APPLE | Fuzzy Feelings | 2024
Someone Just Flipped Your Kindness Switch / Apple "Fuzzy Feelings"
I was on the verge of tears for the whole four minutes. When stop-motion and live action melted together and George Harrison's "Isn't It a Pity" started playing, I was completely gone.
The problem
This is Apple's 2023 holiday film, set in London. Live action was directed by Lucia Aniello of "Hacks," and the stop-motion sequences were handled by Anna Mantzaris of "Isle of Dogs" fame.
The insight
A woman, stressed out by an annoying boss, keeps taking "revenge" on a stop-motion figure of him. But a gift from her boss ends up changing how she sees him. As Mantzaris put it, "Stop-motion is my language." The feeling comes through not in words, but in the technique itself.
The idea
You're laughing as the boss figure gets blown away by wind, falls into a river, gets electrocuted, and suffers one mishap after another—until a gift flips the whole story around. The woman knits a tiny dog out of sock yarn and places it beside the boss figure. This warm ending was shot and edited using nothing but an iPhone 15 Pro Max and a MacBook Air M2.
What happened
It won "Outstanding Commercial" at the 2024 Primetime Emmys, making Apple the first brand ever to win that award two years in a row. It was also highly praised at Cannes and D&AD.
Afterthought
After watching it, I caught myself searching "how to make stop-motion with an iPhone." That's the quiet power of this film—it never pushes, yet it makes you want to try something yourself. An annoying boss, someone feeling lonely—everyone's carrying their own story. A little bit of kindness, just taking the time to really see someone, can change the world a little. Kindness is contagious.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2024
