THE ANIMATION SHOW YEAR 4 Theatrical
PES
Animator, “Western Spaghetti” (2008)
Interviewer: Taylor Jessen
Date: 6/9/2008
Via phone from New York
Animation Show: You’re at a post-production house right now. Tell me where and what you are post-producing.
PES: Actually, I’m editing a new commercial for Scrabble’s 60th Anniversary. They just put out this diamond edition, all the trays, you know, all the tiles and stuff are contained inside the box. It’s kind of like, made to travel. It’s their 60th anniversary, so…
AS: The mind reels at what the PES animated short based on the Scrabble set will be like.
PES: Well, you know, when you do a commercial, it’s not really my idea. I’m just really acting as the director. So it’s a totally different thing than conceiving and then shooting a film.
AS: So someone came to you with a precis and you’re a hired gun, basically, on this one?
PES: Yeah, I mean advertising you know, in general, like, the advertising agencies, they work for sometimes months, even a year, sometimes to sell concepts to clients. So I don’t have to deal with any of that part of it.
AS: Was that the modus operandi of some of your other commercials as well, because, I mean, you really have a personal stamp on the bits you were doing for, I believe there was a Coinstar spot and the Orange ads that you did. They seemed like they were really springing directly from your head.
PES: Well, always in commercials, there’s always a chance to put that personal kind of touch, you know, little humorous things here or there, but by and large, I’m always looking to see the best concepts I can get from advertising agencies. Because the better you start with, the better the end product will be. So, I like to put myself in a situation where I’m working on good concepts that I only have to make better, rather than try to take a concept that I don’t really think is that strong and turn it into something, that rarely works.
AS: So would you consider yourself in a pretty lucky position now that you’re getting a lot of things thrown at you and you can kind of pick and choose?
PES: Well, for me it’s always like a balance, basically. I commit a lot of my year to my own personal projects ’cause that’s my priority, to be constantly making new things and putting them out there. But on the other side of things, you know, I do commercials, and you know, I spend roughly four to six months of the year doing commercials, and that’s really as much as I’m really prepared to spend on that. It’s exciting to work with bigger toys and there’s a lot more – there are things that one gets from commercials that you don’t get when you’re working on the smaller scale, on a personal project, which makes them entertaining. But you know, like I said, I really try to keep the focus on my own ideas, and I do commercials to help finance my own personal films.
AS: Well, say in the last six months, besides Western Spaghetti, what are some of the other personal things you’ve been working on? Was the SMPTE cake in the last six months? I forget.
PES: (laughs) The cake. Cake Countdown?
AS: Yeah.
PES: Um, I think it was a little bit ago, yeah, it was just like a three second film. It’s a redux of the academy Leader. Universal Leader, some people call it.
AS: Right. You did that like, over a weekend, didn’t you?
PES: “Three, two, one.” Yeah. Yeah, it’s nice to be able to just make films and put them out there. I’m working right now on this, well as you know, over the winter, I released the Fireplace DVD.
AS: Yes.
PES: And that was something I accomplished this year. And that was more a piece of film that could become part of people’s lives, work more like background music.
AS: It is kind of an instant classic.
PES: Well thank you.
AS: But one could say that about so many PES projects. I mean, I was going to try and think of interesting questions to ask you about what you were doing in Western Spaghetti but the wonderful thing about Western Spaghetti is that everything thing you do is right up there. I mean it’s just, boom, boom, boom, idea, you know, crushing another idea, mixing and pasting other ideas. And here’s, you know, the magic is all there on the screen, all the concepts that you are playing with and everything.
PES: Thank you. Actually, you know what, before we go on, let me just mention what I am working on currently.
AS: Hit me.
PES: The reason I mentioned The Fireplace is because in the vein of The Fireplace I’m working on a new project which is called The Aquarium. And it’s similar to like, the classic televised aquarium that you see sometimes as screen savers or whatnot. It’s just that I recreated it in my own style, with, in this case, old tools and junk swimming around as these kind of weird undersea critters. Yeah, so that’s an ongoing project for me. I’ve been working on it for a couple months now. I have about a minute of footage, and I’m looking to get quite a bit more this year and then release that out there as a loop. I guess you could call them party loops, something that you would probably put on the TV in the background while you’re doing something else.
AS: That’s beautiful. How many minutes are you aiming for?
