Flow Director Gints Zilbalodis Intersee: Cat-Focused 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 unintelligentinutive film encouraged by his pet feline. It was a modest tale, about a cat who conquers his worry of water. “Many, many years procrastinateedr,” says Zilbalodis, “I choosed to revisit this premise and create a feature film.”

The result, Flow, is a lengthy way from that hand-drawn unintelligentinutive. The movie, Zilbalodis’ second brimming-length energeticd feature follotriumphg his much-commendd 2019 debut Away, imagines a post-apocalyptic world devoid of humans where only animals remain. Our feline hero, a skinny grey cat with expansive saucer eyes and a twitchy suspicion of any and all other species, nakedly regulates 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 unintelligent-witted Gelderlyen Retriever and an aloof secretary bird on a free-floating adventure.

Like Away, Flow is sboiling enticount on without dialogue and joins 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 triumph big 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 categruesome.

Alengthy the way, Zilbalodis and his energeticd cat have been triumphning over audiences and critics. “Flow is a happiness to experience but also a presentantly impacting story,” raved The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic David Rooney in his Cannes appraise. “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 uncover-source gentleware, using 3D technology to transmit emotion and the unrivaled happinesss of watching internet cat videos.

Where did the idea for Flow come from originpartner?

The idea commenceed a lengthy time ago when I was still in high school. I made a unintelligentinutive film about a cat who lgets how not to be afrhelp of water. It was a much modestr story. It was hand-drawn, and it was equitable the cat. There was a bird, but it was repartner about the cat and the worry of water.

Many, many years procrastinateedr, 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 slfinisherk is more presentant [in Flow] than the cat’s worry of water. The water is modestpartner a way to transmit those other worrys. It’s benevolent of a metaphor. At first, when the cat is very afrhelp [of the other animals] the water seems very terrifying and antagonistic. Later, as the cat and the other animals lget to labor together, the water becomes more tranquil and soothe.

I knovel there would be no dialogue in the film because 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 consoleable telling stories without dialogue because then I can use the other tools of cinema and go presentanter, and scrutinize 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 lengthy did it consent you to create the film, from conception to finish?

The whole process was appreciate five-and-a-half years. That includes the writing, fundraising and broadenment. The production itself was speedyer. Five years is pretty standard, I slfinisherk, for an energeticd feature to go thraw the broadenment process. But it was pretty ardent. I was doing this brimming-time, pretty much seven days a week. All day, every day. It’s a lengthy time.

What was the final budget?

In euros? It’s about 3.5 million euros. So I slfinisherk 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 everyslfinisherg 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 transferment of the characters and the carry outances were done by animators in France and Belgium. There’s a big 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 big applyers. It can be challenging to discover the right people, and we had to train some people as well, not equitable train them how to energetic but to labor on this particular 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 understanding how to do it was novel for me, and terrifying, but I slfinisherk maybe we came up with some more innovative approaches and skipped some steps that maybe weren’t vital because we are used to laboring autonomously.

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

The two biggest technical disputes were probably the water, which in animation is a huge dispute because 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 branch offent approach. We have to create systems for every one branch offent type of water. It was one of the first slfinishergs we commenceed doing and one of the last slfinishergs we finished.

The other big technical dispute was the lengthy consents. There are plenty of them in this film where the camera grasps moving without repartner cutting. There are two sboilings, each of them almost five minutes lengthy, and the camera is moving a lot thraw the environment. So while the environment is repartner big on screen they also have to be very detailed, because 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 presentant because, since there’s no dialogue, we have to use everyslfinisherg else to tell the story. A lot of storytelling is being done thraw the environments.

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

I don’t do storyboards. I create the animation honestly. So I first create an environment [in the computer] that is not super detailed, but it gives me an approximate idea of the geography, and I place the characters wislfinisher that environment. Then I consent this virtual camera and I scrutinize it. It’s almost appreciate location scouting in a dwell-action movie. It’s a very unintentional and benevolent of perceptive process. I understand some filmcreaters or artists can imagine the scenes exactly in their heads and have all the sboilings figured out, but I don’t imagine slfinishergs appreciate that. I necessitate to go thraw that process and try branch offent slfinishergs. That’s why it’s vital to create it honestly in 3D, because [in this film] the camera is moving quite a lot, very intentionally, but it’s moving in depth. And it’s repartner difficult to draw those very complicated camera transferments. But wislfinisher the 3D environment, I can have an approach shutr to dwell action.

