On a Sunday afternoon, I was browsing through my Instagram when I came across my friend Brandi’s story. It looked like she was on set for a music video, and I replied to her story saying that I wish I were the behind the scenes photographer for our friend Tea’s music video because it looked fun. Fast forward a few minutes later, I get a message back from Brandi asking me if I wanted to shoot behind the scenes! I was half-awake at the time since I was in the middle of my nap, but I decided to get dressed and head over to the studio in Downtown, Los Angeles. Yay for spontaneous decisions!

I met Tea at Alice An’s birthday/music video release party in January of this year. Before first meeting each other in person, we followed each other a few months ago from a mutual friend of ours. A few months later, I’m shooting behind the scenes photos for her new music video!

I love shooting behind the scenes for music videos and short films because you learn so much. Lighting in music videos is very different than lighting in an indoor studio shoot. You get to familiarize yourself with everyone’s role from Director of Photography to Gaffer to Production Design. Also, you get to network and interact with a whole team when you’re out shooting a music video. It was so much fun being able to capture the candids and not so candid moments of Tea’s new music video titled Available (Nah) which is available on all streaming platforms and YouTube. You can watch the music video at the bottom of this blog post, so make sure to check it out!

Director: Monica Suriyage

Director of Photography: Josh Park

Executive Producer: Hana Wagner & Melody Wang

Producer: Tea Wagner

1st AC: Stephen Branagan

Gaffer: Trey Betts

Grip Swing: Jake Basnett

Choreographer: Susie Shu

Dancer: Kelly Peterson

Editor: Christa Phillippeaux

Colorist: Brian D. LeGoo

Make-up-Artist: Geraldine Arenas

Stylist Assistant: Majdolene Abualfaraj

Cast & Crew: Tea Wagner, Madjodelene ‘MJ’, David Le, David Park, Brandi Cox, Kellen Johnson, Kelly Peterson, Bobni Das, Ryan Alexander Holmes, Hamani

Song Produced by: Keith Lalley and Alvin

Mix & Mastered by: Earl Halsan

Composed by: Tea Wagner

Lyrics by: Tea Wagner

Huge thank you to Drip Studios for letting us use their amazing space!

For more behind the scenes, check out this blog post of Looking For The Good M/V by Miki Wong