There’s nothing quite like hitting the road for a production, especially when it’s an extended journey deep into remote Australia.

That’s exactly what our recent trips into the Northern Territory for Exact Contracting were like.

Flying into the red dust of Alice Springs, equipment and a can-do attitude, we were quickly greeted by the inescapable heat — and that velvety dirt that lingered with us throughout the shoot.

The landscapes on these productions provide the most epic backdrops. It’s hard to get a bad shot with rugged beauty in every direction, from glistening pre-dawn skies to mirror-ball nights. The content options are endless.

But it’s not just about the landscape, it’s about the people who choose to call it their office, their home away from home. They make the storytelling genuinely compelling.

Racing against the clock, hours from the nearest township, somewhere on the horizon, you’ll find the Exact Contracting team operating from portable communities, base camps from which they push forward to build critical infrastructure for all Australians.

Against unrelenting weather, indifferent to their deadlines, they press on, creating roads, redirecting water, and managing the many variables that come with it.

Our role was to capture the spirit of this multi-generational, family-owned business at the coalface.

At sites like Manton Dam, Tanami Road, and Carpentaria Highway, we skirted around the edges of their operations, cameras rolling, witnessing progress in motion.

When you’re on the road, moving fast to capture every moment, there are no rehearsals. No perfect setups. You need a plan. And you need eyes in the back of your head to spot the moments before they happen, then race like mad to shoot them.

Imagine the alternative -

“Ahhh, excuse me mate… I know you’ve just finished grading that highway camber to millimetre perfection…but would you mind cracking a U-turn and doing it all again for the camera?”

Tell him he's dreamin'.

So when you do get the chance to review the footage, sure, you check it against the shot list. But more importantly, you check it against how it felt when you were out there:

• Did we capture the scale?

• Did we showcase the people who keep it running smoothly?

• Did we reflect the camaraderie, the high stakes, the risk, the reward?

And proudly, that’s what we’ve managed to capture across these projects, the people who show up and put it all on the line, every day. Who work together to deliver major infrastructure projects for Australians, the kind we all rely on, yet so often take for granted.

Seeing the final cuts of these videos is a timely reminder: behind every road, every pipeline, every vital project, there are unsung heroes working their arses off, so we can get what we need, when we need it.

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