Google is back in the Super Bowl, and the new commercial for its Pixel 8 phone was partly filmed with a camera obscured by petroleum jelly, a choice blind director Adam Morse made to transport people into the point of view of a blind character.
The 60-second ad, which will run in the game’s second quarter, uses the practical blurring effect to demonstrate the Pixel phone’s AI camera tools that help visually impaired people take photos. Google today released a behind-the-scenes video about how the commercial came together, and plans to release the full spot in the coming days. Ad Age spoke with Morse and Google's creative team to discuss the spot.
The commercial, titled “Javier In Frame,” tells the story of a blind man who falls in love and starts a family. The journey from bachelor to fatherhood unfolds as the character takes selfies. Each photo starts by giving viewers the scene from the blind person’s perspective, and then it comes into focus with every camera click.
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“When you’re dealing with a very specific point of view like this, one with a character who is blind … I think it is the only way to do it for it to become visceral and ultra-emotive,” Morse said in a recent phone interview.
“We frame it in a way the story is still telegraphed,” Morse said. “It’s still clear moment to moment, beat to beat, what’s happening. And that’s part of the trick, being able to create this authentic impression of blindness.”