Brent Wilson

Director Brent Wilson on making the documentary “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road”

Brent, congratulations on this beautiful and emotional film. There have been several documentaries and films about Brian and The Beach Boys. Can you tell us why you set out to make your own?

First and foremost, thank you very much. It’s a privilege to be asked to be a part of such a direct connect to Brian’s fans. And yes, everyone involved is extremely proud. It’s very rewarding to know that after all the hard work and all of this time that the film is being received so well.

As for setting out on this adventure, I’ve been attending Beach Boys and Brian Wilson concerts since I was 9, and I’ll just say that’s a long time. Brian’s music has been a constant companion on my journey since that first concert at the Louisville, fairgrounds. It was the Keepin’ The summer Alive tour and remember it like it was yesterday. 

So, for me as a filmmaker, the first thing I look for is a subject that inspires me and a story that can be redemptive. Making documentaries is a long, tough process that requires a lot of passion, and Brian’s story and his music certainly embodies those characteristics that I need to begin the process. 

I can also listen to his music everyday – which is a requirement for music docs. 

As you said though, there are a lot of great projects already out there; Alan Boyd’s Endless Harmony, David Leaf’s Beautiful Dreamer and Don Was’s, I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times. Combine these with Love & Mercy, which feels like a documentary because it’s so visceral, and you do have a remarkable accounting of Brian’s story.

But as a fan and a filmmaker, I still felt that there was more within his life and his music that was worth exploring. 

Initially, I wanted to pick-up where Love & Mercy left-off … Brian’s incredible third act in his life. I had seen him in concert here in LA at The Greek right after Love & Mercy came out and it was actually on Brian’s birthday. Before the encore, all of Brian’s kids and grandkids came out with a cake and sang to him. You could see this really touching moment right there on stage where he was surrounded by so much love. 

I thought to myself what a remarkable journey it must have been for him to get to this place, right now, on that stage. That was the journey I wanted to take audiences on, and as I began the work and got to understand Brian a little better, I realized that telling that story meant telling the story of Brian’s courage. 

I just needed to figure out how to accomplish that. 

The name of the film is “Long Promised Road,” which is a song written by Carl Wilson. On the one hand, it makes sense, since much of the film takes place with Brian and writer Jason Fine driving around Los Angeles. But we’re betting there’s another reason for it as well?

There is indeed.  And I’ll tell you, I knew we were courting controversy when we chose that title. We were considering multiple tittles, and all of them at first read made more sense. 

At some point I scribbled down Long Promised Road because of the metaphor of the title and as you mentioned, the road trip Brian and Jason take that is the spine of the film. But I never seriously considered it. 

How could I - it’s Carl’s song?

As the film unfolded in the edit bay, it began to dawn on me that maybe Long Promised Road could be the title.  

I don’t want to give away too much, but I’ll just say that I hope when fans see the film that they’ll see how poetically beautiful that song now connects to Brian’s life today.  

As a side-note, I had the pleasure to meet with Jerry Schilling after he had seen a rough cut of the film. Jerry has managed The Beach Boys for a longtime on and off over the years and was Carl’s manager, as well as one of his best friends.   

I asked Jerry at that lunch if he thought Carl would be ok with me using the title. Jerry answered, he would be proud. 

 That’s when I knew we had our title.

Getting to know Brian during making this film, what did you learn about him that you didn’t know?

I’ll tell you, the first thing that surprised me was that if he wants to remember, the man forgets nothing. His ability to recall dates and locations is remarkable.  Which in Brian’s case may not always be a good thing. 

With that said though, and without trying to make this sound like a plug, but everything I learned about Brian, I believe is reflected in the film and the audience will come to know him the same way as I did.

I want to believe that the film works because the crew, me and obviously Jason allowed Brian to feel comfortable and safe, and when he’s in that place he reveals himself in ways I’ve never seen before. I think audiences will come see how strong he really is … how sweet and kind he is, and how funny he can be.

I’ve always loved the music. Now I love the person. 

Brian can be a man of few words. We understand you attempted a few interviews with Brian, but they didn’t work out very well. Having Brian in a car with Jason was quite brilliant. It must have been more comfortable for Brian to talk – and we got the opportunity to see Brian’s old haunts – from Hawthorne to Beverly Hills. It provided context to Brian’s life and also produced some very emotional movements. Can you explain how you arrived at filming it this way?

