new campaign for the American Legacy Foundation's "Truth" campaign, created by The Alliance -- Boston's Arnold Worldwide and Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Directed by Ken Fox of bicoastal Villains, the in-your-face spots entitled "Western," "Nightclub," "Parachute" and "Beach" first hit the airwaves during the Aussie Olympics and will continue to run on Fox, WB, UPN, Comedy Central and MTV.

"Western" depicts a posse of teenagers pitching body bags onto the backs of horses with slurs that include, "Go on, be a cowboy!" as the horses gallop away; "Nightclub," goes interior to follow the exploits of one stiff that's dragged through the dance floor by his friends as slinky ladies caress the body bag; "Parachute," opens inside a DC-3 as adrenaline junkies pitch body bags attached to parachutes from the plane shouting, "Taste the adventure!" as they descend from the heavens; and "Beach," has the bags frolicking with hipster friends as they top up their tans. The spots work as sardonic stabs against the plethora of iconic imagery rendered in the tobacco advertising world --- images such as the immortal Marlboro Man riding the range with his cancer sticks, or the enticing Joe Camel whose rambunctious yet regal lifestyle suggests smoking is cool. As the percentage of American teen smokers continues to rise, the campaign aims to highlight such influential tobacco ads. (When the tobacco industry settled several state lawsuits in 1998, it agreed to fund the anti-tobacco American Legacy Foundation, devoting its energy to persuading teens not to smoke.)

"The boards were unique because they were really hard-hitting, pointing a finger at the industry and portraying it in as poor a light as possible," says Manhattan Transfer's Bill Denahy, visual effects supervisor on the campaign. "They were fascinating boards, all creating the grandeur and effect that some of the classic tobacco campaigns have used."

"The spots aren't targeted at specific brands," says campaign director/cinematographer Ken Fox, out of Villains in LA. "They are more of an action--adventure style in the flavor of tobacco ads. The idea was to create an over-the-top adventure played straight. All the spots depict kids taking their friends to enjoy what they bought into, but they died too soon, hence the body bags; kids who bought into the tobacco lifestyle and died before they hit that nightclub or rode that Marlboro Man's horse."

Fox covered ground over the shoot, first focusing on "Nightclub" in LA, then "Western" in Moab, Utah before venturing on to Oahu, Hawaii to shoot "Parachute" and "Beach."

"The Hawaii location gave us perfectly good weather and rich green woods," adds Denahy. "Hawaii was also perfect for the beach spot, which minimized travel to another location. It also had more options as far as remote beaches go, plus we found a plane for the 'Parachute' spot."

However, it became somewhat problematic getting a decent plane for "Parachute": "There were only certain planes that would work for us," explains Fox. "We ended up with an old DC-3, primarily because a bigger plane would fly too fast for me to shoot alongside from my helicopter. Then the one we picked suddenly had to leave the island, so we had to find yet another DC-3 and paint it."