{"id":160502639,"date":"2017-11-29T05:50:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-29T05:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=160502639"},"modified":"2026-08-14T02:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T02:41:00","slug":"chasing-his-film-making-dream-my-interview-with-josh-eisenstadt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=160502639","title":{"rendered":"Chasing His Film Making Dream: My Interview with Josh Eisenstadt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Part 2 of my interview with Josh Eisenstadt, we discuss his journey into film making, his early work, his upcoming release Spreading Darkness and Josh also speaks a little about the script he\u2019s currently working on now. If you missed Part 1<\/a> of my interview with Josh, where we discussed Twin Peaks theories, the festival and much more here is the link: My Interview With Josh Eisenstadt: Part 1. I hope you enjoy this insightful conversation about a man chasing his movie-making dream and succeeding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On His Inspirations:<\/strong> I\u2019m sure one of my influences is pretty obvious [laughs]. I\u2019m influenced by all the greats though. Definitely Kubrick, I love a lot of his work. I try not to think about all of the films and filmmakers that I love and try to focus on what the story calls for. In my first two films, I think my influences show a lot more than they do in my last two. A lot of it is finding your own voice and I think I\u2019m getting closer to that point, especially with Spreading Darkness<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up wanting to be a Filmmaker:<\/strong> I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker as far back as I can remember. I know that I have a first-grade paper that I still have somewhere where the assignment was \u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow up\u201d, and I wrote that I wanted to be a movie director. There\u2019s a video from Thanksgiving dinner when I was 7 and my grandparents are asking me what I want to be when I grow up. I\u2019m having them guess and they\u2019re guessing all of these things and I\u2019m saying wrong to all of them. Finally, I said, \u201cI want to be a movie director\u201d. As far back as I can remember, this has been what I\u2019ve wanted to do. I was that kid turning my friends that weren\u2019t actors into actors running around with a video camera. I\u2019ve got plenty of videos from high school where I was trying to get my friends to be actors and say certain lines. It\u2019s always been something I\u2019ve loved and been passionate about, so I had no choice but to pursue it with absolutely everything I have my whole life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beginning of his career:<\/strong> I did go to UCLA and it was there that I decided to make my first film. I got together a very low budget and made a film. That was when digital cameras were first becoming available as a means of making films. They weren\u2019t as widely known about then. So I got one and this was after I had the chance to visit the set of Mulholland Drive<\/em> for two days. I met some people there that wound up helping me out making my first film. So I made this movie. I think the only reason I made it was because I didn\u2019t know how little I knew, so I thought I could do it. There were over 40 actors, over 30 locations and it was just an insane sized thing for the budget I had. I did complete it though and wound up doing a few film festivals with it. From there I made a second film a couple of years later and learned a lot more. I did more film festivals and had a good response from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there I did this 6 or 7 minute short called Inner Balance<\/em> starring Dana Ashbrook that really got things going for me. That came from a script that I wrote that I still want to do today and we filmed the 6 or 7 minute opening scene from that script. The cinematographer, Eric Steelberg has gone on to become a big cinematographer (Juno, Up in the Air, 500 Days of Summer, Baywatch<\/em>). I haven\u2019t talked to him in about 3 or 4 years, but the last time we spoke, he said he still wants to do my feature because he\u2019s doing a lot of comedies and he\u2019d love to do something different. I had described Inner Balance<\/em> as looking like a broke painting. The film has a very distinct look \u2014 all of this lead to my first good sized film, my third feature<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inner Balance:<\/strong> Inner Balance<\/em> isn\u2019t online anywhere, but we have screened it at the Twin Peaks Festival<\/em> before. It has to do with exactly what the title is. Someone\u2019s idea, maybe an extreme idea of keeping things around them. I don\u2019t want to say much more than that because I do still want to make the film, but it does involve someone getting kidnapped and being forced to watch an 8mm film [laughs].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing as a filmmaker: <\/strong>There was a big jump between my first, second and third films. I went from a much lower budget to a seven-figure budget for the third film. So a much bigger sized film. It\u2019s a lot different when you\u2019ve got huge trailers, a huge base camp, a huge crew and a bunch of known actors. It\u2019s a different experience. Not that I didn\u2019t have great actors in my earlier films because I did. I had people that I knew who were willing to come to do things and do me favors early on. I see it as there being a monumental change from film to film in terms of my growth as a filmmaker. The learning process, the analysis of what worked and what didn\u2019t work, seeing what my own faults were, the pitfalls that I fall into. Each step has been a monumental improvement. I think my next film will be too. My fifth film\u2019s script is being completed, and it\u2019s a complete absurd comedy, but it\u2019s not pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m looking forward to it because it\u2019s totally a different type of thing. It\u2019s going to be a lot of fun and I\u2019ve already talked to several people about being in the cast. Some of them I\u2019ve worked with before, some that I haven\u2019t but I\u2019m really looking forward to working with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being hands-on with his films:<\/strong> I like to co-write. I like to come up with the characters and the story, and I like to have a co-writer come in and work on it and then I come back and shift some things around. In my films, I\u2019m extremely hands on. I try to focus on the writing and directing part of it, but it\u2019s a necessity that I get hands-on in a lot of other areas. Before filming, I\u2019m involved with the production aspect of it but once we\u2019re shooting, the producer part goes away and I\u2019m solely directing. I can\u2019t do both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spreading Darkness:<\/strong> When I was working on my third feature, Dark Reel<\/em>, I had other thoughts on what I wanted to do next. Mainly my thoughts were going towards Inner Balance<\/em>. That\u2019s really where I was at the time; I wanted to do it