Delicate Cycle

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the way that education is carried out across the world. For many, the switch from in-person instruction to fully online classes has been difficult for just about as many reasons as there are bright, young students.

My goal with the short film "Delicate Cycle" was to take a stab at creating something entirely alone (with the exception of the original score composed by my roommate and friend, Carter) that expressed not necessarily the explicit truth of my isolated life during online schooling, but more so a summary of how these banal, arduous cycles we get caught in during shelter-in-place made me feel. I described the film to my professor at the time as basically consisting of two nightmares, neither of which the character wants to remain in, but whenever he awakes from one, he finds himself back in the other.

As I fleshed out the concept for the film further and further, I found cyclical elements falling into place in ways I couldn't have designed intentionally. In the end, I embraced the idea of the "cycle" as a narrative framing element to demonstrate how this character is trapped in this cycle of causality that he can't escape.

It was also a neat prospect for me to create a film that can, in theory, be played in a cycle (excluding opening and closing titles) and the audience would have no way of knowing where the intended beginning or ending point was. Films that experiment with traditional film structure have always been hugely inspiring for me, so I enjoy interrogating structural conventions throughout my work when possible.

Thank you for your consideration!