PES: I don’t know yet, actually, because for me this project, The Aquarium is a little different, because it’s not narrative-based. It’s more just textural. There’s no story with these fish, so really I’m just shooting as many fish as I can come up with, fish that are closer to the surface, and I’m also shooting deep sea creatures that I’m just inventing with like, old objects like calipers and rusty old tools, and just a lot of odds and ends, actually.
AS: Very cool.
PES: I can send you a clip of that if you want to see it.
AS: That would be great. Can you send us one for public consumption?
PES: I probably can, actually. I’m probably going to have something ready for you soon.
AS: Did you have to go out and find any new material for Western Spaghetti or did you just dig in your cast of characters?
PES: Oh god. Well, yeah, there’s always shopping to do for these films. You know, I buy a lot of stuff along the way, obviously, because it’s very difficult to find things when you’re looking for them. So I’ve made a habit of buying things all over the world, wherever I go, basically hitting the flea markets and whatnot, bringing stuff back.
But there’s always lot of shopping to be done with a film. I don’t make it a point to have Post-it notes hanging around the house. I think that’s actually kind of, it’s one of the – there’s actually a lot junk in Western Spaghetti. I think that’s one of the things I like about this idea is that I really wanted to reuse the stuff we find very trivial, such as bubble wrap which I use as the boiling water, and Post-it notes as the butter, rubber bands obviously as the spaghetti. I mean, these are things that most people are trying to throw away, and for me, I thought it would be nice to be able to bring a new life to them, make people look at them in different ways.
AS: It looks just a little different than your previous work. Are you shooting on digital video? Is that what‘s looking a little different?
PES: Well, did you see the HD version, or did you see the…I think what you might be responding to is, and I’m not sure, correct me if I’m wrong, I shot the entire film on a 60mm lens, which gives me a lot more out-of-focus zones than some of the other films I’ve done. Like KaBoom!, for instance, it was all shot like, totally wide, so everything was in crisp, clear focus. So, that’s one thing. Every single shot except for the very last shot was the 60.
AS: That would certainly make a difference in your focal plane, but I mean, are you shooting digitally?
PES: I am shooting digitally, but that’s no different than Game Over or The Fireplace, or any of the other films.
AS: Have they all been digital so far? Anything on film?
PES: Oh, yeah, of course, I mean, whenever I do commercials and I have enough money, I mean, we shoot film, as long as someone else I paying. But, not always, actually, I mean, digital is fantastic for stop motion. I’ve been working with the Cannon cameras and fitting them with Nikon lenses and been very happy with the results. Obviously the size of the image is enormous, and it provides a lot of flexibility down the road. And I’ve been really happy with the way digital works for my needs. So more and more I would say digital, you know.
AS: You mentioned how you pick up stuff all over the world. You did mention in one of our earlier interviews where you were at a flea market and up picked up Bocce Balls, I believe, in Europe. Are you truly globetrotting these days- Australia, Asia, Japan?
PES: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been around this year. I spent some time in Norway and Germany. These are for film related things. The show will be going to Italy. I’m going to be shooting, going to London for a week in two weeks for a commercial there, another stop motion thing with a studio. So it’s been fun, yeah, I get around. But it’s also nice, I just finished the Scrabble job in New York, that’s where I live, so it’s nice to stay home once in a while, so it doesn’t feel like you upset the whole balance when you have shoot a commercial. I was able to continue working on The Aquarium while I was shooting it.
AS: When you work in New York, are you generally able to work at home, or do you have to go across down, go to a stage space?
PES: Well, it totally depends on the projects. Like, some of these smaller things I have a studio that I do those in, but for commercials in general, we need larger spaces, so I usually tend to shoot in, I don’t know, probably a pretty large stage where we can tent off several different sets and have several different cameras functioning at the same time. Yeah, it’s mostly based on the needs of the commercial. Obviously, with like, Human Skateboard, that was shot in Los Angeles on location running around town basically dragging our digital setup across the dust bowl of the Sepulveda Dam. Obviously, there were no special effects there. It’s just outside shooting straight into the sky.
AS: Have you ever considered putting up a Quicktime VR of your studio? Because you’ve tantalized us with descriptions of your actors’ guild there in the cubbyholes of your studio.
PES: I actually threw a lot of my screen actors’ guild out yesterday.
AS: Really? Where? What street, can we go dig?
PES: (laughs) Well, there was this, in the basement of my apartment they have been trying to catch this giant rat which people are saying is the size of a cat.
AS: Oh wow.
