical shot, one of the
most critical shots of the film.
And I had it set up so
he's in the kitchen on the floor. He's
reached his lowest point.
So he's we're showing that. He's on the
floor throwing up.
And the camera was supposed to be up

(12:11):
against this railing, so we see the rails
is entrapment, all that stuff. But I I
had I'm gonna stand for one second. I
had him kinda standing getting the shot.
While we're setting lights and all that stuff,
the camera's sitting on the ground next to
the railing.
I said, oh. I I I bend down.
I look into the lens. I said, nobody
touch this camera. That's the shot we need.

(12:33):
This is the shot and it was the
most power powerful shot of the movie.
So again, you luck in the things but
because you design things and you prepare
You know what you need. You know you're
you're in the ballpark. It get it gets
you in the ballpark
And that's why I tell people
preparation can be the biggest pain in the
ass, but it pays off

(12:54):
dividends. It saves you money. It saves you
time. It's a
it's to be prepared. There's a reason movies
take so long to make in pre pro
and things like that. Editing takes forever and
cost you a fortune. So the more you
spend on that pre production, the less you
have to spend Exactly. Back in editing. Because
you don't know. We had a situation with

(13:15):
Blueberries.
I actually spent more on sound design than
I spent for the rest of the movie.
And the reason was we
the movie is very dialogue heavy.
And we had one scene on the street
where he's going into rehab and she's sending
him off and he doesn't wanna go.
And we shot it on the streets of
Philadelphia.

(13:37):
And it got all the traffic noise. Well,
we were supposed to shoot it on President's
Day, which is like a Sunday. And I
actually went
on another holiday to scout the air, see
how much traffic it was, whatever the Monday
holiday was before that.
And I said, this is good. This will
work. It might slow us down a little
bit, but not too much.
Well, one of our actors couldn't make it

(13:57):
that day, and we had to move it
to another
regular weekday with the cars. And it wasn't
a busy street, but it was busy enough
that just cars are whizzing by. It doesn't
take much.
It doesn't take much. And now your best
take it might be ruined and so I
had to take it. I took it to
a sound design place in Philadelphia and this
guy does m l m like Shalahan's boobies

(14:19):
and all that. It costs some money, but
you know what? Like we were saying the
other day, if you can't hear it, the
sounds, then what's the point?
Yes. It's a pig yes. You love pretty
pictures and all that, and I I'm a
picture person.
I like making nice pictures
in film. You you'll never see a lot
of camera work. I believe set the shot,

(14:40):
let the action take place within the frame
as much as you can. Obviously, you can
all the time.
But,
yeah. So I like the I like the
mash up of the two because I I
tend to be a dialogue person to a
large extent. And hanging around,
the film festival, I've gotten a a much
more deeper appreciation for the picture side of

(15:01):
it. Yeah. And watch it. And editing
conversations
can be so
rewarding. It's a it's,
especially the last scene in Blueberries could have
been edited a 100 different ways. But
I'm a fan
of being on the reaction of the speak
people. Yes. In theory,

(15:23):
TV, film one zero one, the camera should
be on the person talking, but that's not
always the case.
You want to see the reaction of the
person being spoken to
and then go back to the person speaking
for their reaction
when the person responds.
Mhmm. And and it's I think it's totally
an artistic decision by the editor and yourself

(15:43):
depending how much you're involved with the editor.
And it doesn't matter what level you're shooting
when you get that. We did that. We
did
a exercise with the kids in our workshop
this summer, just two kids sitting there Mhmm.
Talking, one irritating the other. Mhmm. And just
to get their reactions,
it it actually became

(16:04):
we picked it up through a chair through
the window.
It's an Oregon classic already here. Yeah. I'd
like to see that. But,
but it just came out of this exercise
of of under helping the kids understand how
to shoot dialogue from different angles and Yeah.
Then editing it together. Well, now you have
the end is if you're shooting digitally, which

(16:25):
most people do now, nobody's using film,
you have to save time with editing especially
on the on the smaller budget film, what
I've done
is you shoot it wider, but you can
always
digitally tighten the Right. Tighten the shot. So
that's something you never did before,
able to do before.

(16:45):
That, you can still get a quality shot
by tightening it digitally. So you shoot a
little wider, it might not be the perfect
framing,
but you can adjust framing and you have
a whole bunch of options,
doing it that way. So that that's very
time saving.
Just shoot it wide. It might not look
weird to you it might look weird to
you, but frame it and and check the
tight shot that you have enough headroom.

(17:06):
You can you can check it. So if
if the shot's still framed nicely, then, yeah,
do it that way. Save time. And our
I don't know if you've seen the small
town Nutcracker story that we just screened. It's
the last time I am way behind on
stuff I gotta say.
But it it's that's what happened. Our cinematographer
framed everything fairly because it's a dance movie,

(17:26):
which are really hard to do. And then
the editor
digitally
comes in close on lots of things, including
the gown the gowns that the dancers are
wearing Yeah. And really
made some magic in the editing with that
product. It helps editing and it and it
moves your day along, especially on a small
budget. Just shoot it this way. Mhmm.

