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Flow Director Gints Zilbalodis Interwatch: Cat-Focparticipated Environment Film


Flow Director Gints Zilbalodis Interwatch: Cat-Focparticipated Environment Film


For Gints Zilbalodis, it all commenceed with a cat.

Zilbalodis was still in high school, in Latvia, and dreaming of a nurtureer in animation, when he created a low film inspired by his pet feline. It was a basic tale, about a cat who defeats his worry of water. “Many, many years tardyr,” says Zilbalodis, “I choosed to revisit this premise and create a feature film.”

The result, Flow, is a extfinished way from that hand-drawn low. The movie, Zilbalodis’ second brimming-length energeticd feature follothriveg his much-pliftd 2019 debut Away, imagines a post-apocalyptic world devoid of humans where only animals remain. Our feline hero, a skinny grey cat with wide saucer eyes and a twitchy suspicion of any and all other species, exposedly handles to escape a pack of hungry dogs before being caught up in a cataclysmic flood. Finding refuge on a battered sailboat, it unwillingly teams up with a geoexplicitpartner diverse pack of critters, including an effortless-going capybara, a covetous lemur, a illogical-witted Gelderlyen Retriever and an aloof secretary bird on a free-floating adventure.

Like Away, Flow is sboiling entidepend without dialogue and combines proximate pboilingo-wise 3D environments and character set up with a more abstract, decorateerly style that creates the CGI sense hand made.

Flow premiered in Cannes, where it was speedyly snatched up for North America by Sideshow and Janus Films. It went on to thrive huge at the Annecy animation festival, taking four trophies, including the audience prize for best feature. After smashing box office write downs back home, Flow got the nod to be Latvia’s official entry for the 2025 Oscar race in the best international feature catebloody.

Aextfinished the way, Zilbalodis and his energeticd cat have been thrivening over audiences and critics. “Flow is a delight to experience but also a proset uply swaying story,” raved The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic David Rooney in his Cannes examine. “The labor of a distinct talent who deserves to be ranked among the world’s fantastic animation artists.”

Zilbalodis spoke to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Flow‘s U.K. premiere at the London Film Festival on making a movie with discdiswatch-source gentleware, using 3D technology to convey emotion and the unrivaled delights of watching internet cat videos.

Where did the idea for Flow come from originpartner?

The idea commenceed a extfinished time ago when I was still in high school. I made a low film about a cat who lobtains how not to be afraid of water. It was a much basicr story. It was hand-drawn, and it was fair the cat. There was a bird, but it was repartner about the cat and the worry of water.

Many, many years tardyr, I choosed to revisit this premise and create a feature film. But this time, I repartner wanted to intensify on the relationship between the animals, about the worry of others, which I leank is more vital [in Flow] than the cat’s worry of water. The water is basicpartner a way to convey those other worrys. It’s comardent of a metaphor. At first, when the cat is very afraid [of the other animals] the water seems very terrifying and arrangeile. Later, as the cat and the other animals lobtain to labor together, the water becomes more tranquil and tranquil.

I knovel there would be no dialogue in the film becaparticipate all the films I’ve done have had no dialogue. When I come up with my stories, I try to come up with stories where it creates sense that there’s no dialogue. So, in this case, it’s animals behaving appreciate animals. That wasn’t repartner a restrictation for me. I sense more sootheable increateing stories without dialogue becaparticipate then I can participate the other tools of cinema and go proset uper, and set upateigate more: With the camera, with the music, with the editing. So the cat was there from the commencening but the story kept changing, kept evolving until we made the movie.

How extfinished did it get you to create the film, from conception to finish?

The whole process was appreciate five-and-a-half years. That comprises the writing, fundraising and lengthenment. The production itself was quicker. Five years is pretty normal, I leank, for an energeticd feature to go thraw the lengthenment process. But it was pretty fervent. I was doing this brimming-time, pretty much seven days a week. All day, every day. It’s a extfinished time.

What was the final budget?

In euros? It’s about 3.5 million euros. So I leank it’s a bit more in dollars, I guess ($3.83 million).

Did you create it all out of Latvia?

