More is a 1998 animated short film (six minutes) by Mark Osborne.
A little stylized humanoid creature (he looks like a taller, skinnier E.T.) works a soul-numbing dead-end job in a factory. Ironically, his job is assembling some sort of colorful pleasure device called "Happy". His only solace is his childhood memories of spilling on a merry-go-round in the park.
One day his tyrant of a boss fires him. The little man is determined to show his boss up. He's a tinkerer, and after he's fired he invents an even better pleasure device called "Bliss". The Bliss device gets him power and riches, but with some surprising consequences.
The short is notably scored by the band New Order, with excerpts from their instrumental "Elegia" serving as the background music for the entire runtime.
Tropes:
- Art Shift: While the bulk of the shift is done in "claymation" Stop Motion, the "Bliss" fantasy sequences are in 2-D cel animation.
- Augmented Reality: The "Bliss" device allows one to see an altered reality in bright, happy colors. So if you're a factory drone and a gray supervisor is barking angrily at you, you can look through the Bliss device and instead you'll see a man in bright primary colors waving at you cheerfully.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: The depressed little man invents his "Bliss" device. It gets him fame, power, and riches — and he becomes a lonely asshole of a boss, barking angrily at his worker drones like the boss used to bark angrily at him when he was a worker drone.
- Bittersweet Ending: The worker's "Bliss" invention succeeds beyond his wildest dreams as he goes on to receive fame and fortune — even running his boss out of business and taking over his factory — but he soon finds that the inspirational spark that drove him to this level of success is no longer there, and has become much like the man who he has replaced. As he reflects in his loneliness, he glimpses children who aren't monochrome enjoying their time on a merry-go-round, perhaps indicating that there is still some true joy left in this world.
- Call-Back: The film opens with the little man dreaming of spinning on a merry-go-round as a child. At the end, as he sits lonely and unhappy in his office, he looks out and sees little kids spinning on a merry-go-round.
- Crapsack World: It's not so horribly unlivable so much as it is terminally dull and dreary. Everyone lives in skyscrapers that lead them directly toward menial jobs and supermarkets full of the same products under an overcast sky. The only things that seem to give people joy in the world are purely artificial products like "Happy" and "Bliss", and even then, those can only do so much. The last shot of the short, showing children in full color on a merry-go-round like the one in the inventor's memory, offers some hope that this world will get better.
- Crapsaccharine World: The world as it appears under the "Bliss" goggles. All the problems are still there, but people are simply deluding themselves into thinking that a more joyful vision of the world actually fixes things
- Deliberately Monochrome: The film is actually in color, but the world that it depicts is all in gray — the man, the vehicles, the buildings. Only some objects outside of the "Bliss" vision are depicted with color — and, at the end of the film, a group of children.
- Irony: The intensely unhappy little man is stuck in a horrible job making a device called "Happy". And, unsurprisingly, his "Bliss" product doesn't bring him much in the end.
- Lonely at the Top: The inventor manages to accomplish great things with "Bliss", but it ultimately doesn't make him any friends despite being showered with praise.
- Nameless Narrative: To emphasize the overall sameness of this lifeless world, none of the characters are given names.
- One-Word Title: Emphasizing that the pursuit of success and greater material wealth doesn't necessarily make one happier.
- Pop-Star Composer: The short film is scored by English Alternative Dance band New Order, using excerpts from their 1985 song "Elegia".
- Splash of Color: The "Bliss" sequences are in vivid, hallucinatory color, a dramatic contrast to the monochrome gray world the man lives in.
- Stop Motion: Claymation for the bulk of the short (all but the "Bliss" sequences).
