I'm not giving you dates. I had a 3am shift and I have another one tomorrow so bare with me.
mia and I met after the first (but I personally don't count it as) i'll show you magic show at this one weird jazz record store. it wasn't great, minus i'll show you magic. they're always great even with bad sound and off vibes.
anyway, we (myself and the magicians) went off to barney's beanery in pasadena where mia would later join us. I didn't talk much at all. I was too broke to get drunk and chat it up—instead I'd ask the bartender for water and fuck myself over getting home to the point where eva would have to drop me off in hollywood so I had a slim chance at getting back to the valley.
when eva and I started to conceive the music video for the i'll show you magic song "feel you," we needed to find girls to dance sexily and make-out with their partners. mia stepped up. proper snogging occurred that night. thought I needed an intimacy coordinator at times.
kidding. we didn't have the budget for it.
it really did shock me though. working with other people. I'm so used to the idea of having to do everything myself that actually having people to boss around was so weird for me to have. every "command" was followed by a "yeah whatever you feel like" because I'd hate to make anyone potentially be uncomfortable with a request. truly, I'm not the director I should be. yet, of course. it's a journey. I'm a late bloomer in that regard but I'll get there.
god, it was so funny setting up for that video, too. we had to setup curtains on two c-stands with only two sandbags. we would end up having to hang our backpacks filled with the water bottles I had brought on each end of the c-stand arms to keep them from falling over.
I didn't have a zoom lens yet so I'd have to constantly switch focal lengths and reset shots. I couldn't remember anyone's names so I had to vaguely face their direction so they could hopefully realize I was talking to them. a mild shit show of my own doing, but we made it work. and we got a sick video for a sick song out of it.
I don't remember if there were any other meetings before I'd make a music video for mia's band 12gauge trixie.
we shot it over a weekend. I had gotten new gear specifically for it—I didn't know how to use it or build it out yet so I ended up doing a simple test video for katrina at santa monica using one of her demo songs (I really do hope it makes the light of day, katrina please put that shit out when it's ready).
the best part of the video was not editing it. we shot so much footage, I felt stressed at the idea of having to sift through everything and make it cohesive. I'm more of a vibes director than a narrative one. thank fuck I was able to offload it to one of my favorite editors of all time to put my mess together. who is that? watch the video, check the credits. you'll know. I love 'em.
some highlights from making the video though: being fed, seeing a hard-top convertible in action, seeing a gorgeous view of dtla, yelling at a dude posted up at the hollywood 7-eleven for bothering one of the girls, and the camaraderie of pulling this shit off. I love a joint effort. I love belonging to a team.
the day we took photos (not dating shit today), that camaraderie didn't change. we were now friends (crying emoji).
we ran through outfits, played with pumpkin, talked random bullshit in between.
that weird social disconnect from first meetings that I usually have doing this series wasn't there—we just slid into it. doing this came easy with mia, and anything we make in the future will reflect that familiarity, too. we're used to this now.
okay the day was 5/8/2026
I have to go to bed now, bye.
