Written By: Lauren Chambers, Digital Designer

A few weeks ago, the enCOMPASS team began an adventure – we hopped into some revved-up rides, headed out to the country, and prepped the scene for a video shoot. The mission was relatively simple: Get some seriously amazing footage of some seriously amazing custom vehicles. But do things ever go exactly as planned?

Mind-Blowing Mods

To be completely honest, I know very little about cars, and I’ve been perfectly content driving around the same Honda CR-V for over 12 years now. But when we approached the subjects of our video, my interest was definitely piqued. In fact, as I pulled myself into the driver’s seat of a 2018 Jeep Wrangler, I was giddy with excitement.

Of course, this wasn’t your standard Jeep Wrangler. Our client, Carolina Custom, is a specialized team of Jeep and vehicle enthusiasts designing and building exceptional customizations: window tints, suspension and lift kits, winches, custom lighting, custom accent paint, and more. And those customizations could be seen all over the vehicles we were filming that day – five Jeep Wranglers and a Ram.

This wasn’t the first time we’d done a video shoot for Carolina Custom. When we designed and launched their website in 2015, we built the footage right into their homepage. After all, video is an effective way to show off those custom details in action. But it was time for an update – we needed to feature the latest Jeep and truck models with the latest Carolina Custom modifications.

Acres Upon Acres

So, we connected with a local video team and began planning. Picking a location was easy – the previous footage was shot on sprawling, remote land, and that’s the exact location we wanted to take advantage of again.

The private location includes 100 acres of space, with several buildings, a pond, and fields of grass and grain. Near the entrance of the property stands a large, 6-bedroom farmhouse, built around the 1900s. Due to a fire many years ago, the house is currently uninhabitable, but its exterior still shows the charm and character of its time. Not far from the farmhouse is a large, 16-sided round barn; its unique architectural style earned it a place on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1977.

The detailed buildings and vast amount of land provided us with a variety of backdrops (and options for outdoor bathroom breaks). And we certainly took advantage of them!

Lights, Camera, Action Tree!

The sun was our “lights” that day – and it was bright and hot. We prepared ourselves with sunglasses, light clothing, sunscreen, and an abundance of water. What we didn’t prepare for was the bugs: beetles, flies, grasshoppers, and more. A short drive across a field quickly turned our clean rides into dirty ones, with bug residue splattered across the front windshield and a hood covered with enough fescue to plant a yard. “Clean up at Jeep 4, please.”

The good news is that we had plenty of high-spec cameras on set, including a sky-flying drone. The bad news is that the drone ended up stuck in a tree… Sometimes, that’s just the repercussion of getting the perfect shot. And sometimes, getting the perfect shot means taking off your shoes and stepping into a creek full of soft, squishy mud that oozes between your toes and splashes up onto your clothes.

It may have been messy, and it may have been hot, but it was definitely a productive and fun day. As I sorted through the raw footage to make our “behind the scenes” video, I admired what we’d captured. Even small details, like door handle inserts, leave a big impression. Plus, those color-changing LED headlights just make me want to dance! So, what does this all mean for our mission? Well, I think it was quite the success.