Immersive Worlds: Behind the Scenes of the Jeep Recon Launch
Article
By Ashley Ellefson15.05.2602 MIN
“Build me a lake in the middle of LA and put the truck in it.”
...Sorry, what?
There’s nothing I love more than bringing an impossible-seeming idea to life, especially from a dream brand like Jeep, who made my beloved first car. Spoiler alert: we built the lake.
Working with Stellantis, the vision is never boring and it’s never small. For the launch of the Jeep Recon, we were tasked with bringing the great outdoors inside onto a soundstage so influencers and media could truly feel the extreme terrain this truck conquers.
It all had to feel completely real. Real water. Real trees. Real sand. (It was LA, so the snow was still fake.)
The environment needed to carry the full weight of making guests believe. So we brought in a Tony Award-winning set designer (a testament to the extraordinary talent we can access) and built immersive worlds designed to trick every sense. We paired physical environments with video and audio content to extend the space beyond what any soundstage could hold: the Alps, Moab, the beach. The ocean can’t come inside but you can bring the sand and let great content do the rest.
The results looked effortless. The execution was anything but.
Working with organic materials like red Moab dirt and live water can be a technical nightmare. Dirt gets everywhere and water is its own beast. Submerging a truck in two feet of water required engineers to calculate load capacity and strategically angle the vehicle for proper weight distribution. To avoid leaks, our scenic team engineered and spray-finished the pond the same way you’d build an in-ground pool. It was built to look real while also protecting the production.
But when the client walked in and dipped their toes into a live water pond and smelled the Moab’s juniper berries for the first time, I knew we had nailed it.
The activation went on to win at The Stevie® Awards. Proud doesn’t begin to cover it.