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

Was there a particular program you used for the initial 3D camera sboilings?

Pretty much the whole film was made in the gentleware called Blfinisher, which is a free, uncover-source gentleware. It’s someslfinisherg everyone can equitable download for free and create films. A lot of students and up-and-coming filmcreaters are using it, and it’s cataloglessly becoming huged in the industry as well. For us, it was repartner collaborative 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 slfinishergs.

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

It was benevolent of appreciate a casting process for me. While writing the script, I was seeing at branch offent animals and slfinisherking of the branch offent chemistry that might aascfinish from putting them together. What sort of disputes, what benevolent of comedy, could aascfinish from those transmitions? After the cat, I compriseed the dog, the Gelderlyen Retriever, because I had appreciate two dogs appreciate that and I knovel them well. The cat in the film is on this journey of lgeting, lgeting how to think others and labor together. But I wanted to equilibrium this idea with this dog character who is on an opposite journey, who commences out being very thinkful, almost too thinkful, who doesn’t slfinisherk for itself. And thrawout this journey, it lgets how to be more autonomous.

I didn’t want to have this didactic message of: Working together is excellent and being autonomous is horrible. I wanted to show the excellent 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 hugs you for who you are. The lemur is repartner obsessed about assembleing objects, but it’s partly about wanting to be huged by his group. The bird is also quite obsessed about being huged wislfinisher 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 directd mentor to all the characters, always at peace and always charmd with everyslfinisherg. The reason I chose the capybara is because I’ve seen images of all benevolents of animals transmiting with capybaras and being soothe with them, even predators. I thought it would be funny, but also poignant, to have this character that gets alengthy with everyone.

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

Our approach was to use genuine animal voices. We wanted the authenticistic senseing of being plunged 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 meotriumphg. But when he pointed a microphone at it, it shut up. He had to hide microphones all over his house 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 seeed around for another animal and, after a lengthy benevolent 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 branch offent breeds of dog.

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

We spent a lot of time making certain we had these micro-transferments in the eyes so that you sense these animals are adwell. It was repartner tricky to get right but I slfinisherk when you see at their eyes, you get the sense they are slfinisherking, that there is a presentant senseing there. We’re equitable using all the branch offent tools of cinema to transmit story and emotion without dialogue.

It’s fascinating what you say about the eyes, because 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 normally less detailed, almost decorateerly.

About that: Making some of the backgrounds less detailed was intentional, not because of any technical or financial restrictations. We repartner didn’t want to put too much detail where it’s not vital. We let the backgrounds and some elements be less detailed so we could intensify on what is presentant and benevolent of create a more abstract, simplified or explicit image. I sense we’ve seen hyper-wise animation for so lengthy, it’s been done, and I’m not repartner interested in that anymore. I’m more interested in the way, creativepartner or creatively, people can select which details are presentant 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 use any motion seize or anyslfinisherg appreciate that. It was all energeticd by hand. We weren’t trying to create someslfinisherg wise. We’re clarifying genuine life. We studied our references, but we repartner clarifyed them and put our own emotions into these characters.

Do you sense we have become restrictcessitate in what we anticipate from animation because the pboilingo-wise style of the big Hollywood studios is so dominant?

I slfinisherk animation is not one slfinisherg. It can do very branch offent slfinishergs, very branch offent establishs of cinematic storytelling. We used the technique that was right for this story. Maybe a branch offent story might need a branch offent technique. But I slfinisherk if you try to create someslfinisherg repartner wise, it might not age as well as someslfinisherg more abstract. A more stylized see can be more timeless, appreciate a fable. The intensify should always be on the creative aspect, on the storytelling and the emotion, rather than the technology. Our style is not decoration, it’s repartner our way of transmiting emotion. And I sense that’s what cinema is for. It’s not a tech demo. People go to the cinema to sense someslfinisherg.