I am PES: filmmaker, artist, and stop-motion animator. I've made chairs have sex, turned bubble wrap into boiling water, made guacamole out of grenades, and turned rusty tools into deep sea creatures. AMA.

Are you familiar with ASMR (head tingles) and are you aware that your films (particularly Fresh Guacamole and Western Spaghetti) are a huge hit with the ASMR community as "unintentional triggers"? How do you feel about that?

I love the idea of head tingles. When I do sound design I usually have a sound in my head that I feel will connect with the animation that I've made and will help sell the idea(e.g. grenade as avocado) to a viewer. This could be a totally different sound for a different creator. Maybe I am just naturally drawn to these trigger sounds.

Is Garbage Pail Kids going to be animated or live action? Do you like the 1987 movie?

love your work.

Garbage Pail Kids will definitely be animated, though exactly what form of animation that is is not clear yet. But interestingly, I think the 1987 movie (which as an aside is considered like the worst movie ever made, I think it has a zero on RottenTomatoes) has sort of become a cult classic. It really didn't play into my influence at all. It's the cards themselves, and characters in the cards, that I remembered so well & wanted to bring to life. So I have my own story for them that has nothing to do with the 1987 version.

will wacky packs also make an appearance?

Good question. One of the ideas I pitched is that anytime the Garbage Pail Kids use a product, it will be a Wacky Package. For example, if a GPK eats a bag of chips, it's gotta be Free-Toes. And when they brush their teeth it's gotta be Crust toothpaste.

oh! who are you pitching to -- Topps? Movie Studio? Spiegelman? all three at once?

I pitched to Michael Eisner, ex Disney CEO. He's the one financing development through his company Tornante. He owns the rights to the Topps archive (which includes properties like Mars Attacks, Bazooka Joe, Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, etc).

What has been your experience with Kickstarter? Is it freeing to have the money you need for your projects or is it overwhelming to have so much responsibility and faith placed in you?

Well, the Kickstarter experience has been phenomenal, first off. It's been great to connect with people more directly, and I've really enjoyed the interaction I'm getting there. But it's the first time I've shared my idea with the world before I've actually made it, so that makes me a little nervous. Usually in the past I would just toil away in obscurity for a year or two, and then one day I would put the film online to pass around & enjoy. It would be a total surprise, no expectations. And I am wary of Expectations in life in general (isn't there proof that it leads to unhappiness?)! but this is a totally different model, and so it's something I just wanted to try, because in working on my films I've realized that people are genuinely intrigued by my process and I thought it would be interesting to experiment with opening up a bit more to the public. In addition, it seems to be a really fantastic way to finance projects without having to give up creative control or even licensing rights. It will allow me to make the film and place it in front of my own audience immediately (as opposed to Showtime's audience, as it was for The Deep and Fresh Guacamole).

Awesome answer, thanks! You managed to (indirectly) answer my other question also! I think it's really cool that you're "experimenting with opening up a bit more to the public". I'm always interested when really great artists walk through their methodology. It is an amazing experience to feel like I am part of the project itself and to see it through its realization.

So nice to hear. Thanks so much!

How did you get into stop motion?

You know, I didn't study animation in school. I had an idea to make 2 chairs have sex. And you know, at the time I was young and pretty poor and I realized that i had to figure out how to make this idea, I just thought the most logical way to do it was to take the actual chairs, bring them to a roof, and bring them to life through stop-motion animation. And so I taught myself how to animate. I was living in a bachelor pad in NYC at the time, and I started ordering doll furniture from eBay. And I would stay up late at night animating the doll furniture to teach myself how to animate little chairs. And then when I was ready, I shot the film on the roof somewhere in the East Village. My roommates thought it was pretty strange, all this doll furniture just showing up at the house.

Been a fan since I saw Western Spaghetti years ago.

Do you shoot with an SLR? Or what kind of camera do you normally use for your films?

Yeah, DSLRs, absolutely. I've actually shot with a bunch of different DSLRs, the next film I'm going to shoot with the brand-new Nikon D810. I think it may be, in fact, the first time anyone's ever shot an 8K stop-motion film. It's an amazing camera.

what kind of lenses will you use? Do you use non-CPU lenses?

I use Nikon Prime lenses.

What's your favorite stop motion scene[from a movie or TV show] and why?

