We had very little time. We had no budget. But we had an incredible athlete who overcame impossible odds. So we closed our eyes and simply told Brad’s story though his own.

We imagined ourselves stepping up on the starting block and staring down the pool through Brad’s eyes…in total darkness. We created a 360-degree audio experience of his other senses filling in the gaps, compensating for his lack of vision. So in the end, the film was not really a film at all. Simply a backdrop for titles that tell his story. And sound design that put us in the pool with him for the exact 25.27 seconds that it took him to swim the 50-meter freestyle and set a new American record.

While we’ll never know how close the voting was or how many votes the post and film helped garner, Brad did come up short the night of the event. However, our film became part of Brad’s social and larger PR story, helping him gain exposure from Sports Illustrated, CNN and the Washington Post. Today, Brad’s biography, Fire in My Eyes, is a bestseller, and a movie about his life is currently in pre-production.