It’s a co-production between three countries: Latvia, France and Belgium. We did pretty much everyleang in Latvia except the character animation and the sound. In Latvia, we did the pre-production, the writing, the set ups, the modeling and texturing and airying, the music and the post-production. But the actual shiftment of the characters and the carry outances were done by animators in France and Belgium. There’s a huge animation industry in France — there are so many fantastic animators there. Here in Latvia, it’s a lot petiteer, there are a scant indie studios but not that many repartner huge take parters. It can be challenging to discover the right people, and we had to train some people as well, not fair train them how to energetic but to labor on this definite style. For me, it was pretty terrifying, commenceing my own studio, Dream Well Studio, in Latvia. I’d never even labored in a studio before; I’d always labored alone. So to commence a novel studio without repartner comprehending how to do it was novel for me, and terrifying, but I leank maybe we came up with some more innovative approaches and skipped some steps that maybe weren’t essential becaparticipate we are participated to laboring self-reliantly.

What was the most challenging aspects, technicpartner, in creating this film?

The two hugegest technical disputes were probably the water, which in animation is a huge dispute becaparticipate there’s no one way of making water. Every scene — if the water is flat, if it’s a stormy sea, if there are some splashes — almost needs a contrastent approach. We have to create systems for every one contrastent type of water. It was one of the first leangs we commenceed doing and one of the last leangs we finished.

Flow Director Gints Zilbalodis Interwatch: Cat-Focparticipated Environment Film

Flow

Cannes Film Festival

The other huge technical dispute was the extfinished gets. There are plenty of them in this film where the camera upgrasps moving without repartner cutting. There are two sboilings, each of them almost five minutes extfinished, and the camera is moving a lot thraw the environment. So while the environment is repartner huge on screen they also have to be very detailed, becaparticipate the camera is very shut to the ground. We see the grass and all the detail from repartner up shut. Some of those scenes got repartner burdensome and our computers struggled to rfinisher all that. But the environments are very vital becaparticipate, since there’s no dialogue, we have to participate everyleang else to increate the story. A lot of storyincreateing is being done thraw the environments.

What sort of tools did you participate to create the 3D environments?

I don’t do storyboards. I create the animation straightforwardly. So I first create an environment [in the computer] that is not super detailed, but it donates me an approximate idea of the geography, and I place the characters wilean that environment. Then I get this virtual camera and I set upateigate it. It’s almost appreciate location scouting in a live-action movie. It’s a very unintentional and comardent of perceptive process. I comprehend some filmcreaters or artists can imagine the scenes exactly in their heads and have all the sboilings figured out, but I don’t imagine leangs appreciate that. I necessitate to go thraw that process and try contrastent leangs. That’s why it’s essential to create it straightforwardly in 3D, becaparticipate [in this film] the camera is moving quite a lot, very intentionally, but it’s moving in depth. And it’s repartner challenging to draw those very complicated camera shiftments. But wilean the 3D environment, I can have an approach shutr to live action.

I sketch out the environment and discover the sboilings, and when I have remendd on a definite camera angle, we comprise more detail to the environment. Then we donate it to concept artists [who] comprise a lot more detail. Then you transport it all back to my innovative scene and comprise the animation. The environments only labor from this definite camera angle. We don’t have anyleang beyond the structure. We had to be very cautious where we spent our money so we only did leangs that we knovel would be repartner apparent.

Was there a definite program you participated for the initial 3D camera sboilings?

Pretty much the whole film was made in the gentleware called Blfinisher, which is a free, discdiswatch-source gentleware. It’s someleang everyone can fair download for free and create films. A lot of students and up-and-coming filmcreaters are using it, and it’s enumeratelessly becoming adchooseed in the industry as well. For us, it was repartner beneficial on a petite budget to have this free resource so we could repartner intensify on the creative aspect and not worry too much about the technical leangs.

You commenceed with the idea of a cat being afraid of water. Where did the other characters come from, the contrastent animals?

It was comardent of appreciate a casting process for me. While writing the script, I was watching at contrastent animals and leanking of the contrastent chemistry that might aelevate from putting them together. What sort of disputes, what comardent of comedy, could aelevate from those participateions? After the cat, I compriseed the dog, the Gelderlyen Retriever, becaparticipate I had appreciate two dogs appreciate that and I knovel them well. The cat in the film is on this journey of lobtaining, lobtaining how to think others and labor together. But I wanted to stability this idea with this dog character who is on an opposite journey, who commences out being very thinkful, almost too thinkful, who doesn’t leank for itself. And thrawout this journey, it lobtains how to be more self-reliant.