"Tell 'em LARGE MARGE sent ya!" (coincidentally, Large Marge is a GPK character)

Golden age of Tim Burton :D

Agreed!

When chairs have sex, who's the top?

Hahaha!

Well, I would like to say, since that's my voice, that I'm the one on the top (the gold chair). And Sarah, right next to me, is the voice of the little red chair. So it worked out for us, we got married.

Do you treat yourself to a manicure when you're animating a scene that requires your hands being filmed, or do you practice regular care for your hands?

GREAT question.

Believe it or not, I'm still a little bit of a nail-biter! I do take extra care to not bite my fingernails when I'm shooting the food films, and I can do it, I can totally not do it for months, but then one day I'll wake up and discover I've bitten my nail off. It's just a strange thing. but yeah, I pay a little attention to making my hands appetizing or at least not repulsive when cooking food. Even if that food is plastic!

I've only recently seen your stop motion films and I must say they are great. Congrats.

However, I'm sure the burning question that is on everyone's mind is as follows: Do you have a recipe for that guacamole?

I do have the recipe for that guacamole! I think you can make it exactly as it is in the film if you know what every object represents. One point of disagreement among people is why I chose to leave out cilantro. But in my research for the film, and I went to Mexico actually, I discovered in the classic recipes they don't use cilantro, it's more of an American thing.

Where do you get the inspiration for your films?

Well, I mean, each film has its own point of inspiration. I'd say that each film kind of has one idea in it that i couldn't stop thinking about that I really wanted to make. For instance in a film like Game Over, I read an interview with the creator of the Pac-Man character, Tōru Iwatani, and he said he based the character of Pac-Man on a pizza with a slice missing. I never knew that and thought it would be a really interesting idea for a film, and wanted to apply it to other arcade games. And that was really the birth of that idea, for example. For as long as I can remember, whenever i walked into a supermarket and saw a pile of fresh avocados, I always thought "grenades." And if I just grabbed one and throw it, I could blow up the produce department. This, just, idea of grenade as avocado just stuck with me and I decided to turn it into an entire short film. I just follow that train of thought - what would i make with an avocado? Well there's really only one answer to that question: guacamole. And it's almost like a little puzzle I play with myself: if a grenade is an avocado, then what would be the tomato, the jalapeño, the onion, and I just work on those ideas for years until I'm happy with the ideas I've come up with and feel like I have enough ideas to make a film.

Thanks for responding. I'm amazed to hear that you can find a creative spark in the kinds of ordinary situations we all face everyday (like supermarkets).

I'm terrible to go food-shopping with. I just wander around picking up all the strange vegetables.

I know you use a lot of found objects from garage sales and flea markets...what are some of your favorite finds?

I don't even know where to start with this answer...I have so many cool things - old shark teeth, bocce balls that I picked up in Belgium, a lighter made out of a spent bullet casing. One of the joys of going out and looking for objects is that you never know what you're going to find. And the thing that you're looking for usually is never there when you need it. I can't even explain sometimes why I like certain objects. Other times, I discover something that I want to buy because I can bring it to life in some way in a future film or it sparks an idea or something that I would use in the future.

Would you ever want to make a full feature length stop motion film? Your shortfilms are wonderful but I am curious what a PES movie might consist of.

Haha! Absolutely! I mean I think it should be in IMAX 3-D as well. I want people to be like, google-eyed when they walk out of the theater. Imagine watching an hour and a half of chairs having sex !

I'm developing several ideas to bring my style of animation to the larger format.

Do you have a staggering collection of interesting things which may find a life later on?

Yes. Hahaha!

But it may surprise people in my home life I generally prefer a minimalist decor. I'm not a clutter bug. I don't like clutter, actually. I have specific things I keep in cabinets.

What were some of your favorite animated films growing up, be they stop-motion or traditional animation? What are some of your favorite modern day animated films?

The films that made the most impression on me - the stop-motion films that made the most impression, that influenced me the most, were the short films of Jan Švankmajer. The films he made in the 60's, 70's and 80's opened my mind to the possibility of this medium. I loved what he was doing with objects & textures. I was moved so much I wanted to try my hand at it, and come up with my own ideas.

The sounds in your films are phenomenal.

Whats your process for foley work?

Thanks!