(17:48):
We don't have you know, back in the
day, you did another take. You moved the
camera in. You did another take. You moved
the camera a little closer. You did another
take.
You know? And, you know, so it's less
stress. And we were shooting with kids,
with student dancers during COVID. So it was
cool. Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. But,

(18:08):
If I if you don't mind, change directions
a little bit.
You you mentioned that,
Josh James was the one who,
put put the story together for Blueberries. Yeah.
He he And he's he's also the he's
also the one who's the lead. He's the
lead and Josh He did he did such
a phenomenal job. Isn't he fantastic? Yeah. He

(18:29):
I liked his I liked his performance from
beginning to end. Yeah. And and acting wise,
I gave him very little notes. The notes
I gave him were
because he was the writer. So
I was able to make suggestions to him.
But he's waiting he's fair. He's won a
couple acting awards for this film. Cool. And,

(18:49):
and he wrote it, and
I I came to him with the story.
If I wanted to take a writing credit,
I could have, but it's Josh did such
a fine job with what he did. But
because he was in it and because he
was a writer and because I had no
problem going to him with changes.
The I don't know if I even talked

(19:11):
about this this morning, but the intervention scene,
in the movie for instance, we have this
intervention. Oh, yeah. Someone asked what your favorite
scene is. We have this intervention scene and
I'm sitting where we finished rehearsal ready to
shoot.
And I'm thinking, why is there only four
people? Why did we play an intervention scene
with four people? So I said, Josh, come
here. And I called him over. I said,
don't say anything to anybody.

(19:32):
I said, when you get up to go,
because he gets up to leave because he's
had it with everybody.
I said, mention what a shitty intervention this
is. They said
And he wrote and so he did it
on the first take and they're trying to
bite their lip, the other people,
Liz is the co lead, starts laughing.
So we redid it.
But again, it was a fun thing to

(19:53):
do on set that we could
we could we could change. It really was
a great I say, he threw out a
great line. He's he gets up and he
goes he starts. So he goes, is this
the best you could do by the way?
And it is great. He wrote he wrote
it beautifully and it changed the tone of
the rest of the scene. So it it
worked out great.
It's in again, I

(20:14):
it's so much fun and on a film
of that size where there's no stress, there's
not people overlooking your shoulder. If you wanna
make a change and everybody says it's funny
or it works, then you do it.
You do it. I I don't like being
tied down to it. It sounds silly, but
once we start shooting, I don't even have
a script anymore. The actors know their lines.
I know the shots I want. There's a

(20:34):
script supervisor if they blow it. I don't
I don't even stand on
but it's and I think that's the case
with the I think if you're director and
you've done your planning,
by the time you get to the floor,
you don't need the script. And you get
a natural feel. Yeah. You get a feel.
You trust the I trusted them to know
their lines. I know they rehearse together on
their own.
You know, look at at this level of

(20:55):
film, everybody has jobs. They have lives. You
can't but I know that I knew I
trusted them to rehearse on their own. We
had a day of rehearsal together.
But,
I don't like to rehearse too much either.
Leave room to improvise and, you know, be
in the moment.
Yeah. There was there was a good moment
during that intervention scene that made me laugh

(21:17):
and sit in the back row laughing because
one one of the lady the guy is
storming out. Yeah. And he's like, I'm I've
had it with this intervention,
and it it show it pans back to
the four people sitting there. And the the
lady on the end is trying to show
pictures on her cell phone to the lady
next to her. Yeah. That was completely
checked out. Like I'll take credit for that

(21:39):
one. We have this older woman, the grand,
presumably the grandmother,
and she's the one, not the other one.
She's the one on the phone. You know,
the so let's give the phone and the
texting thing to the oldest person here. So
which made it a lot funnier. Uh-huh. For
sure. Yes. I thought so that would thank
you. That that worked nice. That was and
and and,
Her heart wasn't in the intervention at all.

(22:01):
Her heart wasn't in the intervention. Yeah. She's
shown her daughter presumably the
his mother pictures and all that. Some dog
some dog pictures or something. Oh, she had
no interest. She
so it it it was that was a
fun shoot. I haven't I haven't seen it
yet, but now you've got me really wanting
to see it. After all this.

