The Fool Looks At The Finger…

From the 3D World showreel: The life of a simple wooden puppet is changed when he is drawn into the fast-moving world playing out on a mysterious stage in Aaron Bradbury’s extraordinary short inspired by the music of the band The Little Explorer

Which is better – to risk a wild ride and experience the infinite or simply to look on? Aaron Bradbury has created a fascinating film called The Fool Looks At The Finger That Points To The Sky which asks just that question. But rather than exploring the question through dialogue, the animator has created a lead character who has little in the way of eyes – and even less in the way of a mouth – to express his curiosity about the strange world around him.

VITAL STATISTICS
Running time: 06:15
Budget: None
Funding sources: Self-funded
Time taken: 6 months
Software used: 3ds Max, After Effects
Hardware used: 1GHz AMD Athlon PC with 1GB RAM, then 3GHz Pentium 4 PC, also with 1GB RAM
Public screenings: Cinem@tic Festival, 2006, UK (Overall Festival Winner, Audience Award)

SYNOPSIS
A wooden marionette goes on a whirlwind ride

LOOK OUT FOR
00:25 One window is aglow
00:32 The stage comes to life
01:24 An audience of one
02:17 Pulled this way and that
02:33 To the centre
03:08 Stop the world!
03:28 The struggle to the top
04:23 Not what I had in mind
05:19 The magic of snow

SEE ALSO
Max and Isa (2002) Quint/Claudio Morici
JoJo in the Stars (2003) Studio aka
In Search of the Puppeteer (2005) Chih-Ming Chang

Click here to download (~30MB)