Life as a telemarketer in a cubicle can be a boring slog. Thus is the existence of Neil, the protagonist of the Australian animated short An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It. But how much do you really want the mundane to change? When Neil begins to notice things like his boss's mouth falling off or his coworker conspicuously lacking any legs, he begins to suspect that the world isn't what it seems. Enter a talking ostrich to confirm such suspicions.
Inspired by The Truman Show and The Matrix, filmmaker Lachlan Pendragon's short film takes stop-motion animation in a truly meta direction.
"I've always been really interested in the behind-the-scenes of stop-motion animation," Pendragon says, "and was trying to figure out ways of how to incorporate that into the actual finished product."
The visualization choice instantly drops viewers into that surreal space. The camera isn't focused tight on the claymation characters, but on the in-studio monitor, so while we see the action in Neil's world through the central screen, we can also see the sped-up motions of Pendragon's constant adjustments of the characters on the edges of the frame.
"It's quite difficult, because I didn't want all that stuff to distract from the narrative," says Pendragon. "[You still need to] relate to these characters. So there was a lot of iterating and testing. For example, that whole, like, out-of-the-monitor thing was shot a lot further back, and by the end of it, [I] cropped in a lot further, so that wasn't as distracting. It's finding that balance so that you can still get lost in the story but also have all this other stuff going on that you can watch over and get other stuff out of it."
The stop-motion animation process wasn't exactly an easy one. It took about a month to animate each minute of the short. But the laborious process has fruitful results.
With an animation style that calls to mind Aardman Animation (Wallace and Gromit) and Pendragon's sharp wit, it's a true comedic treat while also tapping into some existential darkness (it may be a comedy for the audience, but it's kind of a horror film for poor Neil).
But the most mind-blowing element of this headtrip of a short? It's actually a student film. It's part of Pendragon's studies as he aims to get a doctorate in visual arts from Griffith Film School in Brisbane, Australia. He hopes to complete his thesis within six months.
If the creative bliss of An Ostrich... is what Pendragon crafts on school time, it's hard to not be extremely excited to see what comes next for the stop-motion filmmaker. ♦
Screening at the Bing as part of the Animation Showcase on Saturday, Feb. 5 at 11am, and available streaming