There's 2 different ways I make films. Some films use pre-recorded sound effects, like Game Over, which used the actual sound effects from the original arcade games. My film Kaboom used actual war sound effects. And The Deep used underwater sound effects that existed in Hollywood effect libraries. But on the other hand, I do all my own foley work for other films, like Western Spaghetti and Fresh Guacamole, I make those sounds myself because they don't exist in sound libraries. You can't just say "Find someone throwing a tomato in a pan with oil in it." It just doesn't exist. So I had to come up with a different solution for that. In fact, it's a wet t-shirt being dropped into my bathroom sink.

Hi PES! Long time fan! I backed a while ago and I'm looking forward to my t-shirt! (And the film, obviously!)

Did you bail out of a "plan A" or did you always want to be an animator? Also, what's your favourite cheese?

Thank you! I'm stoked about the t-shirt and glad you're looking forward to it. I never intended to be an animator, actually. I consider myself first and foremost an idea guy - animation is just a means to realizing my ideas. I was always an artist as a kid, so for me plan A was always just making a living as an artist. Favorite cheese? Stinky tube socks.

what kind of lights do you use? Incandescent? Fluorescent? How do you ensure that your lights aren't causing flicker problems?

Just traditional tungsten film lights with a consistent power source. The flicker issue is really a camera issue that has been generally solved over the last 5 years with the new DSLRs.

What is your favorite movie, and who is your favorite director?

I love the Wizard of Oz. I grew up in a family where my father could do the entire Wicked Witch monologue( "I'll get you my pretty!") and my uncle looks exactly like Bert Lahr and would break out every Thanksgiving with an impersonation of the Cowardly Lion. I love children's movies that are a little scary. I don't believe that everything has to be sanitized for little people.

The Nightmare before Christmas is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Have you ever had the opportunity to work with Tim Burton?

I find stop motion animation fascinating, how do you find the patience to film?

I met Tim at the Oscar nominees luncheon this last year, and we got to talking, he seems like a great guy. And as it turns out, we share an attorney. Actually, I don't consider myself a very patient person in general -- I'm not like one of those super low blood pressure people. I think I just store up all my patience & put it in this one task.

what about the Brothers Quay and all the other modern day masters? Is there a secret club where you guys all hang out?

Ha. Actually I used to host an animation 'salon' at my apartment in Harlem. Animator friends would come over and I would cook a big pot of spaghetti and everyone would screen their new films or works-in-progress. The NYTimes even wrote a piece about it. Unfortunately, Svankmajer was a no-show. Here's a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/nyregion/thecity/13anim.html?fta=y&_r=0

What info can you give on the Garbage Pail Kids Movie? Is it in development still, or has (pre)production started? How did you get involved in a GPK project?

GPK is still in development, although we are considering making it a TV show. I met a producer in LA who was a fan of my work, and asked me to go home and think about what branded properties I might like to develop as a feature film. And this really isn't the normal way that I think, I typically come up with my own ideas, I don't necessarily, you know, just think about taking branded content and developing it. But it was an interesting question to me and I really didn't even have to think, I just pulled my GPK off the shelf - I had my book from when I was a kid, and there are so many characters in there, and the artwork and the ideas are still relevant today, and I think they're still super-cool, so I told the producer "Let's go after Garbage Pail Kids." And I never thought - this is an icon from my youth, this is, you know, what every teacher kind of like banned from their school rooms, it's just one of those cool properties that I grew up with. And so I didn't expect anything to come of it, I thought someone else was already developing it. And as it turns out the rights to GPK were owned by Michael Eisner, the ex-Disney CEO, so I put together a story & a pitch with a writer, and we pitched Eisner himself, and he loved the ideas and we quickly went into development!

When you're hunting on eBay what kind of searches do you setup or save? Is it as straightfoward as "Vintage sports equipment" or do you actually look for "Gloves that look like hot dogs"?

That would be really great if eBay offered a filter that allowed me to search that way. My eBay watch list is a little absurd. I do get ideas from eBay, though. For example, I started off with the notion of boxing gloves & footballs being my deli meats, and in looking for vintage leather sporting equipment, I encountered hockey gloves and it struck me that they look like hot dogs, which are in most deli cases, so I picked them up. So in that particular case that idea came while I was looking for objects on eBay.

What/where are your favorite flea markets?

