With the fanfare of Fleet Week consuming New York’s harbor, director Spike Lee premiered five new spots he directed for the U.S. Navy via BBDO New York. The :30s, which were shown in a ceremony on May 27 aboard the Navy’s USS Wasp, are part of a new drive to promote recruitment for the sea-faring force. The real-people pieces show stories and scenes from Navy sailors’ lives. Joining Lee in attendance at the event were Under Secretary of the Navy Jerry MacArthur Hultin; Phil Dusenberry, chairman of BBDO New York; and five of the sailors who participated in the ads. The spots were produced by Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Brooklyn, N.Y.
The campaign focused on different aspects of the Navy experience through the lens of personal testimonials and commentaries from sailors. "Seals," for instance, featured scenes of the Navy’s elite amphibious assault unit in action cut together with reflections made by Seal members about the unit. A second spot, "Education," demonstrated the opportunity that sailors have to pursue college and advanced degrees with financial support from the Navy. "Homecoming" features brief interviews with a sailor’s family and friends when he returns home for a celebration; they talk about their positive impression of the sailor’s life in the Navy. The five spots were whittled down from extensive interviews that Lee conducted with more than 28 sailors.
All of the spots, rounded out by "Band" and "Life After Navy," will air on TV, and "Seals" is also currently running in movie theaters across the country. And once the embargo on trailers before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is lifted, "Seals" will additionally play prior to that film.
"This whole campaign is about real sailors recruiting shipmates," said Under Secretary Hultin, who added that the campaign has evolved as an attempt to "move the advertising campaign more directly into the face of the young Americans we’re trying to recruit."
Real Life
In his comments before the screening of the spots, BBDO’s Phil Dusenberry noted that Lee’s documentary approach was an effective means of getting the Navy’s message across to potential recruits. "The best advertising doesn’t sound like advertising at all, it sounds like real life," he said. "That’s what these spots are all about, what we call people-speak instead of ad-speak, which is so important when you’re talking with today’s teenagers and young adults."
In his brief comments during the announcement, Lee said that he was ultimately thankful that the BBDO creatives and Navy client could see that he could direct spots on this subject matter. "I’m glad to be here and I want to say I’m very grateful to be given this shot," he said. "There are some backwards people in the world, and some people with a very narrow vision of who I am, what I’m about and what I can do."
Lee recounted that he wanted to make sure at the onset of the project that the Navy knew exactly who was going to be directing the spots. "Does the Navy know about this?" Lee said he responded when initially asked by BBDO to helm the assignment. Lee’s audience broke into laughter when the director then listed films such as Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, and Girl 6 which might have presented a problem for authority figures in the Navy.
Lee said that he enjoyed doing the spots as an opportunity to work in the documentary style. While saying that he liked all of the ads equally, he noted that the "Seals" spot was the most exciting for him. That spot is an action-oriented piece, which is a genre that Lee hasn’t delved into in his feature work. Lee praised cinematographer Ellen Kuras, who lensed the Navy spots and previously worked with Lee on 4 Little Girls.
Hospital Corpsman Second Class Muhammad Bray, who appears in "Education," said that his experience gave him a taste of Hollywood. "It was neat to be directed by Spike," said Bray. "That made it all worthwhile. And they treated us like royalty during the shoot."
Lee will be shooting "Travel," the final spot in the campaign, in Hawaii this month.
