Introducing Neck of the Woods Films
Just in case the title didn’t give it away, we’ve rebranded. Out with Broken Physics Productions and in with Neck of the Woods Films. It’s been a long time coming, and the result of a lot of hard work and planning, but we’re so glad that it’s finally here. Interested in finding out a little bit more about our journey? Read on as we take you through who we were, who we are now and how we became Neck of the Woods.
Who we were
We started Broken Physics Productions in 2013 as two fresh-faced university students. We’d spent so long studying filmmaking and storytelling that we were desperate to get out into the world and start creating work of our own. We decided that if we wanted to discover our own way of telling stories and creating films then the best thing for us to do would be to set out on our own and do it ourselves. It was definitely the hard way, but what a rewarding way to begin your career! At the time Broken Physics meant something to us. It definitely helped us stand out in a crowd, but after a while, we changed, and our love for the brand changed too.
We started out wanting to do something different and work with people who were changing their communities and wider world in some way. That desire was always there, we worked with plenty of people who did just that, but we also had to think about paying the bills and continuing to grow. Eventually, we reached a point where it was important for us to go back to our roots, bringing our passion and values to the forefront. Neck of the Woods is the embodiment of this desire and something that we’ve been discussing as a team for some years.
So, how is Neck of the Woods different?
Well, in some ways it’s not. We still have a passion for storytelling and a dedication to telling stories in a way that connects with people. We’re still very people-centric. We create work that helps people and tells their stories respectfully and honestly, but some things have certainly developed. The people we work with now can be described as innovators, change-makers and educators. We’ve changed our brand and messaging to reflect them. Everything we do now is aimed to meet the needs of these people and tell the stories that matter most to them. By rebranding, all of those values and ideas that were bubbling under the surface can be brought to the forefront. This means that we can better connect with the people we want to help. This has been the mission of the rebrand and why Neck of the Woods was created.
All of this can really be summed up in our new brand film:
That’s the story of why we rebranded, but some of you are probably here for the nuts and bolts of how it came together. Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered on that.
Our new brand
Let’s start at the very beginning with our new name. It was really important to us that any name we chose for our new brand had to be a snapshot of who we are and what we stand for. In short, it really had to mean something to us. We spent a long time thinking about this, and, after many (and I mean many) discussions we landed on Neck of the Woods. We liked it, it rolled off the tongue, it struck a chord with us and we knew that this is who we needed to be now. Broken Physics no longer said anything about us, but this new name really fits.
But why Neck of the Woods?
Well, firstly, to us it meant community. It meant the place in which we live, the people that we live with and making a positive difference in our community. We are a social enterprise, and this new name captures our intention to do something good. It’s bigger than us though. We want to make a difference in our community, but we also want to help those who are doing the same. There are people out there who are changing their community and the wider world for the better, and we want to be right there helping them. There are so many people who are trying to innovate and change things for the better, and, for us, the new name spoke to that. This was a hard choice, but we’re proud of the decision we made.
We’re not branding experts, but we knew that we were going to need something to visually represent our new brand. Luckily, we had the lovely team at Fhoke to help us with that part. After much discussion, we created a look and feel for our new brand that would accurately capture who we were. With their design know-how, they were able to roll that out across the board, creating a whole new site to help show our clients and collaborators what we’re all about. It was important to us that this visual identity captured our core values, and represented the kind of work we produce.
The logo
The other part of this new visual identity is very special to us, and that’s our new logo. We hoped there would be a symbol or logo that would encapsulate everything meaningful to us, but were a little sceptical that it was achievable. We were happy to be proved wrong, and we’re so proud of the logo that was created for us.
As with every good logo, this one is the result of thinking, experimentation and hard work. It has a journey and a story behind it, and that’s exactly how we like things to be. Our N is the result of experimenting with the shapes on play, pause and stop buttons. As you can see below, between the gaps in these shapes forms our logo, playing on our role as filmmakers and story tellers.
There’s more to it than that though, and if you look a little closer, you’ll see a forked path inside the N. To us, this symbolises us as filmmakers, taking audiences on a journey through the work that we do. It also speaks to the nature of a lot of our work. Constructing stories from the ground up, with multiple directions in which we can take a story, depending on what we’re trying to achieve with our clients and collaborators. Brett from Fhoke described it like this:
To me, it represents togetherness, impact, creativity and the idea of looking at objects / things / people / businesses through a lens.
Brett Robinson, Fhoke
As soon we heard this, and learned how the logo came together, we knew that this one icon perfectly captured our identity.
Looking forward to the future
This rebrand has been bubbling away in the background for a long time now. Not just discussing it as a possibility (which happened over a two year period) but with the creation of the new brand itself. We’ve been quietly working away alongside our other projects. Putting in place everything we needed to complete a totally new brand and now we can share it with you. This is goodbye to Broken Physics Productions and the start of a new journey as Neck of the Woods Films.
A special mention
None of this would have been possible without our friends at Fhoke, who have done an amazing job at every stage of our rebrand. Their dedication, creativity and expertise has lead to the creation of a brand, logo and website that we are incredibly proud of. We are super grateful, and couldn’t recommend working with Fhoke highly enough. Thanks guys!