I like the Long Beach flea market. Third Sunday of every month at Veteran's stadium in Long Beach. You really can't cover this flea market in one day, it's that big.

How do you feel about Ira Glass' advice that it's your taste that makes you a good creator. You have to make volumes of crap before your talent catches up to your taste. Do you have short films of shitty stop motion that nobody will ever see back from when you were learning?

Ira Glass source: http://vimeo.com/85040589

I don't. My films have certainly become more refined over time, but I feel like you can make a good film the first time around if you have a facility for the medium and the right idea to go with it. For me, that was Roof Sex.

As a creator who spends months on a single project, what is your opinion of YouTube - a platform that is free-to-view?

I've always believed in sharing my work for free and have been fortunate to find ways to get my films financed to make that possible. I think it's wonderful that millions of people can see something I've made.

How long does it take you to make each film?

Well Fresh Guacamole took me about 4 months of production (to make a 1 minute 40 second film). And because those are my hands in the film, it's really only possible for me to do one shot per day because it can take 3-9 hours to do each shot. But that's different than when I work on commercials - I may oversee 3 different animators shooting on 3 different sets so we get a lot more footage that way. But with these particular films where it has to be my hands in every shot, there's really no way of shooting more than one shot at a time. I would say all my films, what's interesting about it is that even though 4 months sounds like a long time, it's really not that long compared to how long I've been thinking about an idea or working on those ideas in preparation to shoot. I always view shooting as the very last step one needs to go through to make an idea a reality. But I've spent countless hours working on ideas & testing them out on people, trying to make things as simple and as clearly as possible. Somehow I'm always obsessed with telling my films in the least amount of shots possible, for some reason. I don't like adding shots, for me it's whittling down an idea to the shortest it can possibly be and still be effective.

I just watched all your animated vids some hours ago, they're awesome.

What's your favorite song recently?

Thank you! Appreciate that. Not exactly my favorite song, but recently I play "Lotion" as I drive my 4-year-old to preschool...I haven't gotten tired yet of hearing him sing "Put the lotion in the @#$%^ basket or it gets the hose again!"

Hi PES! Huge fan, fellow stop motion animator here. Any advice for someone new to the industry? How did you get started?

I would just say, first and foremost, you know, just take something that makes you laugh or an idea you really like and focus on bringing that to life and using that as a starting point. I like to say please yourself first, don't think about what other people are going to think. Make yourself laugh. I got started by doing tests with doll furniture on my dining room table. (you can see some of this footage in The Making of Roof Sex on my website)

Cool that you made the new intro of Het Klokhuis, that was my favourite TV-show as a kid!

Do you always make a script which you follow exactly for your short films, or can it occur that something is not how you wanted you have to change the script during filming?

For all my films I'll do an animatic, whether it's a rough stop-motion animatic, an illustrated animatic, or a CGI animatic. That said, one of the reasons I do an animatic is to free myself to be a little spontaneous and creative during the shoot. Knowing the general structure helps.

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Start small. Even a ten-second idea can be powerful.

I read somewhere that you used to be an excellent soccer player, will you be featuring any of your old equipment in Submarine Sandwich? Possibly your old Copa Mundials or some sweaty shinguards?

I've been looking for vintage athletic equipment that's a lot older than my equipment could have been. But sweaty shinguards do sound delicious... thanks for asking!

You mentioned starting out in a bachelor pad in NYC... where are you based these days? Do you live in one city or do you travel around?

I'm based in Santa Monica, and I have a studio in Inglewood.

Fellow stop motion animator, you've been a huge inspiration! I really appreciate how satisfying you can make something as simple as squishing tomatoes or cutting a pepper. I feel like sound plays a major role in that satisfying feeling. Do you record your own audio? How much time would you say you spend working on the audio?

Your animation is always so clean and natural feeling, a good balance of exaggeration and subtle finesse. Your hand pixelations in particular are amazing. Is it all stop motion, or some of it video? Do you use rigs in your work?

Thanks for doing the AMA. I can't wait for Submarine Sandwich!

Thank you! I'm glad you find the sounds satisfying. The films are all animated, no video at all. I do use rigs, although not for my hands. For Fresh Guacamole and Western Spaghetti (and, now, Submarine Sandwich) I stand motionless for 3-9 hours at a time, moving my hands slightly.

