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The Hood & Co creates visual content for brands and organisations in Aotearoa.
We create beautiful work that evokes strong, emotional and human feelings.
The majority of our work has an element of Te Ao Māori bringing a passionate and unique viewpoint to every job.
James, our co-founder, being of Māori and Cook Island heritage provides a natural progression into this space.
Connection with culture and respect for the people we work with is important.
Our efficient, savvy, and honest approach makes sure every client feels heard and supported during our collaboration.
Latest and greatest

Auckland Unlimited - Brand Library
The objective was to capture high-quality video and photography to use in future marketing and communications activity by Auckland Unlimited, partners, and media in New Zealand and across international markets that promote Auckland as a desirable destination to live, work, visit, study, invest.
We were involved with creative development of scenarios, sourcing talent, pre-production and working closely with the client to ensure we hit the brand pillars. On-set consisted of a nimble team with a Producer, Director, DOP, Stills- Photographer (s) , Talent Coordinator and occasionally a Drone Operator.
Director/DOP: James Rua
Producer: Caren Freeman & Catie McDonald
Services provided: account management, creative, pre-production, crewing,
casting, direction, video, photography, editing, grade, library upload and tags.




Amber Jones
Amber Jones
Auckland Unlimited - The Lion King
The objective of Auckland Unlimited and the Michael Cassel Group was to create an ‘epic’ video capturing the iconic Disney character Rafiki singing the opening notes of the song ‘The Circle of Life’ atop Auckland’s Harbour Bridge highlighting Auckland city.
With recreating such an iconic scene from our favourite childhood movie we were all very excited for this job. After realising early on that the Harbour Bridge was going to become limiting on what shots we would be able to capture we decide to move the iconic scene to the top of our tallest building the Sky Tower.
Filming on the outside of the 64th floor of the Sky Tower was always going to a high risk job. We formed a meticulous team including Tony Monk (helicopter pilot ), Louise Spraggon and Jennifer Butcher (AD) . With our clear and concise way of communicating with our clients and stakeholders we were able to create an epic piece of film in an environment where everyone felt safe and supported.
Director: James Rua
Heli DOP: Murray Milne
Heli Pilot: Tony Monk
Producer:Catie McDonald
Services provided: account management, creative, pre-production, crewing, direction, video, photography, offline editing & grade. Online by Auckland Unlimited.
Behind the Scenes
James Rua

