Loading...A large part of animation, whether stop motion or not, is to bring to life something that either couldn’t be done in live action or is just better aesthetically as animation. The former, creating situations in which the animations techniques can create surprising and fun movies, is the specialty of today’s Channel Showcase, filmmaker PES’s YouTube channel, PESfilm. PES has been making videos on the channel for around 8 years now, and has created some of the most viewed stop-motion videos on the Internet, the type of animation he specializes in. From Fresh Guacamole, a film in which a guy creates guac out of random household items, to Submarine Sandwich, a film about a butcher making a sub out of sports balls, PES’s videos are all fantastic, and definitely worth the usual rather long period of time between uploads.
What makes PES’s films stand out from the many, many other stop motion films on YouTube is his knack for animating with objects. In Fresh Guacamole, for instance, a pin cushion shaped as a tomato is cut into many pieces, each seamlessly turning into small red dice. PES’s style of animation allows the viewer to become immersed in a world in which objects don’t act as they do in our world, and it can make for some very entertaining short films. The films so far have been very well received, with over a whopping 172 million views on YouTube and Fresh Guacamole even being nominated for an Oscar in the short film category.
Aside from Fresh Guacamole, which I featured not too long ago on this site, PES’ short film Submarine Sandwich is definitely one of my favorites on the channel. As I mentioned above, the film features a butcher making a rather delicious looking sandwich, but instead of out of meat and vegetables and bread, the sandwich is made of sports balls. Yes, sports balls. Using his technique of carefully crafted scenes and meticulous stop motion, PES creates very cool shots in which it legitimately looks like he’s shredding a baseball glove into thin football-shaped foam slices. It’s a very cool film overall, and shows how PES has been able to create many novel films using his unique style of stop-motion.
Altogether, PES is by far my favorite filmmaker working in stop-motion, and one of my favorites making interesting short films experimenting in different techniques and types of film. His films are always enjoyable, always making you say “How did he do that?” or “That’s so cool!”. The creativity needed to make his films is astounding, and luckily for us it seems PES isn’t going to run out of that anytime soon.