(22:22):
Yeah.
What I hope it doesn't stink. What's next?
Well, I have I have a film in
the can that's being edited right now.
It's called Loosely Based,
and it's based on the guy named Lou.
Lou's So the title would be the title
was definitely the easiest part to come up
with, and,

(22:42):
that it's it's another good story. It's,
We like good stories. It's it's a positive
story.
I'm not sure the final product is gonna
be what we set out to make.
But some stories have a life of their
own, doesn't it? Yeah. And this has a
this hopefully has a life of its own
because,
it's funny. We talked to at the seminar

(23:02):
today,
and don't work with friends, but work with
people you can get along with. And,
this particular film,
I had to use a cinematographer
that I really didn't know,
and it affected things.
I didn't like them that much

(23:24):
as a person, and maybe that's me being
an ass. I don't know. But little things
add up. Like when
we shot in an Airbnb,
three
huge three story house and that we rented
for the weekend so we could stay there.
We had rooms to stay in,
blah blah blah. So I come down and,
like and I'm a stickler for time. To

(23:45):
me, on time is late. And I if
the That's the filmmaker's by the front. We're
supposed to start at nine. You should be
there at five to nine ready. Anyway,
so I come downstairs.
I said, this is he'll rename me. I
said, come on. Let's go look at the
first shot. I'll be with you in a
minute.
And and he's just sat there and finished

(24:05):
his coffee for ten minutes and the story
he was telling the person that that doesn't
fly with me. Nobody had likes to have
fun on a set more than me. Believe
me.
And I did this
with television. I worked in television for forty
years.
Traveled,
but when the time came to work,
you work. Uh-huh.

(24:26):
And you're not late. Time is money. Time
is money. And,
Or missed opportunities. And he was just a
little too full of himself. And and he
and so the point being is,
like we talked about at the seminars, you
have to surround yourself with good people, but
good people you can work with. And it
affected the film.

(24:46):
So it's
more,
this is the fur this will be the
first film where I'm really putting it in
the hands of the editor,
with
and it's like, here it is, and let
me see it when you're done, then we'll
figure out where we need to go from
there. But, anyway, Lou's story is quickly,
and I told this this morning, so I'll
be brief.

(25:07):
But,
my background's television. I was an cameraman and
then part time director at NBC for forty
years. I've directed for ESPN. I've directed concerts.
So sports I was a sports cameraman on
NBC for twenty years before I directed sports.
I knew music. I've directed concerts
all over the country. So that came from

(25:29):
a place of knowledge, music.
When I retired, I wanted to make films.
I wanted to tell stories,
and I felt I should get to know
acting. Even though I worked on soap operas
in Saturday Night Live, I figured I better
learn something about acting. So I went to
acting school. Directors need to know a little
bit about everything.
Exactly. You have to know every job. You
don't have to be an expert, but you
have to have a place of knowledge.

(25:49):
You surround yourself with experts. Yes. But have
a place of knowledge
of you should have a knowledge. If you're
gonna be the boss and tell people what
to do, you have to at least have
a knowledge of what they're doing. So,
Lou
is on the spectrum. He's in the acting
class. And the teacher is a good guy

(26:10):
and kinda tolerates him. He's on the spectrum,
fairly functional.
And, he handed he saw Blueberries and he
came to me a couple months later and
handed me a script that he wrote.
He said, will you read the script? I
said, absolutely.
Well, the script was,
not a script. It was a narrative. It
was written longhand.
Well, I mean, he typed it, but

(26:32):
I walked in the door of the house.
I went down. I made a left hand
turn. I walked down the hallway, made another
left hand turn.
Long story short,
we moved the story forward and, it
the movie's about that he tries his hand
at acting. He's failing miserably. His father wants
him to work and give it up and
work in the family. Turns out he's a

(26:54):
writer and he writes a good a great
movie and that's how it ends.
So that's that's his genesis of that movie
whether it turns out, not sure what the
final product is gonna look at.
Anyway, that answers your question and I'm also
working on a documentary right now, my first
documentary. Oh, let's talk more.
For those of you in our audience, this

(27:15):
has this interview with Eric Eisenstein
and the film Blueberries, which is playing at
the Wild Rivers Film Festival twenty twenty five.
And available on YouTube. Yes. And available on
YouTube. Great.
So,
if you'd like to find out more about
the festival, bypasses, volunteer, or explore sponsorship opportunities,
you can visit wild rivers film festival dot

(27:37):
com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
And come here next year. It's a great
event. Thank you. Yeah. Yes. And come next
year. Come next year. Thank you so much.
Alright. Thank you, guys. Thank you for having
me. Thank you. We appreciate you making it
all this way. And
I Especially your first trip to the West
to the Oregon Coast. Yeah. I'm I'm actually
flying out of Portland Tuesday night. I'm taking

(27:59):
the red ice, so I'm gonna drive up
the coast one day and Tuesday. Okay. Well,
it's a beautiful drive. That's what I hear.
Okay.
Our recordings by Michael Gorse, our sound mixings
by Tom Bozak. I'm the producer, Sue Wright.
And until next time oh, and Ozzy.
And I'm here helping. Can't forget Ozzy. Thank
you. Pops. And until next time, we'll see

(28:20):
you at the movies.