A stop-motion animated short taking a light-hearted look at the grind of daily routine. Its main characters are a husband and wife who are leading a seemingly ideal suburban life. But is everything really as perfect as it seems? The animators used mechanized tin figurines set in brightly colored, saturated tin surroundings emulating quaint suburbia. The characters are attached to the ground and move in predetermined courses (grooves and tracks set in the ground), expressing the repetition of their lives.
Practical Effects
Mechanized tin figurines literally trapped in their tracks — the metaphor MOVES.
Production
Saturated tin suburbia that screams 'we're happy' in desperate primary colors.
Director
Jesse Rosensweet
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The mechanized movement system required custom-built tracks hidden beneath the miniature set, with puppeteers operating controls from below — making the filmmakers literally the unseen forces controlling these suburban 'lives.'
Released during the 2008 financial crisis, the short's trapped tin workers eerily mirrored real Americans feeling stuck in unsustainable 'perfect' lives they'd been sold.
US
