A Fish With a Smile

From the 3D World showreel: One man and his fish form an unusual inter-species relationship in this charming Taiwanese short, which delves deeply into themes of love, loss and hope

SYNOPSIS
A fish with a smile leads his owner, and the audience, to a quiet realisation

VITAL STATISTICS
Running time: 02:45
Budget: $180,000
Funding sources: Executive Yuan Guidance Fund for Short Films & Documentary Films subsidised around $30,000; otherwise self-funded
Time taken: Six months for development, six months for production
Software used: Maya, After Effects, Photoshop
Hardware used: 2.6GHz Pentium III PC, Mac G4
Selected public screenings: Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hong Kong, 2005), Taiwan International Animation Festival (Taiwan, 2005), Taipei Film Festival (Taiwan, 2005), SICAF Animated Film Festival (Korea, 2005), Berlinale Kinderfilmfest (Germany, 2006), Syracuse International Film & Video Festival (USA, 2006)

LOOK OUT FOR
00:17 Walking out shadows
00:42 The digital city
01:08 Swinging the sign
01:21 Lighting a path
01:38 And then there was one
02:01 A swim on the other side
All timings relate to the excerpt.

SEE ALSO
MORE (1998), Mark Osborne
Little Red Plane (2002), Shadedbox
The Dot (2004), Weston Woods Studios

Click here to download a three-minute excerpt (~7MB)