Fresh guacamole is a fun animated video that slipped into the 2013 85th edition of the Oscars with the nomination for best animated short. Unfortunately it did not win the prize (the animated short did Paperman), however, not taking the statuette was not going to prevent him from achieving immediate success. But what is it about this video that continues to accumulate views day after day?
The best homemade guacamole recipe step by step (more or less)
You just have to take a look at the YouTube views counter to see that Fresh Guacamole has been and is a success in animation. To this day, video exceeds 127 millions of views, figures to which must be added another almost 8 million views since it was first published on Showtime's YouTube channel.
The video describes in a spectacular way the process of creating a homemade guacamole, with the peculiarity of using everyday objects that transform into others as our protagonist manipulates them. The character in question is Adam Pesapane, professionally known as PES discipline, the creator of this 1 minute and 40 second short that remains the shortest short film to have been nominated for an Oscar in the history of the competition. How did he do it?
The pixilation technique
To achieve this, PES made use of the pixilation, a stop motion technique in which flesh and blood characters are used instead of puppets or inanimate objects, making the entire capture process difficult, since the person must maintain the posture in all the shots taken. As you can see in the video, the hand that appears is from a real person (the one from PES), and it is not a plastic creation like some other elements that appear on the scene.
This technique is based on taking numerous photographs that, reproduced at a certain speed, create the effect of movement that a traditional film produces. Said movement, together with the transformation of the materials, makes the viewer completely entranced in front of the screen.
Some of the most striking transformations in the video are the following:
- The grenade/avocado that hides a billiard ball inside as a bone:
- The baseball that turns into dice:
- The diced false tomato:
- The bombilla as a hot pepper:
- The cut bulb transforms into Monopoly houses:
- Or the poker chips as tortilla chips:
More PES Videos
This entertainer's success didn't end with Fresh Guacamole. After him came others equally original, such as Sub Sandwitch, or other private works such as the spectacular Honda advertisement in which he was the director.
But if there is something quite interesting that you would surely like to discover, it is how this artist manages to generate those effects and that perfect animation in his works. Luckily he posted a couple of videos of how he filmed his short Sub Sandwitch and the Honda commercial was filmed, some documents with which you can see that it takes a lot of patience and dedication to achieve effects as good as the one that PES achieves. Although of course, you also need a lot of imagination and a talent that is not available to everyone.