At the beginning, Soderbergh speaks to the audience in a style meant to evoke Cecil B. DeMille's introduction to The Ten Commandments.

[5] Fletcher Munson is an office employee working under Theodore Azimuth Schwitters, the leader of a self-help company known as Eventualism.

Korchek goes into the office and finds a letter from a law firm representing Attractive Woman Number 2, who is filing a sexual harassment suit against him.

A couple following Elmo approach him, to convince him to stop playing his role in the film, in order to become a star in an action show.

The events are the same but Fletcher and Korchek speak foreign languages, similar to the "generic greetings" from earlier.

After offering several responses he walks offstage as the camera pulls back to reveal he's been talking to an empty auditorium.

A man clad only in a black T-shirt appears at the beginning and conclusion of the film, being chased by men in white coats through a field.

Schizopolis was shot in Soderbergh's hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana[6] over a period of nine months,[7] beginning in March 1995, on a budget of only $250,000.

Due to Soderbergh's desire to keep the film simple, many people had multiple duties (i.e. David Jensen played Elmo Oxygen as well as being the casting director and key grip) and many friends and relatives were hired in various capacities.

Soderbergh himself took the lead role, instead of hiring a professional actor, in part because, as he said, "There was just nobody I knew that I could make that demand of - come and work for free for nine months whenever I feel like it in Baton Rouge!

Interpretations differ greatly and the narrative jokes about its own apparent lack of meaning; at one point in the middle of the film a written message appears on a tree trunk stating "IDEA MISSING."

This prompted the filmmakers to add the Cecil B. DeMille inspired introduction and conclusion in the theater as a way to signal to the viewers that the film was "ironical and self-serving".

[13] Roger Ebert wrote that Schizopolis was "a truly inexplicable film...which had audiences filing out with sad, thoughtful faces".