No Crew. 100 Degrees. One Hour on a Mountain. One Million Views in Four Weeks.
That filming “You Are My Destiny (Rave Remix)” on bare Sedona red rock taught me about building anything without a safety net
On August 19, 2026, at 11 o’clock in the morning, with Sedona temperatures climbing toward triple digits, Claudette and I loaded our own audio gear, costumes, and cameras onto our backs and started up a mountain.
There was no production company waiting at the top. No camera operator. No makeup artist. No stylist, no assistant to carry the keyboard stand, no shade tent, and nobody handing out water. There were two people, the equipment we could physically lift, and a deadline we had set for ourselves.
Claudette hiked that trail in high heels and a mirrored bodysuit, then performed take after take on exposed sandstone while the heat came up off the stone. I set up the keyboard at the edge of the cliff in a full suit and tie, and I played. We shot the entire video in about one hour, on an iPhone, in full sun. Then we climbed down and started editing.
Four weeks after we published it, the video for “You Are My Destiny (Rave Remix)” has passed one million views on YouTube.
People see the finished video — the red rock, the open sky, the canyon walls in magenta and violet — and assume there were twenty people behind the camera. There were two. I’m sharing the story here because I think the lessons apply far beyond music.
1. Constraints are not the enemy. They are the brief. When you can only carry what you can carry, every decision gets simpler. One keyboard. One costume each. One location. One hour on the rock, in full sun. We didn’t have the luxury of options, so we didn’t waste time debating them. A small budget forces clarity that a big budget often buys its way around.
2. Discipline beats budget. Claudette and I are both Krav Maga instructors. The discipline you learn on the mat — show up, execute under stress, don’t quit when it gets uncomfortable — is exactly the discipline it takes to film in 100-degree heat with no one to hand you a bottle of water. That is not glamour. That is dedication. And it is the same discipline that took our music from an off-grid ranch in Arizona to more than 500 radio stations in 99 countries on six continents.
3. Overnight results are rarely overnight. A million views in four weeks looks sudden. It wasn’t. “You Are My Destiny” had already earned a #1 on the North American College & Community Radio Chart, a top-three spot on Amazon’s Dance & Electronic chart, and a billboard on the Clear Channel Spectacolor screen in Times Square.
Zanna Records YouTube channel has passed 48 million lifetime views. The mountain shoot didn’t create the momentum — it gave the momentum a new place to land. Compounding work is invisible until the day it isn’t.
4. Authenticity is the production value. Audiences can feel the difference between something manufactured and something lived. You can see the real sun in that video. You can see a real mountain and two real people who chose to be there. We didn’t hide the fact that it was just us — we made it part of the story. In a world full of polished content, the honest version often travels further.
5. Finish, then ship. We came down the mountain and started editing the same day.
The video was live within days. Perfection would have meant waiting for a crew, a permit, a cooler morning and a bigger budget — and it probably would never have happened.
Done and published beats perfect and imagined, every time.
I’ve spent most of my career in music — first building Contatto Discografico in Italy, and since December 2022 building Zanna Records as a fully independent label with no major-label backing.
If there’s one thing this mountain reminded me of, it’s that the most important resources in any venture are rarely money or headcount. They are commitment, preparation, and the willingness to carry your own gear up the hill.
To every independent artist, founder and small team reading this: you probably have more than enough to start. Pick your mountain.
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