Darwin’s 1st Brigade scores direct hit with explosive Gladiator themed video

An Australian Army social media team has crafted an action promo video featuring heavy metal, explosions, and even a Russell Crowe voiceover. It has earned high praise. Watch the video.

An Australian Army social media team has crafted an action promo video featuring heavy metal, explosions, and even a Russell Crowe voiceover.

It has earned high praise from Special forces combat veteran Heston Russell.

This week, Darwin’s 1st Brigade uploaded the 85-second video packed with various training footage, including clips taken from the body cams of soldiers.

Lethal weapons took centre stage in the video, with the firepower and effects of howitzers, heavy machine guns and attack helicopters on full display.

The video even tapped into a couple of hair-raising Hollywood quotes, airing lines from Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’ as troops clear rooms.

Posted to Facebook, the video gained almost 14,000 views in less than 24 hours.

The video focused on warfighting footage, rather than lifestyle and career. Source: Facebook.

The video was met with plenty of online views and approvals.

“Now this is a vast improvement from past PR campaigns - thank you to the men and women who are stepping up,” said one man.

“Proud of my boy who serves in the 1st (Brigade)- now this is the first proper motivational video for young women and men who want to serve,” said another.

Special forces combat veteran Heston Russell told this masthead he found the video “refreshing”.

“This video captures a full spread of the different elements that makes service life exciting and motivating,” he said.

“It’s got everything from working with foreign partners, the assets and equipment needed to be military professionals.”

The video’s tone and style is noticeably different to the ADF’s usual social media output.

The promo video marks a bold change from the ADF’s usual portrayal of life in service, which typically orientates around lifestyle and non-warfighting activities.

In recent years, the ADF have sought to attract a diverse demographic of recruits through various advertisements, such as the Australian Army’s ‘My Army’ recruitment campaign, which focused on lifestyle benefits and individual pursuits within the organisation.

However, ADF’s focus on promoting non-warfighting issues has stirred discontent with the ranks through the years, culminating in 2018 when the ADF released its polarising music video ‘I wear my medals on the left’, which aimed to celebrate the medals awarded to a trio of servicewomen.

Former Commando officer Mr Russell applauded the video. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Mr Russell said he was impressed by 1st Brigade’s latest video, and maintained the content was an accurate representation of what service life was about.

“It captures people and equipment coming together to provide a capability, whereas much of the defence recruiting videos we see nowadays focuses on the diversity of people based on superficial factors, like race, sex, gender, (and) skin tone,” he said.

“When bullets and bombs come down range, service is about mission and team before self - yes, people joining the military should indeed be joining to further themselves professionally, but at the end of the day it’s actually about recruiting people with a particular mindset and value set because it’s a culture that ultimately may require taking or saving a life.”

Mr Russell said he would “love to the commend” the team behind the video.

“This demonstrates good leadership and good understanding of what is needed,” he said.

“It seems quite against the general warmth of what we’ve seen from the defence recruiting establishment and I hope this signifies a good command and leadership team up there at 1st Brigade who understand what is needed and are willing to take action.”

Originally published as Darwin’s 1st Brigade scores direct hit with explosive Gladiator themed video