It's early days for the feature film the Player and the Advocate. So early in fact, its still being written!

Yet this development period is a crucial time in the life of a film project. This is when a frenzy of networking occurs, the filmmaker is drumming up funding, rallying support and selling the vision.

To help capture the imagination of potential sponsors and the film industry, the film needed a visual presence and identity that presented the main themes and the 'feel' of the film without saying or defining too much.

When asked what his film was about, John replied " It’s Whale Rider meets Shakespeare in Love!" but without jumping inside John's head to watch a film that was yet to be created, the designers had very little to create a identity from.

We figured we were going to be in for a lot of to-ing and fro-ing , unless we could somehow get inside John's head and get him to articulate the way he saw the look and feel of the film. Then we had a stroke of genious.

We got John to do a moodboard. He cut and pasted pictures from magazines, downloaded stuff from the internet and created a board which showed colours, textures, feel and tone. He enjoyed the creative process, and it was immediately evident to us how the visual styling was going to develop.

It was important that the identity be flexible to expansion as it became more defined throughout the process of its creation.

The initial identity has been applied to business cards and a simple website where John Parker, the writer and director is posting updates and information.

This project is a great example of how Alto create a nice easy and creative process, and how it delivers great outcome.

www.playerandadvocate.co.nz

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