Creating A Female James Bond

When I was offered to shoot with a classic Chevrolet Chevelle of 1969 the first thing I thought about was James Bond. A huge thank you you Motorcar Classics for being amazing at every step of this process working with such an iconic car.

While I LOVE Daniel Craig as James Bond, I I had to imagined a female 007 agent. It became Neysha. Neysha is a dancer and a model, with an amazing personality and many talents that can be its own blog post. I love shooting with models who are also dancers. Their body awareness allows them to be very versatile with even the most pedestrian movement. Just watch Neysha turn her head. It’s poetry in motion.

I chose Emeline to be my cinematographer. She has a background in dance just like me. I find that camera operators with background in dance have more intuitive response to movement.

Part of my pre-production process was rendering images with the help of AI to create a pitch. 

I used iconic James Bond Images with Sean Connery and gave an instruction to AI to generate an image of a woman. As well as adding the parameters of lighting and clothing.

I wanted to make sure we avoid common images of women being a sexy accessory to a car. Instead, I wanted Neysha to be the main character.

Her and I talked about the dynamics of power and what it represents for women. There is a certain duality to power depending of its origin. On one side it's about confidence, apperance, and money. And on another side its about unabashed femininity, unbreakable vulnerability, and connection with nature. 

We created two looks. The first look was a power suit courtesy Neysha and Target. For the second look I reached out to Puerto Rican self-taught designer Polet Guzman, the founder of Casa Muza, a clothing brand. Polet dresses “fearless women on the go”. That sounded like a perfect match for our version of a secret agent. We chose a skirt and shirt with embroidery of a heart with free flowing strings from it.

My idea was to make a very contrasting distinction between these two sides of power. One appears seductive, and without balance leads to an obsession. We see Neysha frantic movements as the camera goes around her. At the same time the second side is about going inwards and reconnecting with the self. I asked Neysha to embody her child spirit: run in the woods, play, and let her hair down.

In the edit, we finished with Neysha’s character getting into the car, “riding it like a dragon” s/o to House of Dragon! Team Rhaenyra all the way!

Power is complex quality to cultivate. I aimed to capture that complexity in the film. Watch it below. :-)