PJ Liguori (born 11 December 1990) is a British-Italian

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influe ...

and film producer. He is best known for his YouTube channel KickThePj. Liguori specializes in many different artistic areas including screenplay, directing, songwriting, creating props, acting, producing, editing, sound, art, animation, 3D modelling, crafts, writing, and costume. His most notable works include the

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...

'' Oscar's Hotel for Fantastical Creatures'', "Colour Bandits" and "The Forever Train".

Early and personal life

Liguori was born in

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

, England to an Italian family. He has a sister. Growing up, Liguori was interested in Drama and made home videos with his friends. He took a gap year before going on to graduate with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

with Honours in Digital Film and Screen Arts in 2013 from the

University for the Creative Arts The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in the south of England. It was formed in 2005 as University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester when the Kent Ins ...

in Farnham, Surrey. It was here he met other creatives Sophie Newton, Jamie Swarbrick, and Louis Grant. Liguori became a British citizen in March 2015 and he is based in Brighton.

Career

Liguori uploaded his first video, which featured him playing guitar, in early 2007 at the age of 16. On 7 October 2011, Liguori released an album titled ''Stories from Somewhere''. The album is a collection of short stories told in song. In November 2012, Liguori won a Virgin Media Award for his short film ''PJ, Tiny Planet Explorer''. Liguori has also been awarded for Best Director for his film series ''Oscar's Hotel for Fantastical Creatures'' in the 2016 Streamy Awards. In October 2016, Ligouri was nominated for the British Online Creator Awards (BONCAs) as the British Creator of the Year. Liguori was also nominated for the BONCAs Series of the Year for his film series '' Oscar's Hotel for Fantastical Creatures'' but lost to Adrian Bliss. Liguori appeared in two episodes of Benjamin Cook's twelve part web documentary series ''Becoming YouTube''. In 2018, Liguori staged two 'work in progress' live shows in his hometown of Brighton, revealing later that they were test shows for a planned live tour of the UK. In September and early October of that year, Liguori travelled to twelve separate cities with his show 'Space Trip', a live storytelling event based around the fictional planet Kazam and its dangerous inhabitants. The show featured three guest stars: Dean Dobbs, Bertie Gilbert, and Chris Kendall, all of whom have collaborated with Liguori in the past. Liguori directed the 2019 music video for Dodie Clark's single, "Monster".

Filmography

''Oscar's Hotel for Fantastical Creatures''

In late 2014, Liguori partnered with New Form Digital to create a 10 minute short film

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

entitled '' Oscar's Hotel for Fantastical Creatures''. The film follows a young man named Oliver who goes to visit his uncle's hotel, which turns out to host unusual guests: monsters. A particular monster suddenly wreaks havoc in the hotel, and Oliver – amongst newfound friends – conquer the beast. Liguori announced in April 2015 that ''Oscar's Hotel'' would be funded and picked up as a six-episode web series by

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software a ...

, entitled ''Oscar's Hotel for Fantastical Creatures''. The series was produced by New Form Digital and

The Jim Henson Company The Jim Henson Company (formerly known as Muppets, Inc., Henson Associates, Inc., and Jim Henson Productions, Inc.; commonly referred to as Henson) is an American entertainment company located in Los Angeles, California. The company is known for ...

. The first episode of the web series aired on Vimeo on 15 September 2015, and one episode aired per week over the course of six weeks.

''Colour Bandits''

In June 2013, Liguori released a video on his YouTube channel by the title ''Colour Bandits''. This film depicts Liguori as a 'Colour Bandit' wearing all white and caked in white makeup. The film was developed by PJ Liguori, Sophie Newton, Jamie Swarbrick, and Louis Grant.

''The Forever Train''

In October 2013, Liguori released a short 8 minute film entitled ''The Forever Train''. This short film was created by PJ Liguori, Sophie Newton, Jamie Swarbrick, and Louis Grant. The film tells the story of a passenger (played by Chris Kendall) on 'The Forever Train', a train that travels through time. While on board, the passenger has humorous interactions with the fellow monsters and creatures as he tries to find his suitcase and ticket. Several YouTubers acted in this film, including Chris Kendall,

Thomas Ridgewell Thomas James Ridgewell (born 27 June 1990), known online as TomSka, is a British filmmaker, actor, content creator, and vlogger. He is known for writing, directing, producing, and starring in his live-action sketch comedy YouTube videos and ani ...

Daniel Howell Daniel James Howell (born 11 June 1991) is an English YouTuber, presenter, comedian and author. He gained prominence through his YouTube channels ''Daniel Howell'' (formerly known as ''danisnotonfire''), which reached over six million subscrib ...

Phil Lester Philip Michael Lester (born 30 January 1987) is an English YouTuber and radio host. He is best known for his YouTube channels ''AmazingPhil'', which gained over 4 million subscribers, and ''DanAndPhilGAMES''. Together with frequent collaborato ...

, and Dodie Clark.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Liguori, PJ 1990 births Living people Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts British filmmakers English people of Italian descent English video bloggers English YouTubers Italian YouTubers People from Peterborough English male YouTubers