How Anderson Wright beat the drum for ACLU

From the first of its thumping, iconic drumbeats, director Anderson Wright's powerful film for ACLU takes no time in banging home its point.

Using Bruce Springsteen's unmistakable Born In The U.S.A. as its anthem, The Beat shines a light on the fight to protect birthright citizenship, reframing a cultural touchstone around a pivotal Supreme Court case.

Curious about how the Stink director managed to get The Boss to back his vision, shots sat down with Wright to discuss the cadence of his creation.

How did this project come about, and what was the initial brief from the ACLU?

Here’s what’s at stake: Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, and the ACLU is challenging that in the Supreme Court. It’s a fundamental question about what it means to be American - something central to the identity, even the soul, of the country. 

The ACLU had an initial idea of making a campaign that brings attention to this by using Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. as a backdrop for a tapestry of American life. At the core was the iconic drumbeat. The idea was that it would initiate and power the piece, grounding everything rhythmically as we moved through a medley of people and moments. The campaign’s key message: protect what it means to be born in the U.S.A.

From there, the ACLU partnered with CAA and conducted a director search. They heard pitches, and I had the opportunity to present directly to Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director. I’m really grateful that they connected with my vision and trusted me to bring it to life.

Born in the U.S.A. carries a lot of cultural weight, and a history of being misread. When did the track get brought in, and how did you go about securing the rights?

The track was there from the very beginning. The ACLU’s initial creative brief really started with Born in the U.S.A., and the rights were secured early on, so the entire project was built around the song from the jump.

The song’s cultural meaning is certainly interesting. It was originally written as a critique of American imperialism, of the Vietnam War, and of how the US treated its own citizens and veterans. So even though it has this triumphant, anthemic sound, there’s a biting, critical edge beneath it.

The campaign’s key message: protect what it means to be born in the U.S.A.

Over time, that meaning has obviously been sanded down. The refrain, ‘Born in the U.S.A.’, and the energy of the track have come to be associated more with straightforward patriotism. You hear it at sporting events, in celebratory contexts - it’s often used as a rallying cry, without that original layer of critique.

With all of that in mind, the question became: how do we engage with the song in a way that meets this moment? How do we reframe it to speak to something as fundamental as the inalienable right of citizenship? If you’re born in the US, you belong here. This is your home.

That idea was the emotional core, and from there, we leaned into a sense of positivity and perhaps joyful resistance, celebrating that right while still honouring the complexity of the song itself.

Once the song was in place, how did it influence the direction of the film?

It influenced the film on the levels of both content and form.

In terms of messaging, we were equating the protection of birthright citizenship with protecting the idea of America, protecting the soul of America, protecting what it means to be born in the United States. That led to a fundamental question: what does it actually mean to be born here? The imagery grew out of that, but also from real lived experiences, such as those of Abdool Corlette, the ACLU’s Head of Brand.

For example, the scene of a working mother finishing a night shift at a diner while her kids do homework nearby came directly from Abdool’s life. Even the ‘Sherry’ name tag is a direct reference to her. That grounded the film in something very real and personal.

More broadly, we wanted to show that being born in the US, in the context of birthright citizenship, means being able to live with joy and without fear, to raise a family, to work, and to exist in quiet, everyday ways with dignity and freedom. The film is ultimately about protecting this principle, something we see as core to the identity, or even the soul, of the country.

You’re trying to represent something as vast as American life, but within a 60-second film. It had to be precise, while still feeling expansive.

On a formal level, the song shaped everything. The drumbeat is so iconic, and I wanted to build the film around it in a way that felt diegetic and natural, as if the song were emerging from within real environments and the viewer were just happening to catch it in the passing moments of real American lives.

From there, the rhythm carries through the film in a diegetic way. You start to hear it echoed in the world: a father hammering on a roof in rhythm, a custodian mopping floors while listening to music through her headphones. We’re hinting at the song connecting everyone before fully revealing it.

Then, when the chorus hits, when the track fully opens up, it becomes about collectivity. The film moves from moments of solitude into something more communal and shared.

That’s where the marching band comes in, as a kind of release - an explosion of sound and energy that reflects that shift from individual lives to a collective expression.

The film moves through a range of everyday moments across the US - how did you decide what to show and how to build that world?