next. I should say this: Spreading Darkness<\/em> is by far my most personal film. Without going into any details, it was inspired by some things that I saw happen to people I know and told in a completely fictionalized way. There\u2019s a very big question of morality in Spreading Darkness<\/em>. Every character is a shade of grey, with some being much darker shades. I had my first thought for what would become Spreading Darkness<\/em> driving through In-N- Out Burger. I\u2019m not sure why their drive-thru line inspired this, but I\u2019m envisioning this psychiatrist\u2019s office. The psychiatrist character, who wound up being played by John Savage and the patient who was played by Rena Riffel (Mulholland Drive, Dark Reel<\/em>) came to me. She\u2019s being questioned by the psychiatrist about someone who had destroyed her life and the psychiatrist is encouraging her to seek revenge on the person who had ruined her life. Then as a reward, handed her a pair of pink socks for doing what he wanted. So I had that idea driving through In-N-Out Burger, and the burger was particularly good that day, which didn\u2019t hurt. Then other things started to inspire the businessman character that Eric Roberts winds up playing. He\u2019s not successful, he\u2019s at a moral crossroads and he\u2019s got this really nasty billionaire as his mentor who\u2019s bullying him into bullying others. There\u2019s this revolutionary new invention on the market that not that many people know about yet and Eric Robert\u2019s character is being bullied into ripping the inventor off and stealing his invention, which sets off this whole chain of bad events. The question of \u201cWhat is this invention\u201d becomes a question mark throughout the film. I haven\u2019t done an official screening yet but there are a few people who have seen the film and that\u2019s a question I get. I think the answers are all on screen. Look closely is all I\u2019ll say. It\u2019s not so much about what the invention is though and more about what Eric Robert\u2019s character has done. That was the second idea, this dark energy overtaking him after he steals the invention and then it connected to the first idea I had at the In-N-Out Burger. A lot of times it works that way with me. I get a lot of little ideas for storylines. There\u2019s one over here, one over there and another that way but two of them will feel like they\u2019re part of the same story. In the writing process, a lot of it is just following these leads and then developing who these characters are. In the case of this film, I wanted everyone to very much be a shade of moral grey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know why I was drawn to the ideas that became Spreading Darkness<\/em>, but I was. So you write a script, you get it funded, you film it and you get it out. You do the best job you can and release it. I know that my life inspired some of the ideas, and some were inspired by people I know. Anybody that\u2019s making any kind of film is expressing how they feel at that time. The film might not express it in a straight forward way, but it\u2019s expressing them in some way, perhaps through symbolism. Everyone has times in life where someone has something wrong done to them. This film is a lot about not letting that destroy you as a person or becoming that yourself. It\u2019s definitely a major theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becoming more experienced:<\/strong> There\u2019s so much to learn about film making that before every new film I make, I realize that I know less than I thought I did [laughs]. There\u2019s always so much more to learn. Things do move quicker with experience. You have a sense of how things need to be done and when to do them. You learn ways to communicate ideas quicker. The big rule, especially in independent film is that the clock is your enemy. I think it\u2019s that way in any film really. The more prep you have, the more everyone goes into the day knowing what you\u2019re doing, the better. However, you want to leave room to experiment. You never know what might come up during rehearsal or whenever that might make the scene 20x better. There was one scene in Spreading Darkness<\/em> where everything was planned one way and we get there with the actors on location and all of a sudden it\u2019s not working at all. So I have to go back to the drawing board and work with the actors to find another way to run the scene. We found a way to run it really, really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, what that did was now change the shot list, but it needed to be done. We knew we were going to go overtime. That meant the entire cast and crew were now getting paid overtime. You look at your budget and you figure out where you can cut elsewhere because in a scene such as this one it needed to be right. Oftentimes you have to improvise. You see it one way in your head, and you get there and you\u2019re in that space, and it\u2019s different. Ultimately I don\u2019t think this example cost us that much time. If this had been my second film instead of my fourth, it probably would have cost us a lot of time. That\u2019s one big thing that experience does. If something\u2019s not working, experience tells you not to forge ahead with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Thoughts:<\/strong> I\u2019m proud of the film. It\u2019s another stepping point. You try to get as close as you can to how you envisioned it being but you never get all the way there. There\u2019s all kind of constraints, but you get as close as you can. There\u2019s a lot of stuff in here I\u2019m really proud of. It\u2019ll be available on Video OnDemand on March 6th, so Netflix, Amazon Prime all of that. On January 2nd is the Blu Ray and DVD release. I know the deal was closed to sell the film in WalMart so it will definitely be there and we\u2019re working on additional retailers that sell DVDs and Blu Rays. We did the film festival rounds for Dark Reel<\/em> that we won\u2019t be doing this time. I may have other plans that I can\u2019t talk about too much at this time [laughs]. Keep an eye on the Spreading Darkness<\/em> Facebook page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Part 2 of my interview with Josh Eisenstadt, we discuss his journey into film making, his early work, his upcoming release Spreading Darkness and Josh also speaks a little about the script he\u2019s currently working on now. If you missed Part 1 of my interview with Josh, where we discussed Twin Peaks theories, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160502640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[112,21],"class_list":["post-160502639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-david-lynch","tag-director"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160502639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160502641,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160502639\/revisions\/160502641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/160502640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160502639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160502639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160502639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}