An animated ostrich led Griffith Film School alumnus Lachlan Pendragon to the Oscars, after his PhD short film project received a slew of awards and nominations.
The stop motion filmmaker rubbed shoulders with some of his greatest idols at the 95th Academy Awards when his short film, An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It was nominated.
Ostrich, as it became affectionally known among those at Griffith, told the story of a young telemarketer who was one day confronted by a mysterious talking ostrich, leading him to realise he was living in a stop-motion animation universe.
Blurring the lines between the viewing experience and the filmmaking process, the quirky creation opened a whole new world of possibility for Lachlan.
“Being nominated for an Academy Award felt incredibly surreal and overwhelmingly gratifying,” he said.
“I’d envisioned a stop-motion film where you felt like you were watching it over the animator’s shoulder, so this film was my experimental take on bridging the world of the animator with the world of animation in a fun, character-based, comedy/horror.
“The dream has always been to get into animated feature films, which I thought was a long way down the track when I finished the short film, but after going to the Oscars I’ve realised that now is the time to start making that happen.”
In one of the film’s earlier award nominations, Peter Lord of Aardman Animation (best known as the creator of Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit) described Mr Pendragon’s work as being made with “immense flair and inventiveness”.
While he was starstruck by the interaction at the time, Lachlan soon became the star himself, with invitations from the Aardman Academy to give a talk on the ‘Art of Animation’, a TEDx talk to inspire people to take action that makes a difference, pursue their dreams or advance their purpose, visiting animation departments to talk to students about his animation processes or even just being recognised at events.
“One of the nicest parts of this experience has been hearing from people who have seen my story or who have shown me pictures of themselves sculpting things out of plasticine,” Lachlan said.
“That recognition when people look up to me and think ‘Oh wow, I didn’t think that was possible’ or ‘I didn’t know that was something you could learn at university’.
“I definitely didn’t know what was possible, so it’s been really nice being able to share that.”
Initially graduating from the Bachelor of Animation in 2016, Lachlan continued his Griffith journey with Honours, is currently completing his Doctorate, and is even a lecturer at the Film School, which is ranked #10 globally, according to the 2023 International Animation School Rankings.
With a collection of other stop-motion animation short films under his belt including Bush Turkeys of QCA (2015), Elevator Madness (2015), The Toll (2017), and Beethoven: Live at Roma Street Parkland (2019), Lachlan has an exciting new project in the pipeline, currently working with a VFX company on an animated feature film.
He’ll also be giving a talk at the upcoming Creative Arts Open Day on Sunday 18 May, 2025 so prospective students can meet him, be inspired, and ask questions about his journey.
He hopes his experience sets fire to the spark in other creative minds to realise that an indie project that starts small can become a huge success.
