Raj's Royal Navy story

Royal Navy – Raj's Story

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Agency Engine/London
Production Company Familia
Director Sashinski

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Credits

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Agency Engine/London
Production Company Familia
Director Sashinski
Editing tenthree
Editor Stephen Dunne
Executive Producer Julian Marshall / (Executive Producer)
Color Company 3/New York
Colorist Joseph Bicknell

Color Producer Anna Kelman
Post Production Wicked Pixels
Executive Producer Michelle Kruger
Composer Peter Mauder
Music Supervision Tin Drum Music
Sound Design/Audio Post Machine Sound/London
Sound Designer Alex Bingham
DP Hunter Daly

Production Designer Ash K Halliburton
Chief Creative Officer/Creative Director Billy Faithfull
Creative Hugo Isaacs
Creative Chris da Roza
Executive Producer Bradley Woodus
Producer Georgina Moxey

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This new campaign from Engine London centres on the powerful and emotional tale of Raj Singh Mehon and his journey towards joining the Royal Navy.

Raj’s Story was written by creatives Chris Da Roza and Hugo Isaacs as an entry to Channel 4’s Diversity Competition at the end of 2020, which focused on the UK portrayal of underrepresented cultures, with the script coming not from a client brief, but from conversations they had with a diverse range of Royal Navy personnel. "Of all the conversations we had, it was one with Raj that felt most powerful," said the pair. "He was brought up Sikh but as he got older, he lost touch with that part of his heritage. What was interesting, was that being in the Royal Navy helped him reconnect with his Sikh culture. It was the classic story of discovering pride, familiar in Royal Navy advertising, but one that was uniquely about cultural heritage. It felt like Raj’s story captured the complexity of identity in Britain for anyone who feels trapped between two cultures.”

The spot was directed by Familia's Sashinski, whose narrative work frequently uses flashbacks to impose a sense of nostalgia. That sense is present here, too, as the film [the director's cut of which can be seen above] takes us into Raj's past, the bullying he faced and the initial resistance he faced from his family around the choice of his career. "Once I commenced research, I discovered that Raj and I had many things in common," said Sahsinki. "We were born in the same year, both grew up in West London and both had fathers that emigrated to London from Kenya.

"Like Raj, my background is also of Asian heritage, so the parts of the story in which Raj’s attempts to blend-in and subdue his ethnicity, culture and heritage are things that I too did. There was so much personal, lived-experience to draw from. Connecting who we are as adults, with our experiences as children, was one of our central themes, and I really wanted to explore that with Raj’s Story."