He Gets Us is an ad campaign about Jesus. Surely this won't be complicated or controversial...
My partner Kylie and I have made heaps of content for this campaign, but our biggest contribution has been evolving the voice of the campaign. Whether that was through using real people's words and stories to cover topics and perspectives we couldn't before, contrasting the superficiality of AI with the humanity of Jesus, or just adding in some poetry and beauty, this campaign was relatively formulaic when we joined and is anything but now. Here are the highlights.
Casting for this spot was a behemoth project in itself, but the end result was footage of real people answering real questions in a way that about 80% matched the original script. We also made four longer films diving into the cast's stories. They're right here. CW: Me; AD: Kylie Paz; Director: Trey Hill; CDs: David Morring & Ryan Beals
Throwback to the early days of MidJourney. How does the love Jesus taught and lived measure up to the images of love we have trained AI generators to produce? CW: Me; AD: Kylie Paz; Animator: Roscoe McGee; CDs: David Morring & Ryan Beals
Awards: AAF Dallas Addy - Gold: Digital Creative Technology, Silver: Online Interactive, Silver: Online Film
Press: AdAge Article
Every writer wants to see their poetry turned into a spot, I was just surrounded by people cool enough to say yes. CW: Me; Director/Editor: Jonah Ingram CDs: David Morring & Ryan Beals
This was my first national TV spot. We wanted to tell the story of Jesus' radical forgiveness for the people who killed him and chose to do it by telling a multi-perspective story of the day Jesus died through the lens of the modern justice system. Fair warning, it's a bit heavy. CW: Me; AD: Kylie Paz; Director: Jonah Ingram; CDs: David Morring & Ryan Beals
I made a game. And you can actually play it. Right here. Okay "game" is a bit of a stretch, they're conversation cards, but they get deep real quick so be careful with them. CW: Me; AD: Kylie Paz
I've also written a handful of articles. If you're interested in long form writing samples, you just found the jackpot.
Not pictured are a handful of static social posts and a bunch of TikToks that are about to go live. "He Gets Us Social" will likely be getting it's own page on this site in short order so stay tuned. Alright now it's time for something other than Jesus ads...