Humans are creatures of habit. Whether we know it or not, we form behaviors that become routine and they structure our lives. That structure gives us a sense of security and provides a sense of familiarity, which influences the choices we make. Observing our lives in macro, one sees patterns arise that can truly define us. Mark Twain noted, “’History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Our lives may seem governed by our own choices, but, when observing them as individual moments, there are strict cycles we adhere to. Wake up, shower, coffee, breakfast, transit, email, work, lunch, bathroom, work, transit, dinner, socialize, wind down, set alarm, sleep, repeat.
What does this say about us? Are we creatures of habit or free will? Are they mutually exclusive? Animator Ross Hogg asks these questions in this week’s Staff Pick Premiere. His short film “Life Cycles,” is an observational exploration of our everyday.
Using a rule-based, rhythmic structure, Hogg attempted to capture the everyday cycles of his personal habits and juxtapose them against external events and global issues. Each scene in the film is only one second in duration, and every second in the film equates to one hour in real time. There are 24 scenes per day and each ‘day’ lasts 24 seconds onscreen, making the structure as repetitive and rhythmic as possible. In order to make everything feel immersive, Hogg also decided that everything would be painted from a point of view perspective.
Since each of the scenes were generated through Hogg’s real experiences and are based around his experiences making this film a certain meta playfulness comes into effect. You see him animating moments he’d lived just a short while earlier. “I remember swimming one night after being at the studio and all I could think about was how many frames it would take to draw each stroke,” joked Hogg.
While taking note of his life for the film, Hogg observed the sheer amount of structure and consistency he was already living within. When settling on the rules of the film he decided the structure and rhythm would mirror his life. This simple decision causes the out of the ordinary moments to jump off the screen. Even something as banal as getting drunk feels strange, and that’s no accident either. Hogg experimented with layering the same scene on top of itself to create a dizzying effect, but more subtly he elongated the frames in the scene to last three seconds, thereby breaking his one-second rule.
But what sticks out the most in “Life Cycles” is not the consistency, but the idea of complacency. Hogg wrestles with this idea when he includes items from the news cycle including updates on the conflicts in Syria. “Syria appears throughout the film at different stages almost as a parallel narrative or cycle. I was always seeing it online and on television, and I felt as though it would be an honest glimpse in to my life and routine, at that time, if I included it,” says Hogg. “I also felt like it was in stark contrast to the types of things or moments I was animating and, like my animated routine, it feels like a situation which will continue to cycle or repeat.”
This juxtaposition of middle class monotony against external tragedy illuminate a striking imbalance in how many of us are living. And it should. Hogg “began making the film as a way of trying to make some sort of sense of the world surrounding [him].” It’s not until the final shot that he breaks his rules again and ends on an image that serves as an indictment of our collective malaise. It’s a bold and hard-hitting choice, one that Hogg hopes will give us pause, and, ideally, break these repetitive cycles we are governed by. So next time you realize you’re stuck in a routine, try stopping and doing something totally different – ideally something that will make the world a better place.
Check out more of Vimeo’s Staff Pick Premieres here.
