Those who stayed up to the (figuratively) bitter end of Sunday's Academy Awards telecast were treated to one of the strongest ads of the night—this one-minute spot from Google celebrating storytelling.
The spot was all about young filmmakers learning the craft, but it was narrated by a master of the form—Pixar's Andrew Stanton, who knows a little something about stories, having written all three Toy Story movies, as well as Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, WALL-E and John Carter.
Yep. That was me on the Google ad. #TEDTalks
— andrew stanton (@andrewstanton) March 3, 2014The voiceover came directly from bits and pieces of Stanton's 2012 TED talk (the more inspirational parts, that is, not the parts about people have sex with livestock).
The version of the spot on the Oscars broadcast actually had brief footage of Stanton accepting one of his Oscars. The online version omits that part.
Stanton tweeted about his cameo in the ad. And yes, he retweeted the Ellen selfie.