Navy to shoot
recruitment ad on Oahu
More than 50 sailors try out
By Gregg K. Kakesako
for the 30-second spot, to be
directed by Oscar nominee Spike Lee
Star-BulletinTwelve years ago, Tom Cruise and the movie "Top Gun" were responsible for enticing Petty Officer Michelle Breedlove into joining the Navy.
"I loved that movie and I wanted to fly," said Breedlove, 33.
Instead, Breedlove became an air traffic controller and now is a Navy career counselor.
Yesterday, she was among the more than 50 Navy sailors who took time from their duties to join a morning casting call at Pearl Harbor to try out for one of the Navy's new recruiting television commercials, which will be directed by Spike Lee and shot at various locations on Oahu next week.
Breedlove hopes to be among the Pearl Harbor sailors used to project the Navy's theme, "Let the Journey Begin," in an advertising campaign designed to lure men and women 17 to 24 years old.
Lee, an Oscar nominee for his 1989 movie, "Do the Right Thing," is under a $2.5 million contract with the Navy to do six 30-second television commercials. Five already have been filmed and are in the process of being released.
The sixth -- dealing with the naval benefits of travel -- will involve the Pearl Harbor sailors. The commercials will hit TV screens in September.
"All of them use real-life sailors," said Lt. Cmdr. Karen Jeffries, a Navy Recruiting Command spokeswoman who has been with the project since it began six months ago.
"Our research has found that it is more credible if we have sailors talking about their experiences. There is no script. We interview them and base the filming around what they tell us."
"Today's youth find the message more comfortable and believable," Jeffries added, "when they hear from someone of their own age."
The focus of the five other commercials involved the Navy's elite SEALS, educational benefits, sailors jamming in a band during their off-duty hours, sailors coming home on leave, and the Navy as a good starting point in life.
The SEAL ad was unveiled May 19 as a trailer to the movie "Star Wars: Episode I -- Phantom Menace."
The Lee-directed commercials will run over the next two or three years, and were initiated in part because Navy recruiters were about 7,000 sailors short of their goal. The Navy needs anywhere from 50,000 to 55,000 new recruits annually, Jeffries said.
Breedlove, who graduated from Moanalua High School in 1983, has been trying to come back to Hawaii since she enlisted 12 years ago. "You couldn't ask for a more beautiful place," she said yesterday.
"It's almost like a fantasy," said Breedlove, who recently left her job as a Navy air traffic controller to become a career counselor because she enjoys helping people.
Chief Petty Officer Dawn Reiley, who joined the Navy when she was 17, said she has lived in 10 different countries during her naval career and cited Sicily as her favorite assignment.
Petty Officer Michael Irion, 26, said he was encouraged by his colleagues to cash in on his past modeling experience and try out for the commercial on travel.
His most outstanding travel experience was "riding an elephant in Thailand."
Jeffries said 500 sailors auditioned for the first five commercials, but only 24 had speaking parts in the finished products.
At one time the Navy had hoped to film the travel commercial in the Mediterranean, but then the war in the Balkans broke out. Hawaii and the Pacific Fleet won out over Puerto Rico, Jeffries added.
"Hawaii is an exotic place for someone from middle-town America," she said.
