Frame by Frame: 'Eephus'

'Eephus' director Carson Lund breaks down nine key frames in his debut feature, about the last rec league baseball game played at Soldier Field.

Eephus, the debut feature from writer-director Carson Lund, is set entirely at the final rec league baseball game played at Soldier Field, a fictional ballpark in a small New England town. It’s the sort of low-budget feature concept that’s typically better theory than in execution. The benefit of a single, inexpensive location is quickly offset by the difficulty of battling the elements, casting two full teams of ballplayers, and convincingly capturing a sport in action. But Lund and his team — forgive the pun — hit it out of the park. Eephus is gorgeously photographed, with the roving camera capturing both the mundanity and beauty of an amateur baseball game; it’s perfectly cast, chock full of interesting faces and subtle performances; and it captures the leisurely pace of a baseball game without ever feeling dull or flat. Ultimately, the film becomes a solemn reflection on finality and the passage of time, with baseball being a stand-in for cinema. Ahead of the film’s release this week, I had Lund break down several key frames in the film. He discussed his approach to blocking, camera movement, and casting.

This is one of the first images of the movie. You're introducing us to the field. There's this great set decoration with a sign that says "Freedom is never free." Tell me about this shot, what you're trying to accomplish, and how much actual production design you were doing.

I'll come right out and say it, this is just the way the field was. I actually wasn't so sure about having this "Freedom is never free" sign at first, because it didn't feel quite period accurate. The film is set in the '90s, and I worried it was a little too contemporary in the font choice. But ultimately, "Freedom is never free" is such an American notion. And because it has that military association, and the field itself — Soldier Field — has that military association, I always thought of these characters as sort of soldiers against time. And it's something that came to me more and more as I decided upon this field. We even considered changing the name of the field at one point, and it wasn't going to be feasible. So it was sort of a happy accident, that this theme comes out. And to be honest, it sort of influenced the choice of score as well, and the way we use drums in the film. I wanted it to feel like a syncopated drum march. Not quite rhythmic in the way military drums would be. I wanted to give it a strange, halting rhythm.

This shot was actually captured after principal photography. It all relates to this character Franny, who over the course of the post production became more and more integral to the film's texture and meaning. Franny is based off of this townie I remember from my hometown of Nashua, New Hampshire. It's the only character that's very specifically modeled after someone. We took it quite far from the way I remember this man to be, but the spirit of him is intact. This is a character who comes to every game, keeps score, and for him this trivia of all this local rec league baseball is very meaningful. It's how he creates meaning, creating these box scores. But I realized that there's a certain mystery to him. We never really understand what else goes on in his life. He comes out of the woods and he goes back into the woods. And as I structured the film in the edit, I realized we should bookend the film that way. Originally he walks into the woods a few shots prior to the ending. And then we structured the film with these chapter cards that relate to different times of day. Obviously, time of day and time in general is a big theme in the film. But I wanted those chapter cards to be from his point of view.

Obviously this is an ensemble film and there's sort of an equal distribution of attention between the different characters, but to the extent that there's a soul of the film, that's Franny. And I wanted to give him this moment of subjectivity — and for the audience to feel his subjectivity before we enter the field and enter the game and periodically go back to Franny. I wanted this reflective moment with him where he gets to look at the film before anyone's there to feel like a moment when he gets to spend his own time with the space, with the dirt, with the grass, before anyone's arrived. It's sort of a blank slate. And it's sort of the last time he'll remember the field in this state, before the land is developed. So yeah, this is a late development that I think is key to understanding this movie as a reflection of the townie spirit — someone who's so enthusiastic about people coming together and being a spectator to that.

How did you find the actor who plays Franny?