A documentary capturing the backyard music scene built by Los Angeles teenagers will get its first public screening on Saturday, March 1, at Healing Force of the Universe, the Pasadena record store and event space at 1200 E. Walnut St.
The event, running from 2 to 5 p.m., pairs exclusive clips from “Backyards: A Documentary About LA’s Teen Music Scene” with live performances by three of the bands featured in the film: Mae Mae, Missing Wiba and Birdhouse. Tickets are $5 at the door. The Los Angeles College of Music, the Pasadena-based music college, is a sponsor, and LAist is a media partner, according to the event listing.
Filmmaker Paul Covington, who has more than 25 years of experience in film editing and previously produced a feature-length documentary on the band True Sounds of Liberty, directs the project. In an interview published on the Substack newsletter Remember the Lightning, Covington said he first encountered the scene in June 2024 after dropping his daughter off at a backyard show in Altadena.
“I was very surprised by what I saw,” Covington said in the interview. He described finding high-energy, organized shows staged entirely by teenagers across neighborhoods from Glendale to Altadena, Mount Washington to Silver Lake.
The documentary covers 12 bands, according to the film’s Seed & Spark crowdfunding page, including Forsythia, Charlotte Door, While We Sleep, Missing Wiba, Birdhouse, Mae Mae and others. The shows, according to a podcast interview on the Substack newsletter What Am I Making, routinely draw 75 to 150 attendees who pay a nominal cover charge of about $5. Many of the young musicians attend performing arts schools in the area, the podcast noted.
The Eaton Fire, which struck Altadena in January 2025, became a turning point for the project. Several people involved in the documentary lost their homes, according to the Seed & Spark page. Covington said in the Remember the Lightning interview that the fire gave the film its thematic focus on the fleeting nature of the scene.
“It wasn’t until January of this year when the Eaton Fire destroyed Altadena that I realized the fleeting nature of beauty and youth would be the hook,” Covington said in the interview, published in May 2025.
Covington’s daughter, Ainslie, a high school senior at the time, helped conduct interviews for the film and served as a bridge to the young musicians, according to the interview. Keith Myers, a cinematographer with a background in skateboarding and snowboarding photography, is the film’s other principal crew member.
Healing Force of the Universe, which opened in late 2023, has established itself as a venue where musicians perform in an intimate record-store setting. Owner Austin Manuel told LAist in a September 2024 profile that he envisioned the space as a community center for music. The store, located on the southeast corner of East Walnut Street and Michigan Avenue, functions as a record shop by day and a performance venue by night.
The March 1 event is open to the public. Doors open at 2 p.m. at 1200 E. Walnut St., Pasadena, CA 91106. Tickets are $5 at the door the day of the event.
As of its most recent update, the documentary’s crowdfunding campaign on Seed & Spark had raised $4,574 for post-production, according to the platform. At that time, the crew had completed 16 days of shooting and described the project as a little over halfway through expected band performances and interviews.
“I’m a firm believer that music changes people’s lives,” Covington said in the Remember the Lightning interview. “If it hasn’t, you haven’t listened to the right music yet.”
