Adam Pesapane (born May 26, 1973), known by the pseudonym PES, is an American director and animator. He has created several stop motion films and commercials, which has earned him nominations for an Oscar and an Emmy Award.
After receiving a B.A. in English Literature at the University of Virginia, PES migrated to film as a storytelling medium. He earned critical acclaim for the short film Fresh Guacamole (2012), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, making it the shortest film ever nominated for an Oscar. He created "Paper", a commercial for Honda Motor Co., which earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2016.
PES' distinct use of everyday objects and stop-motion animation has garnered a positive reception from critics and audiences. His other known works are the short films Roof Sex, KaBoom!, Game Over and Western Spaghetti.
Early life
Pesapane was born on May 26, 1973, in Dover, New Jersey, the son of an elementary school principal and a hairdresser. The name "PES" is a family nickname deriving from the Italian surname "Pesapane".
Pesapane grew up in an Italian-American household in the Budd Lake section of Mount Olive Township, New Jersey, and showed an early facility for drawing and painting. He attended Delbarton School, one of the nation's top private high schools, where he began exhibiting and selling his artwork.
Pesapane attended the University of Virginia as an Echols Scholar. In 1995 he earned a B.A. in English Literature and wrote his senior thesis on James Joyce's Ulysses. In addition to his English degree, Pesapane studied printmaking throughout all four years of college. He wrote and illustrated his own books, hand printing them using 15th-century techniques, and even made the paper they were printed on by pulping his own underwear.
In his senior year at U.Va, Pesapane lived on The Lawn, one of the University's highest honors. He lived at 33 West Lawn, in the room directly above the cornerstone of the University set by Thomas Jefferson in 1817.
After graduation, Pesapane moved to New York City where he landed his first job in the creative department of McCann-Erickson, a large advertising agency. He was hired because the agency's creative recruiter liked his portfolio of etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs, even though they bore no relevance to advertising.
Once inside the agency, Pesapane had daily exposure to award-winning commercials, short films, and music videos from around the world and first began thinking about making a film of his own. He cites the work of the Swedish directing collective Traktor, Michel Gondry, and Spike Jonze as influences from this period.
In 1998, while still working at the agency, Pesapane made his first film, a live-action short called Dogs of War. Based on a dream Pesapane had about hot dogs being dropped as bombs, the 48-second film "anticipates PES's animation work through the use of absurd humor, placing everyday objects in unfamiliar situations and slick editing that clearly shows the influence of advertising films."
Career
2000s
PES's first animated film, Roof Sex which was released in June 2001, features two life-sized chairs having sex on a New York rooftop. Though only a minute long, the film took 20 shooting days to complete. Having no prior experience with animation, PES taught himself how to animate by doing tests with doll furniture in his NYC apartment. In 2002, Roof Sex won the Best First Film award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Roof Sex was featured at over 100 film festivals worldwide and won numerous awards.
The war short KaBoom! (2004) was instrumental in defining the artist's personal style and approach to animating objects. The film features an atomic airstrike on a miniature city using children's toys and festive objects such as gift bows, Christmas ornaments, and clown-head cupcake toppers. Originally commissioned by Diesel as part of its "Diesel Dreams" advertising campaign which launched in August 2004, KaBoom! was included on a DVD (along with 29 other short films) that was given away in stores worldwide when a pair of jeans was purchased. A "Making of KaBoom!" narrated by PES is available on the director's website and gives insight into the logic behind the object use and selection.