The possibilities were essentially infinite. You’re trying to represent something as vast as American life, but within a 60-second film. It had to be precise, while still feeling expansive.

When you’re talking about birthright citizenship, you’re talking about an enormous range of people and experiences. The idea was to honour that breadth, even though we could only show a small slice of it.

What guided the selection was a focus on quiet dignity - moments that are foundational to the fabric of the country, but often go unseen or uncelebrated. Everyday acts of work and care that hold everything together, even if they’re rarely centred.

Visually, I was also thinking in terms of emotional movement, starting with moments of solitude and gradually building towards collectivity. So while many of the early scenes are intimate and individual, we begin to open up into more communal, celebratory spaces.

The marching band became a key expression of that. It allowed us to bring the song into the world in a way that felt both diegetic and distinctly American. A high school band on a football field is such an unmistakably American image. It also gave us a natural way to expand the scale of the film as the chorus hits.

There were also more subtle, thematic choices. For example, the inclusion of a birthday scene. It’s a quiet way of evoking the idea of ‘birthright’ without stating it outright. In that moment, you see three generations of an immigrant family together, celebrating a child’s birthday. It’s definitively American, connected by place, by history, and by the simple fact of being born here. That idea - that this belonging is both ordinary and fundamental - is at the heart of the film.

Above: The original video for Springsteen's Born In The USA, directed by John Sayles.

You worked with real people rather than actors - what did that bring to the film, and how did you approach casting?

We worked with a mix of real people and actors, and the approach was very intentional.

For example, there’s a scene at Los Angeles City Hall where a Mexican family celebrates their mother’s naturalisation. We cast a real family who had lived versions of that experience themselves. That authenticity mattered not just creatively, but on a deeper level. 

It was necessary to honour real people whose lives and sense of belonging in the US are directly connected to what’s at stake with the Barbara v. Trump case.

There’s a strong sense of different places and communities - how did you think about locations and representing that range of experience?

The diversity of experience - across identity, environment and geography - was central to the film. The United States is such a vast and varied place, and it was important that the piece reflected that range. We were very intentional about choosing locations that could evoke different parts of the country: a beach with an open horizon, a dense downtown environment, a large agricultural landscape. 

The goal was to create the sense that the song, and what it represents, is reaching every corner of the country, speaking to people in cities, suburbs and rural communities alike.

How closely were you working with the ACLU throughout - was the idea quite locked in early on, or did it develop as you went?

Very closely. The ACLU came to Stink and me with a rough sketch of the idea, and then it became a collaborative process of developing and bringing it to life.

I worked especially closely with Abdool Corlette, the ACLU’s Head of Brand. From the earliest stages of ideation through to execution, he was instrumental in shaping the piece.

A great example is the City Hall scene, which was Abdool’s idea and is probably my favourite scene in the film, and is based on the lived experience of an ACLU team member, Arielle Baran.

The idea was always that the drumbeat would carry through the entire film.

We see it in a very wide shot of a family embracing after a naturalisation ceremony. City Hall towers above them - this massive institutional presence - while the family appears small in the frame. But despite that scale, you can still clearly feel the emotion in their embrace: acceptance, belonging, relief.

There are also these red, white and blue balloons floating above them, which subtly draw your eye to the family within that larger context. It’s a simple image, but it carries a lot of meaning.

So while the core concept was there early on, the film absolutely evolved through that collaboration. It was a very open, trusting creative relationship.

The drumbeat runs through the whole film - was that structure there from the start, or did it come together in the edit?

That structure was there from the start, very much by design. The idea was always that the drumbeat would carry through the entire film.

We wanted it to begin in a quiet, intimate space - a kid alone in a band room playing the beat - and then feel like it spreads outwards, reaching other people and other places. Almost like a pulse that connects everything.

There was actually a shot we filmed that didn’t make the final cut. After the opening in the band room, we had a long push down an empty high school hallway. The idea was that the sound was travelling, that it was almost like a spirit leaving the room and moving out into the world to connect these different lives. It was a cool idea, but in a 60-second format, we had to be very precise about what we kept.

Ultimately, the core concept remained the same: the drumbeat as a unifying thread, present from the very beginning and carrying all the way through.