PES: Everyone’s been terrified of the garbage pails down there, so consequently they’ve been empty. I just thought it would be great to just fill them up with junk. You know, there’s a lot of things that I buy hoping one day to use. I think I might need something someday, and there’s a lot of stuff I bought like, six, seven years ago that I’ve just never use, and I feel like the time has passed, time to open up the waves for new energy, new things to come in.
AS: I should ask you this because I have a terrible disease where I go to the usual swap meet events, the Pasadena City College Swap Meet Event – there’s far too much grabbing my eye and I’d like to go with half of it. What are the subconscious cues that you listen to that says “Grab this, don’t grab that.”
PES: I’m actually really picky. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, I just tend to like things that I like, and if I’m drawn to something, and I don’t even know why I like certain things, like a ball here with a weird texture, or something. I collect old illustrations, but not any old illustration will do. It’s like, very particular feeling that I look for. I don’t know if there are words than can describe what it is, I just, when I see it, and I know that I want to have it, I buy it. But for me, you know, also, there is that potential that I would use this stuff. I actually, I’m pretty good about making garbage. I throw an awful lot away. I’m not a hoarder. I think you’d be surprised at how under control the studio is. You know, I‘ve got this giant map chest filled with all these objects I’m using, right now it’s filled with all the fish that will eventually populate the aquarium.
AS: The last time we talked, you’d mentioned how you were into finding ways of delivering 3D in the home, and possibly in your work, and you mentioned a local group of 3D enthusiasts to which you belong. Any progress on that front?
PES: Um… No. Absolutely not, actually. I mean, you know, I’m really excited with the news that a lot of these studios including Pixar and Disney will be releasing all their films in 3D in a year or so. And I just heard yesterday that one of the theater chains just agreed to outfit their 1,500 theaters with the 3D. So the number of theaters is definitely increasing out there. But my aim is not necessarily to make a one minute short in 3D. I want to make a feature in 3D. It would be great to experiment with it on a smaller scale, but I think it would be a lot of work for very little payoff. I’m basically developing ideas for a feature film experience, which I think – we’re at the dawn of this period where there‘s going to need to be a new language for cinema. We’re not going to be able to tell stories in the way that we’ve told them in 2D. It’s going to change just the way that films changed when they became, with sound and talking and stuff.
AS: This is really interesting to me because I can’t help thinking that there’s a - it’s very much intentional, I think, on the part of the studios to try and prevent 3D presentations in the home. That’s their ace in the hole, it’s that it’s really only 3D IMAX when you’re in the IMAX Theater. Do you see any way of – are you interested in pioneering any way of getting 3D into home entertainment?
PES: Absolutely. I mean, I’d love to see it there, just because…it’s not until…it’s going to be a long time. I mean, I think for a while now... I’m getting a little muddled in what I’m saying here basically ’cause you got under my skin. (laughs)
AS: (laughs) That’s good.
PES: I love thinking and talking about this stuff. But it’s basically, the theaters are able to say that right now you can have the 3D experience only in a theater because that will help the theaters continue to make money, and obviously they’re in need of drawing people there as a lot of people are preferring to watch films at home rather than in theaters. But the truth is it’s a fallacy. There’s going to be 3D on TV, there already is 3D on TV. But you know, what we’re talking about, it’s going to take many years before all TVs are outfitted with it. So until that happens, the theaters will really be the prime place where you can see a concept in 3D. Does that make sense?
AS: It does. I mean, what drives me nuts is the thought that if I somehow had the right set up, I could be synching two digital cameras and shooting 3D home movies. That’s what drives me nuts.
PES: Well, you can. I mean, you would have to – right now you would be watching them in the kind of classic blue and red, or green and red glasses. You can do that. People are doing that. You can watch 3D movies on Youtube. You know, there’s a handful of people around the world who are creating content in 3D, but it’s just that there are very few people who can consume it properly. I personally feel that we’re going to see the biggest inroads in stereoscopic 3D in the video game realm. Because video games are, at least like first-person shooters or whatnot, they are more experiences than narratives, and so it’s a much simpler process for, say, the PS4, I guess they’ll come out with next, to process the right and left eyes. The computer has already created the image, so why can’t it create an offset eye?
AS: That’s a really good point. The thing exists in the computer as a 3D space, so…
PES: And that’s also why it makes sense that the first people who are saying “We’re going to release in 3D” are Disney and Pixar, in the theater.
AS: Exactly.
PES: So I think CGI is really set up, and like I said, in particular I think video games, because of their first-person nature, to really develop there.
