Peer Review: Veronica and Yamel

Who are three contemporaries that you admire?

Yamel: We admire people who build culture and community at a systems level, like Willo Perron, who treats design as a form of architecture and knows how to shape entire worlds, not just aesthetics. Dave Free, because he redefines the relationship between artist, audience, and medium with intuitive, almost spiritual craft, reshaping how audiences experience visual storytelling. 

Also, Rebecca Skinner, whose leadership at Superprime shows what high-caliber production looks like when it blends taste, discipline, and genuine human intelligence. As women building our own company, we look up to how she’s scaled excellence without losing soul.

Vero grounds me and I push her, and together we make intuitive, strategic decisions. Risk matters, daring matters to us.

Victoria: Agree with Yam. Willo will forever be a source of endless inspiration and admiration, as will Superprime founders Rebecca and Michelle.

When Yam and I first discussed what our roster could look like, I was taken aback by the level of talent they represented. It’s still a north star for us.

I really admire my friend Sara Murphy, an incredible producer who can magically balance multiple juggernaut productions at once. Her latest film, One Battle After Another, is an incredible production feat, and all of her work resonates with festivals and audiences.

I can never answer these questions without mentioning the ultimate creator: Spike Jonze. His breadth of work never ceases to amaze me, influenced audiovisual artists whether they realise it or not. From skate videos to magazines, to photography, commercials, music videos, movies. Everything he has ever helmed has become a cultural touchstone. Bridging different mediums while maintaining such a singular, impactful voice is remarkable.

Above: Official trailer for One Battle After Another, produced by Sarah Murphy. 

Please share 3–4 pieces of work that exemplify great production.

Y: Alexander McQueen’s Plato’s Atlantis is a production milestone, one of the first fashion shows ever live streamed. It merged technology and audience seamlessly. It mixed CGI, robotics, and futuristic myth-making to create a world ahead of its time. 

Frank Ocean’s Endless is a visual album I always come back to. It’s a continuous, architectural performance where building becomes the narrative. The production is so intentional and stripped back that it feels closer to an art installation. It’s a reminder that great production isn’t about scale, but about clarity, rigor, and focus.

Yam moves fast and ambitiously. I move ambitiously but usually taking a step back to analyse everything first.

V: So many! Discarding movies, I’ll focus on commercials and music videos. Glazer’s Guinness Surfer comes to mind. When every aspect of the production is in perfect balance with each other, creating a cohesive and harmonious piece of work, that’s great direction and great production. The casting, the music, the VO, the VFX, the editing – every aspect of it serves the whole. It also pushed visual and technical boundaries at the time.

The same can be said for Spike’s Apple spot. I watched Adolescence this year and anyone who pulls off a oner is always impressive to me. I remember watching the German film Victoria and wondering how that production was possible. I’d throw in this category Childish Gambino’s This Is America, although not a true one-take, its coordination and cultural impact are notable.

Above: Alexander McQueen’s Plato’s Atlantis mixed CGI, robotics, and futuristic myth-making to create a world ahead of its time. 

What do you like most about the work that you do together?

V: The best thing about our partnership is how we balance each other out. I didn’t realise how important it was to partner with someone who doesn’t always see everything the same way.

Production companies need to be able to remain creative, deliver value, act nimble, be visually literate, and able to move from film to experiential to digital without losing identity.

Yam and I are completely aligned in everything that matters. But our approaches can vary and that is the secret behind our success. Yam moves fast and ambitiously. I move ambitiously but usually taking a step back to analyse everything first.

Y: That we do it together. Vero grounds me and I push her, and together we make intuitive, strategic decisions. Risk matters, daring matters to us.

What has your career journey been like so far, and how did you come to create Agüita?

V: I started my career in narrative longform. I first worked at Troublemaker Studios for producer Elizabeth Avellán and then started independently producing. My first feature starred Kieran Culkin and went to SXSW where it was bought by Amazon.

I moved to short form to keep my in-between time busy and fell in love with it. I moved to Los Angeles to be a founding member and HOP at Zoe Saldaña’s media company. While there, I oversaw and EP’d every series.

The future is cross-disciplinary and audience-led, not format-led.

I went back to freelancing and started producing as a duo with Yamel. Less than a year of producing together, we founded Agüita. It was the perfect storm: our work gained momentum and clients began asking us to run entire productions.

We were also tired of old structures and limitations other companies seemed to have. We knew we could create a place where we could move through creative pursuits without being confined and foster new voices and talent.

We wanted to run things differently, disrupt the old systems that felt outdated, and be a champion for creativity in all its forms.

What is one thing every creative duo needs?

Y: Absolute honesty, shared taste, constant communication, and ways to have fun. It’s like a marriage.

V: Exactly! They need to respect each other’s ideas and opinions.