PES: The Deep
Posted in: animated, Fish, General, interview, PES, short stories, showtime, Stop-motion, The Deep, underwaterAfter posting PES’s latest work, The Deep, in mid December, recently, we were able to catch up with the artist himself. Chatting about everything from his artistic background to childhood inspiration, PES gives us a candid look into his personal filmmaking process in this exclusive interview for the latest Showtime Short Stories film, The Deep (full interview here).
“For as long as I can remember I’ve been obsessed with deep sea creatures. And certain tools have always reminded me of fish and other ocean creatures. One tool in particular – an old nutcracker – looked very fish-head-like to me (I used it as the head of the eel and the lantern fish in The Deep). So I collected lots of tools and metal scraps over the past 5 years with an eye toward creating an undersea-themed piece. The challenge became, can I get these rigid objects to have enough fluidity to really make them believable as sea creatures.”
While PES’s usual style of work illustrates a stark contrast between natural and synthetic objects, for The Deep, this was not the case. Varying from his previous shorts, his approach was also different. “Each shot,” he explains, “inspired the next shot I dreamt up. It was an extremely spontaneous mode of creation.” The resulting piece is rough and improvised, while at the same time, more restrained than his previous endeavors. While most of PES’s work is built around an eclectic combination of scavenged objects, The Deep is not a short that’s amplified by electrifying visuals, but rather, a visually candid, mask-free look into the versatility and creative breadth of PES.
