Life Cycles: The Future of Action Sports Film Making or just Creative Indulgence?

Looking back fifteen years ago, sitting around my mate’s house watching Rob Warner and Jason McRoy skidding, pulling wheelies and generally doing what to me looked amazing in the now iconic ‘Dirt’ video, was the start of something pretty special. The words of Jez Avery are forever etched into my brain, “Hot, damn hot, hotter than a snakes ass in a wagon rut!” Amazing! This was my first real encounter with mountain biking in ‘moving pictures’ and it really sealed the deal for me, riding bicycles off-road was going to be a big part of my life from here on in.

Bike videos are often the first contact we all have to the sport we love and it’s because of this that mountain biking and action sports in general are so integrally connected to those who choose to capture the action and present it to us, chopped into pieces of visual stimulation. All bike videos that are made these days have their fair share of press and media hype leading upto release. God bless the internet. Life Cycles has had way more than it’s fair share of pre-release hype and was finally released late last year and in all honesty, I wasn’t that bothered at first. I did however know that I would soon get a copy and I would inevitably write about it here on Factory Jackson. So, I popped down to my local Leisure Lakes on an errand where the kind staff  hooked me up with a copy, nice one chaps!

The time, effort and attention to detail resonates through the packaging artwork!

Here I am, splashed out on the couch, remote in my hand and waiting for some Rise Against esq tunes with plenty of epic action shots with perfect editing to match. So I waited and waited a bit more and then the film ended. What the hell have I been watching, National Geographic? I wasn’t left disappointed after my first viewing, but I was feeling confused as to what I’d just witnessed. I’m not one to jump to conclusions and if I learned anything at art college, it’s that objectivity should at least try and rise above subjectivity. The next day I thought I’d better watch it again, this time with a note book ready to jot down anything and everything that jumped into my head. Second time around, third and then fourth time lucky and yeah this is definitely something pretty different. Life Cycles is unlike any bike video or action sports video I’ve ever seen. Is it any good? Thats a tough question to answer, but this is my take.

This isn’t a cheap DVD purchase, but if like me, you appreciate having something tangible and which looks amazing to, it’s an essential purchase. More sweet art work.

Filmed on the awesome Red camera system, Life Cycles looks like nothing else out there in every facet of every shot. The action is there and some of it is awe inspiring to say the least. The editing and soundtrack all fit together very nicely too, but if you’re looking for something between New World Disorder and the Collective, then I’m afraid you are out of luck. This is a totally new take on capturing mountain biking and it’s not just the action but the environment that the bikes and riders call home. This plays as an integral feature and a theme that resonates throughout the whole film. I’ll put my views out there, I don’t like mountain bikes in parks and on the street. There I said it, too many mates into BMX, sorry, but that’s me. Not being very subjective am I? We have the hills, the mountains and the forests. I know what I prefer and I’ve got the tools for the job. Back to Life Cycles…

The production quality like I said earlier, is reminiscent of something National Geographic would produce, but it goes even further than that, it’s insane how much detail, time and hard work these guys must have pumped into this film. It boggles the imagination what they had to do to produce this and the ‘balls’ involved in releasing it, especially into a market used to a format as old as the sport itself, this is new territory for us mountain bikers. The usual rider by rider, location by location format was thrown out the window from the start. I could talk for hours about this but to sum it up, if you like fast paced action and tunes from popular artists and just don’t like ‘arty-farty’sections in bike videos, well this really isn’t for you.

It isn’t your pre ride ‘get pumped’ to shred viewing, but if you look past what we believe a mountain bike movie to look and feel like, then this is something you will come back to time and time again. This will inspire you to do more than ride. Afterwards I was thinking about going digging, trail building and writing some interesting (I hope) stuff for the site, it really triggered something inside, which ultimately is something all bike vids should do.

For all those who really don’t care about packaging, Life Cycle is available on Itunes.

Highlights? I’d say the trail building section, Aggy in Kamloops, Vanderham in the dark, the mesmerising ‘Terminator’ style factory shoot, Mike Hopkins on ‘that’ hip and generally the appreciation of something that has had a tremendous amount of work put into it. Downsides, maybe the voice over guy, he did have some awesome quotes in there like, “the bicycle; our noblest invention” and many more, but he may get on some peoples tits. The music is very fitting, but it didn’t do much for me and I could have picked several better pieces that would have worked better, but thats me being me.

Go buy it, and don’t just watch it once then come to a conclusion based on first impressions, as this is a bike video that will reward multiple viewings. Is this just a bike movie showing the over indulgencies of those behind it? Yes to an extent, but reviewing that statement you have to understand that sometimes those with the direction and ideas that Ryan Gibb and Derek Frankowski have, you sometimes just have to indulge yourselves to make a difference. Life Cycles is of course there for the viewer to over indulge in anyway. You’ll know what I mean when you see it!

Like any good movie, they get better the more you watch them and the more you notice and appreciate the finer details. Life Cycles is available in most good bike stores globally, so buy it and get your creative juices flowing!

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