An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It is a 2022 animated short film directed by Lachlan Pendragon.
It is a stop-motion animated short film. Contrary to most stop-motion animation, the camera shows the entire plasticine "set" of little figurines, with the story proper playing out on a different camera's monitor in the center of the frame. The protagonist is Neil, an office drone who works a boring job as a telemarketer. He isn't doing very well at his job, and his asshole boss Bill is threating him with termination. Neil begins to notice strange things at work. Bill's mouth falls right off his face, only to reappear an instant later. The background of office buildings outside the window blinks out, replaced by a green screen. Bill approaches his coworker Gav, only to discover that despite the sound of a clacking typewriter, Gav is typing away at nothing at all, and, more disturbingly, Gav has no body below the waist.
After a dispiriting day failing to sell toasters over the phone, Neil falls asleep at his desk. He is greeted in a darkened office by a talking ostrich. The ostrich reveals to Neil that his whole world is "a lie" and "a sham". Neil realizes that his whole world is an artificial creation controlled by a mysterious external force.
Tropes:
- Author Powers: An ostrich, eventually revealed to be the star of a furniture commercial, saunters into the office and tells Neil that his world is a lie and a sham. But of course, the Medium Awareness camera behind the "main" camera shows that the animator is still animating this whole scene, manipulating the ostrich as it tells Neil that his world is a lie. So, basically, the animator is deliberately screwing with Neil, Bugs-to-Daffy style. Or, alternately, Neil is not "alive" at all, and he is in fact an inert plasticine figure and the animator is just screwing around with his set when not busy filming the furniture commercial.
- Blank Book: Neil opens one of the manuals and finds that the pages are blank. When he shows Gav the next morning, however, the pages now have text and graphics.
- Body Horror: From Neil's perspective anyway. His boss's mouth falls off and then reappears. His coworker Gav lacks a lower body. Neil tries to escape but finds out that a control rod is stuck into his back. He falls out of the set, only to land in a whole box full of various versions of his own mouth; the impact knocks his mouth off and he has to snap another one on. Later, he falls out of the set again, and this time he falls apart and "dies" after hitting the floor.
- Brick Joke:
- Before telling Neil that his whole world is a lie, the ostrich observes that the chairs in the office are very uncomfortable. It's eventually revealed that the whole "office" is actually a set for an animated commercial for an office furniture company.
- Bill's mouth falling off is the first sign to Neil that something is very off in his world. At the very end, when Neil quits, Bill's mouth falls off again.
- Chroma Key: The green screen effect outside the window intermittently goes out, with the view of other office skyscrapers being replaced by blank green. A confused Neil says "Unusual weather we're having."
- Dramatic Drop: Played for laughs and a Brick Joke. At the end, when Neil Rage Quits, Bill's mouth falls off. Just like it did earlier in the cartoon.
- The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles: "An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It" certainly evokes a mood of whimsy.
- Giant Hands of Doom: From Neil’s perspective, the animator’s hand is a giant monster attacking him.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: The ostrich proves the unreality of Neil's world by opening the door to a storage room and showing that it actually opens up into emptiness. Neil tries to show Gav this later, but the animator has filled in the storage room that's supposed to be behind the door.
- Medium Awareness: The cartoon is very aware that it's a cartoon, with a camera set back at a remove to capture a view of the whole plasticine set. Eventually Neil figures out that he's being controlled by an external force, and attempts to escape from the set.
- Meta Fiction: Neil realizes that he is a figurine in an artifical world.
- Once More, with Clarity: A lot of the strange things that happen to Neil — the talking ostrich, the furniture changing overnight — make a lot more sense once the final commercial is shown at the end.
- Platonic Cave: Neil gradually discovers that his world is artificial and is controlled by an external power. (The animator.)
- Postmodernism: A plasticine figure in a stop-motion animated short becomes aware that his world is fake and that an external force (that is, the animator) is controlling everything.
- The Reveal: The entire set, and apparently Neil's reason for existence, is to serve as the background for an animated commercial for "Ostrich Office" furniture. That's why the ostrich is there—it's the company's mascot.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: Neil is stuck in an unfulfilling job that he hates and is bad at, selling toasters over the phone. Until things get weird, anyway.
- Spotting the Thread: Neil realizes that something is off, what with his boss's mouth disappearing and his co-worker Gav not having a lower body and typing air. But it takes the appearance of the ostrich to tell Neil that his whole world is a sham.
- Stop Motion: A postmodernist example in which a stop-motion figurine in an animated short figures out that he's in an animated short.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Neil, who has had enough of all the madness, quits his job at the end.
- Time Lapse: Stop Motion animation is, of course, time lapse photography by its very nature, in which the figurines are moved about and exposures are taken. The Medium Awareness conceit of this short has a camera behind the "main" camera filming the set, while the action takes place on a camera monitor in the center of the frame. The result is a time lapse effect where the animator's hand and arm can be seen moving about at lightning speeds, adjusting the figurines, while the story takes place in the central camera frame.
- Title Drop: Neil delivers this line as he struggles to tell his coworker Gav about what he learned from the ostrich.
- Vertigo Effect: Here, the dolly zoom out shows Neil's confusion and horror upon discovering his world is fake, as it usually does. But the camera also zooms back to show the whole Stop Motion set in accordance with the cartoon's Medium Awareness style.