We arrived at shooting the film in that manner, the hard way.  You can see in almost every interview Brian has done, that he does not enjoy the process – to put it mildly. I even saw on YouTube an interview where he just couldn’t wait to get the mic off.  He’s always looked so uncomfortable, and I knew that if the film was going to be successful that I would need to find a way to not make him feel like he was being interviewed.

Our first attempt was me interviewing him at his home. I thought if we did just a bunch of short interviews where he’s most comfortable, that maybe that would work. It didn’t. My second attempt was to have Brian sit at a piano at Capitol Records with friends and bandmates around him asking questions as they played tracks.

That was better, and there’s some nice moments we captured, but he still never felt relaxed.

And I should say, Brian is never rude. I would just feel him rushed, and uncomfortable. He looked like a kid looking at his watch waiting for the end of the school day. And why not? He’s been asked a million questions since he was in his early 20’s, and I just think he would rather be anywhere else other than sitting under lights talking about himself. 

Brian’s manager, Jean Sievers asked me one day how it was going, and when I told her I was nervous that I wasn’t getting what I had hoped for, she suggested we speak with Jason Fine of Rolling Stone. Jason has interviewed Brian dozens of times over the years and perhaps he could provide some advice. 

Our producer, Theresa Steele and I got on the phone with Jason, and he couldn’t have been more gracious and made the monumental mistake of offering to help in any way he could. 

At first, Theresa and I thought Jason could do the interviews with Brian in a traditional off-camera style.  But I had recently re-read one of Jason’s articles for Rolling Stone, Brian Wilson’s Better Days. In that article, Jason describes cruising around LA with Brian, going to dinner and even going to the movies.  And the quotes Brian gave for that article was some of the most revealing I’d ever read.

I thought to myself, what if that is the film?

What if I could get cinema quality visuals in a car without camera operators and without Brian having to wear a microphone? What if Brian and Jason just drove around LA listening to music and revisiting the places that have meant so much to Brian throughout his entire life living in LA?

Jason agreed to give it a try and just as importantly, our producers Tim Headington and Theresa did as well. Their faith in me and such a crazy idea was everything.  So we scheduled a few days of shooting and within 20 miutes on that first day, Brian did as I suspected, and forgot there were cameras in the car. It quickly became just two friends cruising around and shooting the breeze. 

Sometimes there were moments of long silence as friends often do when they drive, but as I was trailing behind their car in a follow van, I could also hear Brian talking about things I’ve never heard him say before. 

I remember thinking to myself as they talked about Dennis, that this is it. This can work.  

Your guest interviewers were all very insightful. A very diverse group of artists that reflect Brian’s universal appeal. Can you tell us how and why you chose these artists?

From the very start, I wanted a diverse list of artists from different genres and different eras in the film. My thought was that if you were flipping the channels and saw Bruce Springsteen, Gustavo Dudemal and Nick Jonas speaking you would ask yourself, what in the world would these three have in common. 

The answer would be Brian Wilson.

From that one premise I knew we needed a legend who grew up in America and was directly influenced by Brian. We got that in Bruce.  I wanted that same direct influence from a European perspective, and we got that in Elton. Jim James is an amazing artist whose spirituality and independence we thought would match Brian’s. And it does. Gustavo grew up in Venezuela and is the world’s most famous classic music conductor. But he loves Brian Wilson. Don Was and Lind Perry, as producers and artists brought their very specific point of views. And Nick Jonas, well, Nick started his career in a group with his two brothers making very successful pop music of its day and then as he matured, started taking risks to breakaway away from those successes to create more adult music. His story reminded a lot of someone else we all know. 

Aside from the car scenes and interviews, your telling of Brian’s story via photos, videos and music was so beautifully executed, and really brings this film to another level. It must have been a lot of fun to work with such rare content, including the “Good Vibrations” footage. 

From the start, Melinda and Jean Sievers made everything accessible to us. Family records and photo albums, home movies, you name it. That level of trust was a true honor. 

I even recall sheepishly asking if I could watch and use their wedding video. Melinda said yes. For me, it was so deeply personal to see Melinda beaming on her wedding day, to watch Carl give a toast to his big brother and for Brian to nervously flub his vows. 

