Marriage can be an amazing journey, a declaration of dedication to another person. But the pomp of a wedding can also act as a glossy cover to the honest mess that marriage can be. As they say, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Marking his third appearance on DN, Writer/Director Brendan Beachman’s dark comedy drama short A Wedding Day explores this very concept through the story of two newlyweds, whose marriage is getting off to a decidedly rocky start. But when the pair meet an eccentric stranger the questions they have of themselves become answered. What I enjoy most about Beachman’s short is how elegantly the film crosses between moments of true, human messiness and dark, matter-of-fact comedy. One moment you’ll be contemplating the strength of your own relationships and the next you’ll be laughing out loud at a moment of pure absurdity. It’s a joyous combination and one DN is delighted to be premiering online for audiences to check out. After watching A Wedding Day you can read our interview with Beachman, where he discusses the moment of fear that birthed the script’s final draft, working with his actors on their characters ahead of the shoot, and the range of emotional audience reactions the film has garnered.
Take us back to the start. When did the idea for A Wedding Day come to you?
It came, as most everything I write, as a series of images. I think I may have been driving near the central coast of California and I was thinking how cinematic and iconic those gnarled oak trees are. I pictured a car parked underneath one with “just married” written on the back. Then a long Steadicam shot wrapping around the front of the car to reveal that the newlyweds are sitting in icy silence. Then I pictured an ensuing prototypical relationship fight between the couple that is abruptly interrupted by an extreme outside element. I needed it to be extreme because I wanted to shake the characters and audience out of that melodramatic space. It needed to be something with life or death consequences.
I wanted to put this couple through the wringer in the first hours as man and wife and I wanted it to show on their clothing.
Then, I pictured the last shot of the film with the couple standing hand in hand, watching the sunset with tattered, destroyed wedding clothes. There is something kind of phony about the pristine clothing we wear when we get married because it’s not at all indicative of how messy marriage and life really are. I wanted to put this couple through the wringer in the first hours as man and wife and I wanted it to show on their clothing. So, it was those three images and events that kept popping up on repeat in my mind, to the point where I had to sit down and tie it all together. I wrote the first version back in 2018. It was a finalist in the Shore Scripts’ screenplay competition, which gave me a little boost of validation to really pursue refining the script and ultimately film it.
So with the script and characters evolving over time, what did your earlier drafts look like and what motivated the changes you made in subsequent revisions?
In the initial drafts, the married couple was portrayed as very stereotypical and one-dimensional. I think I wanted to take these well-to-do young, entitled newlyweds from the city, and introduce some real world hardships in order to force perspective on what is and isn’t important in life and in a partnership. Then, Covid hit and we had our first child during the absolute height of the pandemic in July of 2020. Then, in 2022, my wife had a serious health scare, and it completely spun me out. We were waiting on test results and I woke up one night at four in the morning in a cold sweat and rewrote the entire script by hand in a notebook by my bed stand. Apparently I had a lot of things to work through, and all those things went into that story.
That hastily handwritten script ended up being the final draft that we ultimately shot. I transcribed it to Final Draft, but I really didn’t change a thing. My wife is fine, thank god, but time and major life events made me seriously rethink my treatment of the main characters. I decided that they were not given enough respect. Life can be a sonovabitch and all of us are fighting our own battles, whether publicly or privately. I wanted to give them a major twist in their backstory that forces us to reframe who they are and truly empathize with their situation and them as people. Long story short, this film evolved into a love letter to my wife.
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How was it collaborating with your actors? Did you have the opportunity to prepare with them ahead of the shoot?
Scott Kuza, who plays Brad, and Megan Stogner, who plays Jill, and I had a couple Zoom read-throughs and rehearsals in order to hash out major scenes and character backstories. We had ongoing sidebar conversations about their characters, but nothing too intensive. I did create a music playlist for them that was exactly as long as the drive from LA to our location in Los Olivos. The tone and vibe of the music were meant to flow and sync up with the story and character arcs in the film to help them get into character as they drove up. I have no idea if it did anything to help, but I know I use music extensively when I write in order to put myself in specific head spaces. We shot the actual wedding scene immediately upon arrival at our ranch location in Los Olivos. We weren’t originally planning for that since official production was slated to start the following day, but I’m very glad we did that as I think it really helped to get them into character. That scene is the literal backstory before the film begins and motivates the fight in the intro.
Hugo Armstrong, who plays Jess White, was referred to me by another amazing actor friend Zachary Ray Sherman. They had worked together on a feature called Cuck and he couldn’t recommend him enough. I had seen Hugo in another amazing feature called Coherence, so I knew that he’s hugely talented. However, I didn’t have any time with him at all as he was on a stage play at the time that went right up until the day of our shoot. The only real apprehension, if I had any, was if he could nail a legitimate rural Western accent. I was born and raised in a tiny coal mining town in Colorado, so I know that dialect well. Hugo is a Cali guy, so I just prayed he could get it right. It turned out my fears were totally unfounded. He totally nailed it, and actually sounds uncannily similar to the gruff road construction foreman I worked for during my high school and college summers, talkin’ bout you Lewis!
