For Neon to truly shimmer, the creative team behind the comedy had to make Miami’s glittering nightlife as seductive to viewers as it is to its wide-eyed trio of protagonists, rising reggaetonero Santi (Tyler Dean Flores), manager Ness (Emma Ferreira), and creative director Felix (Jordan Mendoza). But while the spirit of South Florida comes alive on-screen, the series was actually filmed in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Showrunner Max Searle, who created Neon with Shea Serrano, tells Tudum that Miami and San Juan have “a very similar vibe,” making the city swap a natural one. But the real blessing of filming on the island was the fact that it’s also arguably the home of reggaeton, meaning, says Searle, “We had access to people that maybe otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to fly out or see. They were just like, ‘Yeah, we’ll come hang out.’ And it really opened up the show in a way that I don’t know how it would’ve had we shot it somewhere else.”
But the Miami of today isn’t the same art deco, pastel city that we’ve seen on TV and in film in the past. According to production designer Mailara Santana, the Miami Vice vision of the city doesn’t represent what it looks like in 2023. “I think the hardest [part] was finding locations and places that would actually depict the new Miami,” she tells Tudum.
“We do have a lot of art deco in Puerto Rico, and I thought that maybe we could go for their apartment being that style. Well, no, that would never happen. That only fits South Beach and some other areas of Miami, but you don’t see [that] anymore in Brickell. You don’t see [that] in Downtown Miami.”
Santana and her husband flew to Miami to get a feel for the city, visit restaurants and concert venues, take pictures, and “get a sense of how things have changed,” she explains. “Miami is trying to attract people from all over the world and from bigger cities like New York and Los Angeles, which means that they’re trying to design things that would also make them feel welcome. We have blacks and whites and very subtle colors, or they go with a pattern of everything’s red or everything’s blue. It just has a very different setting than it does from 10 years ago or even five years ago.”
Thanks to that trip, Santana and her team were able to re-create the enchantment of the Magic City in Puerto Rico — and, much like Neon’s best friend trio, they worked on a shoestring budget so the series needed to be scrappy and stylish.
Santana leaned on the show’s quartet of directors (Oz Rodriguez, Eli Gonda, Kimberly McCullough, and Emmy nominee Steven Canals), along with the director of photography (Diana Matos), to bring out the sparkle. Emmy-winner Rodriguez, who helmed the series premiere, says his biggest priority was creating an atmosphere — and on-screen bond — that would make fans want to ride along with its heroes for eight episodes.
“It was cool to think about what that world looks like. When they squeeze into a party — what that universe is like,” Rodriguez told Netflix. “The main thing for me was trying to capture the relationship between Santi, Ness, and Felix, making sure that that felt great, and capturing their small-fish-in-a-big-pond aspect of moving to Miami, into this crazy new world of reggaeton.”
Read on to find out how Santana, Rodriguez, Searle, and the rest of the team pulled off their city swap, and learn where Neon filmed in San Juan.
Santi’s first performance on the show took place at a real San Juan nightclub, albeit one that was essentially as bare as a black box theater. That meant Santana and her team designed multiple patterns and graphics to add to walls, screens, and any other place that would make a difference.
“I was trying to find locations that were easy to just complement, not dress the whole thing,” she says, but Kweens Klub ended up working perfectly. The art department wanted to use certain colors to symbolize the aspirational life that Santi and his friends want to live, so that meant they’d use purple and gold at any industry event where the group wanted to fit in. “It was just hammering that same pattern in different styles, either with fabric or with graphics or with patterns painted,” Santana says. “Anything we could do to get those colors to be present over and over.”
One of the first people in the city to recognize Santi’s talent — and to be swayed by his persistent manager, Ness — is supermarket scion Eduardo (Ruben Rabasa, once again doing the best at this), who hires him to film a commercial, complete with catchy jingle, at his store. The real-life store is Supermercado Agranel 65 in Carolina, and Santana says that all she and her team had to do to the location was dress up a few aisles.
“In the produce area, we carried on with this wood pattern in the background everywhere so that it would look a little less generic,” she says. “Because it was a Latin American supermarket, it was OK to have Spanish writing, and you see it in many places. But we had to cover a lot of branding.”
Music superstar Isa (Genesis Rodriguez) doesn’t have a private island — how passé — but rather a rainforest studio. The idyllic jungle escape was filmed at Hacienda Campo Rico, located on the grounds of a former sugarcane plantation in Carolina. “We really wanted to build the studio in the center,” Santana says. “Then we built the walls around it so that it felt enclosed. We ended up opening the doors anyway because the view was so grand. It was like, ‘Come on, who enclosed this?’ ”
Santi, Ness, and Felix sneak into a party to see a fellow reggaetonero perform. Filmed at Vivo Beach Club, it required lots of teamwork, Santana says — especially because it was dressed and filmed in one day. While rainstorms tried to get in the way of the scene’s fun, the team carried on. Santana outfitted the space in the show’s “aspirational” purples and golds, and Puerto Rican musicians Brray, Jon Z, and Jhayco (who portrays Santi’s illusion-obsessed rival Javier Luna) all appear. After all, a good party is nothing without a great guest list.
“It’s really exciting, all the cameos. But also we don’t usually get to see reggaetoneros have fun in this way and just be silly or goofy,” Oz Rodriguez says. “It’s really exciting to see them in a different space.”
Perla, an event space at Condado beachfront resort La Concha, had the perfect look for Daddy Yankee’s luxurious party thanks to its unique architecture — it was built to look like “a shell floating amidst ocean waves overlooking the Atlantic Ocean from every angle,” according to the resort’s website. It turns out water does mix with gasolina.
Ness follows Felix out of Daddy Yankee’s party to the beach, where she informs him he’s standing on hallowed ground: the Moonlight beach. That is, the beach from the Best Picture–winning movie Moonlight. So you know: It’s not actually the real beach from Moonlight — that’s Virginia Key Beach in Miami.
“The water there can be unpredictable,” Searle tells Tudum, but filming there “wound up going pretty much without a hitch. We didn’t really have any issues. They were both having fun. We were able to talk to the actors from our video village that was right on the beach. It was crazy.”
The pivotal events of the finale take place at Isa’s unforgettable New Year’s Eve party, filmed at the Coca-Cola Music Hall in Miramar and featuring performances by Santi, Javier Luna, and the show’s in-world pop princess Isa. If you look closely, you’ll notice purple and gold all over the celebration. Santi even becomes the fantasy he’s been chasing all along, wearing a deep goldenrod suit for his red carpet stroll.
Costume designer Yasiri Castro becomes emotional considering how the cast’s internal journey can be traced through their evening wear. For example, Ness enters the first party still figuring out if her aesthetic is more tomboy or glittering glam. By the finale, she’s sporting a masculine tuxedo-style look with confidently slicked-back hair.
“As the show progressed, the characters did also. Their styles got refined,” Castro says. Just like the trio’s place in Miami’s bustling reggaeton scene, the costume designer says, “In the end, they felt much, much [more] comfortable with everything.”
Additional reporting by Christopher Hudspeth.
