Brandon Rodriguez is the founder and CEO of neuelane, a Miami-based creative agency and production house working with hospitality, food and beverage, and luxury real estate brands. He came up through music production, which led to music videos, then to running LMNT, a Miami event space and recording studio, where he fell in love with the marketing side. He founded neuelane in 2017 with a simple idea: help brands find a lane they can own. With over a decade producing and the last six years directing, he still leads every production in-house and is happiest on set.
How many years have you been a judge?
1-3
What are your responsibilities in your current role and what do you love most about your job?
I wear a lot of hats. I lead new business and client relationships, produce and direct our shoots, and every piece of work that leaves the agency goes through me. What I love most is being on set. Producing is my superpower: building the right team for a project and carrying it from a blank page to a finished film is the part of the job that never gets old.
What inspired you to pursue your career path?
Music. I started out producing music, and the videos, artwork, and websites that came with releasing music pulled me into visual storytelling and marketing without me really planning it. Running LMNT, an event space and studio in Miami, is where it clicked that I loved building the brand around the work as much as the work itself. neuelane is the natural end of that path, a place where production and marketing live under one roof.
What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
Producing music videos for artists with close friends and colleagues. Nobody had a budget, so I learned to produce with what was in the room: borrowed gear, friends as crew, one location, and a lot of planning. That taught me the thing I still believe today, that constraints force better ideas and that a producer’s real job is making the most of what you actually have.
What do you look for to determine excellence in video?
Intent. I want to feel that every choice, the frame, the cut, the music, the pacing, was made on purpose and in service of one clear idea. Craft matters, but I’ve seen beautifully shot work that says nothing and scrappy work that hits you straight in the heart. The best video makes you forget you’re watching an ad, a brand film, or a piece of content, and when you do remember, you understand exactly why it exists.
What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?
We just wrapped a series of food films, dark and cinematic—the brief was basically Chef’s Table meets nightclub—and it was some of the most fun we’ve had on set. Behind the scenes, I’ve been building agentic AI systems into how the agency runs so our team can spend more time on the creative and less on the admin.
Tell us about a moment of recognition that had an effect on you – whether personal or official? What does recognition mean to you and why is it important in our industry?
You never really set out for the recognition. You set out to do the best work possible, and the recognition is a byproduct of that. The question is always how effective the piece is, how well you brought the idea to life, and who it actually resonates with. Over the years we’ve won several awards, local and regional ADDYs for logo design and social campaigns, but the one that sticks with me is a campaign we did for Pincho Factory when they rebranded to Pincho. We needed to drop “Factory” from the name, so we pulled a stunt where somebody “stole” the sign in Hialeah. It went viral, over a million views across Miami and South Florida, and we spent maybe $800 in media, if that, just to boost the post. When award season came around it won ADDYs, and at the Shorty Awards it won in Restaurants and took the Audience Honor, the same year Popeyes’ Chicken Wars was in the category, and it was a finalist for Shoestring Media Buying Strategy. That said, the recognition that means the most to me comes from clients. We’re not a huge agency with hundreds of retainers; we’re very intentional about who we work with, and when a client notices that your heart is really in it and that you care about them as more than a paycheck, that they’re an extension of the agency and the work we put out into the world, that’s the best recognition there is.
Do you have any specific practices you lean on to spark creativity?
I look at other people’s art. Film, music, social, whatever’s out there. Pinterest is a big one for me, especially when I’m working on a production and thinking through ideas and shots. The other place I love is Eyecannndy.com, which is basically a library of the best shots and angles from music videos, ads, and films, organized by technique. When I’m building a shot list and figuring out how to bring a production to life, that site is one of the most inspiring places on the internet.
In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?
AI, obviously, but not in the way most people talk about it. The change I’m seeing isn’t AI replacing crews or creatives; it’s AI collapsing the time between an idea and a proof of concept. Pre-vis, storyboards, edits, versions for every platform, all of that is getting faster, which means taste and point of view matter more than ever because anyone can produce something. My advice: learn the tools deeply enough to know what they’re bad at, use them to buy back time, and put that time into the parts of the work only a human with a real perspective can do.
What excites you about judging for the Telly Awards?
Seeing what people are making outside my own bubble. In Miami I live in hospitality, food, and real estate, and judging puts work in front of me from industries and markets I’d never see otherwise. It’s a reset for my own taste, and it’s a reminder that great work is coming from small teams with tiny budgets just as often as it comes from the big shops. I always leave judging with new ideas for our own sets.
