Disembodied hand stars in upcoming TikTok series by Vancouver filmmakers with anti-social-media message

The Vancouver filmmakers behind "Five Fivers of Fury: Idly Hands," an upcoming TikTok series about social media addiction, fromleft to right, Daniel Irvin and Josh Aries.

Two Vancouver filmmakers are getting their hands dirty this week as they shoot a TikTok series featuring a disembodied hand, a sentient emoji and a message about social media addiction.

Josh Aries, 26, and Daniel Irvin, 27, are the co-creators of “Five Fingers of Fury: Idle Hands”, a “genre-defying” series comprised of six, five-minute shorts based on one that Aries created for the Vancouver Quarantine Performance Project in 2020.

The original short won the pandemic-inspired competition, as well as another based in Toronto, before Aries and Irvin collaborated on a condensed, 20-second version for TikTok, which has since amassed more than 14 million views.

@danielandjosh They're in love <3 #fightchoreography #shortfilm #cinematok ♬ original sound - Daniel and Josh :)

Now, the project is being backed by Bell Fund and is set to be the program’s first scripted series with TikTok—with production kicking off this week at Capilano University, where Aries and Irvin met while studying film.

The series stars Handy – played predominantly by Aries – a disembodied hand that falls into the internet and can only escape by defeating the “Great Idle Hands” that rule over its various worlds, including ones for gamers, influencers and music.

Handy’s ultimate goal, beyond making it back to Earth and touching grass, is to help people reconnect to one another in the real world, according to the filmmakers.

“We want to talk about doom scrolling—people just sit on their phones and look at the terrible things going on around the world and get distracted by social media,” said Aries. “We found ourselves affected by that.”

“It’s just kind of insane where we’ve reached a point, kind of like frog in a boiling pot point, where it’s perfectly socially acceptable for our attention and our time to be sucked away for a profit, and the way that it’s affecting the mental health of people that’s happening to,” said Irvin.

“If we can get even one person to see this series and then put their phone down, that would be a success,” he added.

The evolving and pervasive nature of TikTok is what drew the filmmakers to use platform for their anti-social-media campaign.

“The culture on the internet comes from TikTok … We want to tap directly into that,” said Irvin.

“I feel like it’s also more forgiving for more weird, different stuff,” he added.

The pair is hopeful that the series will be successful enough to support the making of a second series, and maybe even a feature film starring Handy.

“I’m a big believer in working with what you have, so the fact that this all stemmed from my bedroom with my little brother filming with my little phone camera--that all of this happened because I worked with what I had—I want to use this as a message to all other filmmakers that ‘You can do this,’” said Aries.

The two men are also working on creating a feature film starring “real people,” as opposed to just their hands.

It’s called “PS: Sorry For the Spelling Mistakes” and tells the story of three eccentric individuals who are held hostage during an experimental therapy session.

To keep their mental health in check, the filmmakers have a contract with each other that limits their personal phone use.

“If I don’t put my phone away by 11 p.m., I have to burn a $20 bill—I have to commit a felony crime,” Irvin said.

“We also hold ourselves accountable by exercising and meditating. It’s been rewarding and we hope to infuse that into the series,” Aries added.

The Bell Fund is providing up to $125,000 in financial aid for the series, which is set to debut this summer.

Anyone interested in following the creative journey of Five Fingers of Fury is encouraged to follow @danielandjosh on TikTok—but the pair hopes people won’t spend too much time on their page.