AS: Is someone doing a stop motion feature in 3D right now? I can’t remember if Laika is doing Coraline in 3D.
PES: From what I understand, they are doing that Coraline feature in 3D, so – I don’t know how it’s going. I’ve seen a little footage myself, but not in 3D, obviously. I think you have to be there with the glasses on. (laughs)
AS: Indeed.
PES: But it will, it probably will have the distinction of being the first 3D feature. But I don’t know what it’s going to be like as a film. I still think you need to make a great film to take advantage of 3D, and, you know, there aren’t many people who have cracked that nut.
AS: Yeah. This is a world where a lot of animated features are going to be in 3D and IMAX and going the whole route, but when 3D really starts to pick is when it will be in genres that I think are now starting to pick up. I mean the U2 3D, and more Disney stuff.
PES: Yeah, although, my feeling about the U2 3D piece was just, they made a decision to go HD and 10 cameras rather than IMAX and one camera, and I think that was a very poor decision. The best thing about that movie for me was very rarely do you see sound in an IMAX theater maxed out that well.
AS: Oh, interesting.
PES: I mean, really, it sounded great, but the visuals were, I thought, really boring.
AS: I haven’t actually seen it, I should probably put that on my list. I mean, what we are looking at now is a bunch of, really, specialty films. I mean the IMAX experience, they try and not turn people onto it for more than 45 minutes at a time if they can. And I think it’s easy to fall into that disease of wanting to move the camera and dart and zoom and truck really fast, and the eye does get tired. You do get a little sick.
PES: Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of development going on in that front. Like, James Cameron has a whole theory about how to put less stress on the eye, and where those lenses need to converge between shots so your that eye isn’t constantly jumping, working overtime. So he has this whole theory, which is going to be interesting to see. I guess his new movie is going to come out, is it 2009, late 2009? Avatar? Is that when that is?
AS: Yeah, I think that sounds right.
PES: Yeah. It will be interesting. I mean, He’s very confident that he has the solution for it, so – it’s interesting, though.
AS: That’s cool. He’s a really good technician. I mean, you know, taking for granted the content of his narrative, you know, what can you do? But technically, the guy has really got his act together.
PES: Yeah, yeah. It’ll be really interesting to see. I mean, a lot of the big guys are playing with it right now and trying to figure out how to use it. But again, I still feel like we need to have theaters outfitted so that a movie comes out only in 3D, it doesn’t come out in 2D and 3D. Because until that point then the studios are going to be releasing the film as a 2D version and a 3D version, which means that they’re trying to please two audiences, or two experiences, so to speak. So, it’s not really until a film can be made to be solely seen in 3D that I think we’re going to really see, like, leaps in theater experience.
AS: And that’s going to take some daring, too, because once studios start doing that, suddenly they have taken that film out of the home video market, until they decide to take that next step, which they may or may not decide to do. If you can only see a 3D film in a 3D theater, it becomes like a theater experience, a true Broadway experience. It happened there in the theater, you can’t take it home, you can’t put in your pocket. It was there, it was you with that crowd, and that’s what the experience was.
PES: Right. Yeah, I mean, I think that is one of the things that the U2 movies was on to, which is live performance is going to have increasing value in this economy. The Hannah Montana movie knocked the U2 one right out of the theater, because it did so well. But you know, you’re going to be seeing more and more live stuff in 3D that you can only see – maybe it’s simulcast in 3D in theaters around the world.
AS: That would be crazy.
PES: So I think right now, though – I mean, yeah, I’m trying to think about ideas that I might create that would play both as 3D or non-3D, and is there a way that we can create something that’s not such a compromise? I don’t know if it’s possible yet.
AS: Well that’s awesome. I wish you luck in finding out.
PES: (laughs) I’ll keep you posted.
AS: Yeah, Please do. Call, email, send telegrams. Besides The Aquarium, what else is on your plate right now?
PES: Well, I’m going to be shooting another commercial in London, and then taking a little vacation. And obviously, I said I was just continuing to shoot this aquarium over this year. Got another fireplace cooking for next year. Hopefully, I’m not sure whether or not I’ll put it out there for Christmas 2008, but that’s another thing on the plate, and possibly doing a music video coming up, which will be interesting.
AS: Nice.
PES: For Iggy Pop. We’ll see.
AS: Well, awesome. Thank you very much for talking to me. It’s been very cool catching up with you.
PES: All right. Thank you.
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