‘The Well-Oiled Plan’ Takes Aim At Big Oil’s PR Spindustry

Ahead of next month’s COP30 climate summit, The Well-Oiled Plan lands like a well-aimed truth bomb on the fossil fuel spindustry.

Directed by Daniel Bird and Adam Levy at Wit & Wisdom, in association with the Global Climate and Health Alliance, this darkly funny, sharply executed short takes viewers inside a cynical exchange between a PR exec and an oil CEO as they plot to sell pollution as “freedom.”

Forgoing subtlety in favor of over-the-top and in-your-face bluntness, because when has subtlety ever worked with the monsters trying to convince us that climate change isn’t real and that oil is anything but a non-renewable resource, the short cuts deep into the historical hypocrisy of the public relations machine. Bird and Levy’s snappy, Adult Swim-esque animation fits well with the dark humor of the script.

Comprised of scenes from the larger feature project My Pet Footprint, a comedy about climate grief, the short lands itself in the long lineage of politically-driven animation that entertains while indicting. With the Global Climate and Health Alliance calling for PR firms to drop fossil fuel clients, The Well-Oiled Plan arrives at just the right time.