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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
Amotai
The Hood and Co was tasked to create a series of video's featuring Amotai's Buyers and their experience being a part of the network. We spoke with Kāinga Ora, Waka Kotahi, Ministry of Education and the Auckland Council.
One video, captured over a 6 month period, showcases Kāinga Ora engaging Pacifica owned construction company TROW Group and the outcomes of this partnership.
Director/DOP: James Rua
Producer: Caren Freeman & Catie McDonald
Services provided: account management, creative, preproduction, crewing, direction, video, photography, editing & grade.
Rugby New Zealand
Māori advertising agency Fly together with their client Rugby NZ came to us to collaborate on an educational resource video to be used in digital and social channels to empower coaches to view their role as kaitiaki, trusted guardians of the children they coach.
After receiving the brief, we invited Director Max Currie to join the team and lead the direction. A long script was broken down in 'need to haves' and 'nice to haves' as we had to make it all work in one shoot day. We found 3x fantastic kid actors who were actively into rugby and helped bring the message across and added some comedy on the day.
Director: Max Currie
Producer: Craig Gainsborough
DOP: James Rua
Services provided: preproduction, crewing, direction, video, editing, final audio mix & grade
Oppo Find X3
Creative PR company R26 came to the Hood & Co looking to collaborate on the conceptualisation of a brand campaign that would track across the NZ Market.
One of the key client requirements that made this project unique was that the TVC needed to be shot entirely on the OPPO FX3 Pro, highlighting the quality and incredible camera features these devices have to offer.
Director/DOP: James Rua
Producer: Felicia Brunsting
Services provided: script, creative development, location scouting, casting, preproduction, crewing, direction, video, editing, final audio mix & grade.
International Hobbit Day - Tourism NZ
Special Group came to us with the request if we could do a quick turn around job and create an video within 5x days to celebrate International Hobbit Day 2020.
The Hood & Co - being the nifty and nimble team we are - jumped onto the challenge and through some serious multi-tasking created an engaging and whimsical wee video.
Director/DOP: James Rua
Producer: Caren Freeman
Services provided: storyboard, shortlist, preproduction, art sourcing and cake making, crewing, direction, video, editing & grade.
Heart of the City - Lovebites
In 2016 we were briefed on 50x videos with stills with a modest budget. The campaign ended up spanning over a 4 year period surpassing over a 100x videos.
Equipment wise we used what we could carry as there were many relocates and we were often filming in tight spaces like working kitchens.We had to be resourceful and mostly dressed the frame with the props available at the location. It was a number 8 wire can do attitude which showed in the beautiful imagery.
Director/DOP: James Rua
Producer: Felicia Brunsting & Caren Freeman
Services provided: pre-production, crewing, scheduling participating businesses, direction, video and photography. Post production by Colenso BBDO.
Maggi - Your Meal, Your Way
Together with Saatchi & Saatchi, The Hood & Co created this online video series for Maggi for their 'Your Meal, Your Way' campaign featuring Laura McGoldrick and her mum Joanne.
Director: Max Currie
DOP: James Rua
Producer: Georgia Taylor
Services provided: preproduction, crewing, direction, video, editing, sound mix & grade. Online by Saatchi & Saatchi.
Starship Foundation 'PICU' - 2021 appeal
May 2019, Shine came to us with the request to create a TVC to raise money for the Starship Air Ambulance. We developed a story arc using 4 client chosen stories to drive the message and get New Zealanders to donate. This was achieved by driving a story which not only pulled at the heartstrings but had to work across multiple platforms, aspect ratios and durations. Felicia had discovered the song used in the track and the agency was successful in securing Little Bird by Anika Moa.
At the end of 2019, Shine came to The Hood & Co with the request to work with the Starship Foundation again. This time they had created a creative focussing on raising money for the PICU unit in Starship hospital. This ward is in dire need of more beds to be able to service the sickest of children from around the country. This campaign saw us interview three families, all having had one of their children needing to stay in the PICU ward. The tricky part of this campaign was that COVID-19 lockdowns and level changes were happening meaning we had to move out the filming several times.
On the day of filming, we really wanted to film in PICU itself but it was at capacity that day and we had to capture the interviews in another ward. Sad irony. In the end we managed to film a beautiful, emotional piece that so far has managed to raise over 2.2 million dollars (August 2021).
Director/DOP: James Rua
Producer: Felicia Brunsting
Services provided: preproduction, crewing, direction, video, photography, editing, final audio mix and grade.
