Apple's latest holiday commercial, A Critter Carol, leans heavily into puppetry shot on the iPhone 17 Pro.
Given that Apple has been chasing after all things AI in the same manner as the distracted boyfriend meme recently, it's nice to see it leaning into old-fashioned production skills for its latest A Critter Carol slot. Just in case you haven't seen it yet...
This year we've already had a frankly dreadful Coca-Cola advert made entirely with generative AI, so this is being seen by many as an effective cultural counterweight to all of that. Apple is keen to point out that it was entirely shot on an iPhone 17 Pro too — which just goes to prove, as 28 Years Later did, that you can shoot entire movies on a $1000 iPhone as long as you surround it with $100,000 worth of other kit.
The BTS is below and is interesting to note for a) the effectiveness of modern rotoscoping tools and b) to our mind being slightly funnier than the actual commercial thanks to some insightful puppetry outtakes.