Since you have rounded up a bunch of your devoted fans through Kickstarter you might have a new source of materials - I know I would love to donate an item that would be used in your movies. Would you consider asking fans for items?

Sure! do you have a 100 year-old-deli case I can borrow?

Hi PES! First of all: Love your works! You were nominated for Oscar (I think you should win btw). How was the experience? And what did you feel when you heard your work was nominated? Thanks!

Thanks! You know, it was a great honor to be nominated, first because my film was very different than the typical film that gets nominated by the Academy. It has no characters, it has no story, it has no emotional content - it was shorter than any other film that was nominated, so it really was a totally unexpected thing to get nominated. But i was really honored by that, because I felt on some level the Academy was widening the type of film they want to recognize. So I took it as a great compliment.

Are you familiar with ASMR or Frission? Your videos are quite popular in both communities.

Yes, I hear that - thank you ASMR and Frission!

What has been the hardest item to animate?

The shot in Fresh Guacamole where I slice into the grenade was tricky. I shot that FOUR times to get it right. There's a very specific wrist motion, where both wrists are moving independently - almost rolling the knife around the pit - that turned out to be quite a challenge to perfect. Plus I had to stand there for like, 9 hours straight without moving from one position.

How hard is it to film a short in stop motion? I was thinking about doing a one minute claymation video with some friends.

It's a small but very deep hole...good luck.

Hi PES! Just looked and you share a birthday with me! What is the best thing about having a birthday in late May?

Ooooh!

Well, I love being a Gemini. Two people always fighting about how to move objects around.

You do awesome work! Besides Jan Svankmajer, do you have any recommendations for other stop motion artists to watch?

For me it's more of a film by film thing. For instance, I recently discovered this stop-motion treasure from 1975 lurking in the NFB archives. Genius. http://www.nfb.ca/film/monsieur_pointu_en/

Hey, I'm a huge fan of your work! What equipment/software do you use to make your films? Do you use a DSLR and after effects, or something different?

Thank you! I use the Nikon D810, Nikon prime lenses, Dragonframe stop-motion image capture software, Final Cut for edit (though I will probably make the switch to Premiere soon).

How do you achieve the cutting of the golfballs and grenades? Very nice work. First time seeing any of your videos.

Thanks so much. The golfball was a real golfball and was cut with a bandsaw to allow the knife to appear to slice through it. The grenade was a fabricated model with two halves.

How do you feel about PES (the video game)?

Hint: correct answer is Fifa.

I used to play that game when the series was called Winning Eleven in the US. This was back in '05 and '06. It was an incredible soccer sim, the best on the market. Then hilariously when they renamed it PES for the US market is when it started going downhill and I dumped it. Now I play EA hockey.

Do you know the work of Thomas Demand? His stop motion animation of Pacific Sun is pretty epic

yeah, I've seen that piece. It's cool.

Are you in need of any local help for your next project? I saw that you're trying to to put together a BTS crew for "Submarine Sandwich." I'm a long time fan and would love to help with that endeavor!

thanks! Yes, always looking for good people. Please reach out to my producer Sarah through my website.

What do you do with your Oscar?

I didn't win an Oscar, actually. I looked at it, then watched it walk off the stage with someone else. Fresh Guacamole was only nominated, so I didn't actually get a statue.

I've made poor to mediocre animated shorts in school and on my own before. But I feel like the next two I'm working to finish are "festival quality" for lack of a better term. I feel like there's good drawing, a funny story, and a satisfying conclusion in both.

I work on them after my day job. How do I turn my animated shorts into a career? Send them to animation studios? Submit them to festivals? Try and pitch one of them as a pilot somewhere? Post them on youtube?

Thanks in advance.

Focus on creating original, compelling content before anything else. Then, get it out there any way you can.

I think your works are brilliant and very creative. Any tips on creativity?

Thanks so much! As far as creativity, I'd recommend to anyone to get into the habit of writing stuff down when an idea or thought strikes you. Before it disappears into thin air and you can't recall it. Also, I try not to judge the ideas as they come in, in fact I would say it can even be detrimental to call most of them 'ideas'. They're just thoughts, little observations, snippets of overheard conversations, something funny that happened, 'what if' moments that waft by on a breeze - write them all down. In my experience this gets you more in tune with he workings of your own brain and you begin to see patterns, reoccurring themes or points of interest.