Because of that intimacy and that trust, I think it’s one of my favorite moments in the film. 

This film is quite emotional in dealing with Brian’s relationships with Dennis and Carl, in a way that I don’t think other films have. Their relationships have been complicated, but you can really get a sense of the love Brian has for them. This isn’t something you can plan when going in to making a film, but it must have been very satisfying to have captured this.

Thank you. I think this was the most surprising element to come out of making the film. In doing my research, I knew that the relationship between the brothers was complicated. I also knew it was painful for him, so I never expected Brian to spend so much time talking about Carl and Dennis. And in such loving ways. 

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. I’d say that Brian’s love for his little brother is probably one of the most central and most heart-touching elements of the film. 

I’m really proud that the film helps to reveal that love.

With over 70 hours of footage, it must have been difficult editing the film to its 1:33mm length. What was the editing process like? 

The editing process was a bit like torture. In addition to the 70 hours of Brian and Jason in the car, we had 120 hours of archive footage and 15,000 photographs. I watched every second of that footage and looked at every single photograph, and deciding what goes in and what doesn’t was brutal. 

Our editor Hector Lopez and I both wanted the tone of the archives to be stripped down. We searched all of those images and archive footage looking for Brian at his most real and vulnerable. I feel like if you have snap shots from friends and family that the subject can’t hide like Brian probably would have for a PR shoot. 

I wanted the photos and historical footage to be honest and revealing - which is really what I think the whole film is about. 

We’re hoping that when the film becomes available commercially, we’ll get to see some extra footage!

I certainly hope so. My first cut was 2.5 hours long and that was already with some brutal decision made to leave scenes on the cutting room floor. But I knew we needed a finished film that was as assessable to a broader audience as it was enlightening to a more knowledgeable audience. 

As a filmmaker, that’s a tight rope to walk. Hopefully we’ve pulled it off.

There are though still a lot of wonderful moments with Brian and Jason that didn’t make the final cut, and we also have multi-cam footage of Brian and the band performing at The Hollywood Bowl and The Ryman in Nashville. 

Hopefully all that great content will be used someday as bonus material. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed. 

There are also plans for a soundtrack that we should be announcing soon. One of my many goals for the film was to try and provide something new for the ear of long-time fans, and so there are some new tracks, some unreleased tracks and a few alternate mixes throughout the film. But the coolest part is that many of the tracks are actually chosen by Brian as they drive around.  It’s like listening to a Brin Wilson playlist chosen by Brian Wilson. 

The reception to the film at the Tribeca Film Festival and subsequent reviews have been excellent. It must be very gratifying for you because you never know how an audience is going to react until they see it.

We took a lot of risks with the way we created and structured this film, and up until the reviews started coming in, I had no idea if it was truly working. So, it has been very rewarding to read and to hear from those that attended the festival that they were moved by the film. 

Brian has over half a million followers on social media, and judging from their responses to clips, photos and reviews, there is a large and enthusiastic audience for this film. This is an independently-finance film – can you explain the process of getting people to see it, both domestically and internationally and when that might happen? 

I have loved interacting with the Brian’s fans on social media. Brian’s fans are so incredibly loyal.  Heck, I’m a fan, so I try and answer anyone who reaches out and asks how the film is going. 

It’s been a long haul, and I can tell you though that everything has been made 10x’s more difficult by the pandemic. On the process of getting the film distributed, to be honest, it’s a long boring process akin to how sausage is made. I think the less you know, the more you enjoy. 

But!!!  We will have some very exciting news to report soon on all fronts – international and domestic distribution and the soundtrack!   

Thanks Brent for your time, and again for making such a beautiful film for Brian’s – and all music fans. What’s next for you?

Thank you. Being even a small thread in Brian Wilson’s story has been a remarkable journey for me as a person and as a filmmaker.  Like so many, his music and his story have gotten me through some of my toughest times and some of my best times.  Heck, I even proposed to wife using the lyrics from “Wouldn’t it Be Nice.”

In one way or another, it feels like Brian Wilson has always been there for me. 

As for what’s next, I’m going to go see Brian and the band perform live as often as I can, and start bugging Jason Fine with new ideas for our next film together.