Pierce’s Pledge is a nonprofit whose mission is to keep children safe during stressful and volatile custody battles. You might think that it would be rarely called to act, but a child is killed in the US every week during a custody dispute.
Pereira O’Dell + Serviceplan has enlisted the help of Silverside AI to create a chilling commercial, animated entirely by generative AI, that functions as PSA and a call to action for family lawyers and their clients to curb the danger to children caught up in separation and divorce.
The film, Lawyer That Cares, is built on Pierce’s Pledge belief that by storing guns and weapons outside of the home during divorce and custody proceedings, attorneys can help keep families safe. It built the first and only national gun storage map, used by federal agencies and citizens. The film tells a story of divorce narrated by a child and using nightmarish illustrations, building suspense as it unfolds with its repetitious mentions of the gun the family keeps. A catastrophic outcome is anticipated…until the child reports that a lawyer organised the removal of the gun. The parents’ family law attorney signed Pierce’s Pledge, the gun was removed from the household, keeping both parents and their innocent child safe.
The film was entirely animated using AI tools like Luma and Runway, combined with traditional animation and even some hand-drawn elements. Voiceover was recorded by an adult and rendered with an AI filter to sound like a child, to avoid having an actual child read a script on a difficult topic.
Pierce’s Pledge founder Lesley Hu and family lawyer, Monica Mazzei, created the pledge because Lesley’s own story ended differently. During divorce proceedings on the evening of January 13, 2021, Lesley’s ex-husband and her son Pierce’s father killed Pierce in his sleep, and then himself. Four years later, Lesley aims to share the pledge with attorneys nationwide who need the means to safeguard their clients – and commonsense steps parents undergoing their own divorce or custody proceedings can take to safeguard themselves and their families.
The campaign aims to demonstrate an effective outcome under the pledge terms.
