This spot opens on a massive landfill that stretches as far as the eye can see. The centerpiece of the action is a giant tractor that’s moving debris toward us. The camera pulls back to reveal three other tractors that are pushing waste around, but hardly making a dent in the massive accumulation of garbage.
Then the camera moves up, and bubbles appear in the foreground. For a brief moment, the transition is disorienting—that is, until we see that we’ve surfaced from beneath the ocean. A super reads, "Not all destruction is this visible."
A follow-up supered message then drives the point home. "Less than 1% of our ocean is protected," it reads. "Help Protect More. LessThanOne.org."
This PSA is part of a multimedia public awareness campaign, dubbed "Less Than One," created by WongDoody, Los Angeles.
"It is easy to ignore what we cannot see, so our aim was to draw the parallel between land and ocean destruction, to illustrate the gravity of the problem," related Benjamin Weiner, managing partner of WongDoody, Los Angeles.
The work was done on behalf of SeaWeb, a marine conservation organization, and the Ocean Wilderness Network, a nonprofit coalition of regional and national groups dedicated to protecting the ocean. These entities hope to establish a network of fully protected marine reserves along the U.S. Pacific Coast.
The core creative team at WongDoody consisted of creative director Tracy Wong, art director Michael Ivan Boychuk, copywriter Jeff Bossin and producer Brian O’Rourke.
"Landfill" was directed by Marco Brambilla via DNA, Hollywood. Patricia Judice executive produced for DNA, with Clark Jackson serving as line producer. The DP was Christophe Lanzenberg.
Several artisans from Base 2 Studios, Santa Monica, contributed to the spot, including editor Morris Paulson, Henry artist Steve Kokor, digital fusion artists Janelle Crowshaw and Matt Morgan, and Combustion artists Culley Bunker, Joshua Bolin and Jackie Cooper.
Colorist was John Zaik of Company 3, Santa Monica. Audio mixer/sound designer/music composer was Drazen Bosnjak of QDepartment, Brooklyn, N.Y.