It needed it to be extreme because I wanted to shake the characters and audience out of that melodramatic space.
The original character of Jess White was written to be a wiry, rail-thin backwoods hermit. Hugo is a tall, burly guy, so I had to rethink the physicality of the character on the first day of the shoot upon meeting the big fella in person. Hugo also approached the character in a much more grounded, and relatable way than I originally envisioned. He brought so much heart to the character and that really affected the story in a beautiful way. Each actor, and at least a few crew members, had their own major life events occurring at the time that were eerily, and serendipitously similar to the characters and story. They undoubtedly brought their own life experiences with them to flavor their characters, and it paid off, as I think all three are absolutely fantastic in this. It feels like I cheated as a director because I didn’t need to do much to redirect their performances. They killed it.
How difficult did you find it to obtain funding to make this deeply personal film?
I was extremely fortunate to have won $5,000 worth of finishing funds from the Shore Scripts Short Film Fund contest, which helped with post production. I also had some financial support from production partner Steak and Rosé Film’s EP Douglas Riggs. It was fortunately a busy year for me in my day job as a commercial director, so I self-funded the lion’s share of it. Of course, the following year was horrifically slow for commercials, so I am still playing catch up a bit to recoup. Shorts never make money, so it needs to be a passion project, and this most certainly is.
Could you give us a rundown of the shoot? How long were you on location for?
We shot at the Ted Chamberlin Ranch in Los Olivos California. It’s about three hours from our home base in LA, so I put everyone up in hotels in nearby Solvang. Colin Arndt, the cinematographer and I stayed in a small cabin on the ranch’s property. I was so taken with the look of that cabin that I added a bunch of interior shots of Jess in there into my shot list and they ended up being some of my favorite shots of the film. I didn’t really set dress the place at all. It was perfect as-is. We shot for four full days, with a few additional hours upon arrival on location to shoot the wedding scene.
A Wedding Day rides the line between comedy and drama, with a moment towards the end of the short dipping into darkly comedic humour. How did you maintain that balancing act?
I have always been drawn to dark comedy, from as early as I can remember. I find that dramedy and dark comedy are the genres that are most akin to life. Life is neither purely sad and scary nor consistently joyous and funny. It exists in some absurd realm between beautifully terrible, and terribly beautiful, and my aim was to highlight both extremes and the gray areas in between. Plus, the cathartic release of laughing, crying, and screaming are surprisingly similar… I have been a little shocked by how I have heard all three reactions from audiences in every live screening we’ve had.
The film has a lovely wide-screen look to it, with the vistas of the fields and the trees as the backdrop to the drama.
Location is a fourth character in this film, so I spent a great deal of time scouring the internet for a place that has those quintessentially Californian oak-dotted, rolling hills. I didn’t grow up with that landscape, so I am fascinated and drawn to it. I wanted the backdrop to be stunning to juxtapose with the dark subject matter. I believe someone mentioned the Ted Chamberlin Ranch on an online filmmaking group and I’m glad they did because it was absolutely perfect. The cherry on top was that they are also wonderful hosts and people. My DP and I visited them on several location scouts and mapped out our favorite locations for each scene. The large tree that is prominent throughout the bulk of the film was also featured in Alexander Payne’s Sideways. Which means that tree is the most famous member of our team.
I wanted the backdrop to be stunning to juxtapose with the dark subject matter.
You mention the look so I really have to give a shout out to cinematographer Colin Arndt. He and I started making films together way back in film school at Montana State University and have continued that collaborative relationship on countless commercials and short films ever since. Now we’re closing in on 20 years of filmmaking together, so it goes without saying that we work quite closely on projects, and I have a tremendous amount of trust and respect for his creative ideas. He’s a super well-rounded filmmaker and storyteller so his knowledge and input goes beyond just imagery. He had a challenge on his hands with this project as we had barely any money for grip and electric gear. We had zero lights and very little in the way of large bounce and/or diffusion since we also only had a two person grip crew. Continuity becomes a bear when you are shooting a single afternoon scene over the course of four and a half days, and I think Colin did an incredible job maintaining a beautiful, but highly filmic, natural image that stays consistent from beginning to end.
Equipment-wise, we used Colin’s Red Scarlet for the camera and rented Kowa Prominar lenses in order to shoot in true anamorphic. I wanted to contrast an intimate dark dramedy against a sprawling vista; Not to minimize our characters’ very real trauma, but to add context to how our big problems can become smaller when viewed within a broader context, and to drive home the main point of the film, which is to stop and appreciate the beauty in the present moment. So, shooting anamorphic was a conscious creative decision.
What’s next for you?
I continue to direct commercials, which is a blast, but my heart forever remains with narrative filmmaking. I have a feature horror/thriller that I co-wrote with Screenwriter Justin Boyes that I will also direct called The Lookout that is in current development with Steak and Rosé films. We are making steady progress and are set to shoot late summer of 2025. We recently released a little teaser trailer I made for the project. More important than all that… by the time this article is released, I will be the father to a newborn. My wife is due August 21st. It’ll be our second child. Life’s dips and turns, laughs and cries continue, and I can’t wait for all of it. Send coffee. And if you’re a movie investor, send us an email.