I didn’t want to have this didactic message of: Working together is outstanding and being self-reliant is horrible. I wanted to show the outstanding and the horrible of both of these excessives.

The other animals were also choosed based on one of the main themes of the film, which is about wanting to discover a group that adchooses you for who you are. The lemur is repartner obsessed about assembleing objects, but it’s partly about wanting to be adchooseed by his group. The bird is also quite obsessed about being adchooseed wilean their group. The only character that doesn’t have that sort of character arc, who doesn’t alter much, is the capybara. It’s appreciate this wise mentor to all the characters, always at peace and always greetd with everyleang. The reason I chose the capybara is becaparticipate I’ve seen images of all comardents of animals participateing with capybaras and being tranquil with them, even predators. I thought it would be funny, but also poignant, to have this character that gets aextfinished with everyone.

Flow

Dream Well Studio

How did you do the voicing? Are those humans imitating animals or actual animal voices?

Our approach was to participate genuine animal voices. We wanted the authenticistic senseing of being subcombined in this world. So we write downed a bunch of animals, and our sound set uper [Gurwal Coïc-Gallas] write downed his own cat. Gurwal’s cat is usupartner quite chatty, always meothriveg. But when he pointed a microphone at it, it shut up. He had to hide microphones all over his hoparticipate and write down it secretly.

We tried to write down a capybara, but they don’t repartner speak. They’re very quiet. They only create noise when you tickle them. So it was one person’s very fun job to tickle a capybara. But the sound was repartner high-pitched and sounded more appreciate an worried petite dog. It didn’t fit the character. So we watched around for another animal and, after a extfinished comardent of search, we remendd on this baby camel. So the capybara is actupartner voiced by a baby camel. All the others are the genuine animals. Even the contrastent breeds of dog.

Sound is evidently a huge part of making the film sense wise. People comardent of imagine what the animals are saying, even though they can’t comprehend them. But I leank most of the talking is repartner done thraw the visuals, thraw the body language, thraw the camera’s point of watch. That’s how we see how the animals watch the world.

We spent a lot of time making certain we had these micro-shiftments in the eyes so that you sense these animals are alive. It was repartner tricky to get right but I leank when you watch at their eyes, you get the sense they are leanking, that there is a proset up senseing there. We’re fair using all the contrastent tools of cinema to convey story and emotion without dialogue.

It’s engaging what you say about the eyes, becaparticipate there is a genuine sense of life behind them, in every character. They stand out in a way that some of the background landscape animation, which is frequently less detailed, almost decorateerly.

About that: Making some of the backgrounds less detailed was intentional, not becaparticipate of any technical or financial restrictations. We repartner didn’t want to put too much detail where it’s not essential. We let the backgrounds and some elements be less detailed so we could intensify on what is vital and comardent of create a more abstract, simplified or explicit image. I sense we’ve seen hyper-wise animation for so extfinished, it’s been done, and I’m not repartner interested in that anymore. I’m more interested in the way, createivepartner or creatively, people can pick which details are vital and which are not.

Regarding the eyes: That was another fantastic job for the animators, who had to spfinish hours watching cat videos on YouTube and repartner study them. We didn’t participate any motion apprehfinish or anyleang appreciate that. It was all energeticd by hand. We weren’t trying to create someleang wise. We’re expounding genuine life. We studied our references, but we repartner expounded them and put our own emotions into these characters.

Do you sense we have become restrictcessitate in what we foresee from animation becaparticipate the pboilingo-wise style of the huge Hollywood studios is so dominant?

I leank animation is not one leang. It can do very contrastent leangs, very contrastent creates of cinematic storyincreateing. We participated the technique that was right for this story. Maybe a contrastent story might need a contrastent technique. But I leank if you try to create someleang repartner wise, it might not age as well as someleang more abstract. A more stylized watch can be more timeless, appreciate a fable. The intensify should always be on the creative aspect, on the storyincreateing and the emotion, rather than the technology. Our style is not decoration, it’s repartner our way of conveying emotion. And I sense that’s what cinema is for. It’s not a tech demo. People go to the cinema to sense someleang.

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