Synopsis
The world seems to be coming to an end, teeming with the vestiges of a human presence. Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences. In the lonesome boat sailing through mystical overflowed landscapes, they navigate the challenges and dangers of adapting to this new world.
Film credits
Director, Graphic designer: Gints Zilbalodis
Script writers: Gints Zilbalodis and Matiss Kaza
Producers: Matiss Kaza (Dream Well Studio, Latvia), Ron Dyens (Sacrebleu Productions, France), and Grégory Zalcman (TAKE FIVE, Belgium)
Music: Rihards Zaļupe and Gints Zilbalodis
Sound: Gurwal Coïc-Gallas
Technique: 3D digital
Running time: 83 minutes
Gints Zilbalodis, who solely created Away that was the winner of the Feature Films Contrechamp Competitionat the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2019, came back this year to the festival with Flow, a new, highly-anticipated animated feature for the official feature film competition.
Flow was highly acclaimed at the festival, winning three awards that include the Jury Award, the Audience Award, and the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution.
This beautiful fantasy film, with a post-apocalyptic atmosphere, transports us to an adventure with animal characters that we follow through a cat’s perspective. This narrative, populated solely by animal characters in a world threatened by a natural disaster, could encourage us to reflect on the current state of environmental affairs; the extreme climate phenomena we’ve recently witnessed globally.
We heard the story behind Flow, the fascinating and mysterious film, from Gints Zilbalodis, the director and author of the film.
Interview with Gints Zilbalodis
Animationweek (AW): Where did the initial idea of the story come from?
Gints Zilbalodis: Before Flow, I made a film called Away, which I developed by myself and it was also a story about a character alone. When I finished Away, I thought that I should continue with this theme, using my own experience in the story.
I made Flow with a team. It was my first time working like this and I thought that I should make a story about working in a team. So, I decided to revisit the story I’d done much earlier. I made a short film called Aqua many years ago about a cat who was afraid of water. I decided to take this setting and combine it with the idea of working in a team.
I developed it into this story of a cat, a dog, a bird, and a capybara in a boat. It was always intended to have no dialogue so that’s why all the animals are not speaking and there are no humans in the story. I wanted to tell a story without dialogue and just have animals acting like animals, not like humans.
AW: What do you want to deliver to the audience through this film the most?
Gints Zilbalodis: It’s about a cat who is very independent and very self-sufficient, who is forced to adapt and work together on this journey. At the same time, we have a dog character, who is on an opposite journey. The dog starts out being a follower and is always looking for someone to tell them what to do. And in the end, the dog becomes more independent.
So, I’m trying to say that not one way is the right way. Being independent and working together are both right, but you have to find a balance between them.
AW: What is your main intention in having the audiences see this film’s world through the point of view of a cat?
Gints Zilbalodis: The intention was to create a really immersive experience, so that you really feel that you can sense the water, and touch the grass. And I wanted to create these long shots where the camera is following the characters. I used the camera to evoke emotions, and the camera is participating in the storytelling: sometimes it’s afraid, sometimes it’s curious, and sometimes it’s maybe distracted by something. There are imperfections in the camera work in this film that I want. It was important to me that the camera is not always precise and that it has some handheld movements.
Where I’m really most interested in is the camera and the cinematography, and using them to tell the story. Without dialogue, I feel like that I have more ways to express myself with the camera. If there would be dialogue, I don’t think I would move the camera as much. So, because of the fact that I don’t have the dialogue, I can be more expressive, not just with the camera but with the music, the sound, and the animation. I think that you can only do this in animation, which is not possible to do in almost any other medium.
AW: This non-dialogue film tells the story solely through the animals and keeps the audience engaged for 80 minutes. To achieve this, what did you take care in while developing the film’s story? For example, did you take care in things like pacing the story, pacing the intervals of each event, changing the stages, music and so on for that purpose?
Gints Zilbalodis: I think the first thing that keeps the audience engaged is the film’s story. It’s important because since there’s no dialogue, we have to make it always very clear what the characters want and what they think. They’re on this journey: They’re not just lost in the sea, they have a goal, and all the characters were quite obsessed about something.
It’s also always changing. We’re inside this boat but the setting is always changing in each scene, like in one scene we’re in a forest, and then we’re in a city. And that was important to me.
I guess the music also draws you in. It is quite important that there is enough space for the music to be able to delve deeper into one particular emotion. There are these long scenes with a lot of music where you don’t hear any sound or hear just a little bit of sound. So, you can get really invested in the music.
Sometimes in an animated film, the music can change quite a lot and you don’t really feel it for that long. But this film has long scenes with music, and at the same time the film has long scenes with no music at all, where, I would imagine, in some other films, they would put some music there. But in this film these scenes are with just the sounds, so you can really sense nature much more clearly.
As I mentioned before, the camera is always participating, almost like a character in itself. This creates the idea that there’s always something moving, hopefully when it’s really necessary. There are also times when they slow down. But I think there’s always a sense of momentum.
In the environments, I don’t explain exactly what happened in this world before. I give some clues, and not explaining everything immediately create this sense of mystery, and the audience wants to know what’s happening; they are participating. If you just give clues and don’t explain everything, then it’s like the audience would be more actively involved and want to find out what’s happened. So, I think that helps the film keep moving all the time.
AW: The animal characters felt very alive and natural, and I could easily understand their thoughts and intentions purely through their movements. How did you give the animation of the characters so much personality and life? I am also interested in what kind of research on animal behaviour you’ve incorporated into the film.
Gints Zilbalodis: Our animators took a lot of reference for pretty much every scene, and they were looking at real animals. They were not recording themselves for reference.
Even for these small movements, luckily, there’s a huge library of videos online for all the characters. It was important to keep it naturalistic and have the characters behave like animals, not like talking animals or having some human characteristics.
For the sound, we didn’t use any human voices for the animals. Sometimes in animation, film makers tend to record human voices, but it was important for this film to use the voices of real animals. For the cat, our main character, it turns out we can only use one cat because each cat has different voices and personalities.
It was not just movement that was important to keep this naturalistic sense, but also for their behaviors. We were already thinking about this from the very beginning of the film project when we were writing the script: The characters behave and make their decisions like animals, not like humans would do in those situations.
AW: How did you design the visual universe of the film’s story? What did you take care in the most?
Gints Zilbalodis: It’s important that it feels quite timeless, that it doesn’t feel like the modern world, or too ancient, or too different or unrelatable. So, we mixed together various influences from various cultures. We also invented some of our own stuff, but it was important that it’s grounded and has some logic behind it. Usually, I just start with the characters, and then the logic comes after.
For example, early on in the film project, there’s a scene with the various cat statues. At first, I just had this idea of an image in my mind where the statues are sinking, so it evokes this sense of anxiety that you see these various cats drowning. After that, I try to figure out the reason why the statues in the forest are there.
I put some clues nearby the statues. There’s this small cabin where I’m suggesting that maybe some sculptor might have lived there who had been making these statues, and has all these tools. And maybe the cat, the main character, has been living there and maybe he’s the inspiration for all these statues, or maybe not. So, I’m not really explaining that too much, but I just start with the image and then I figure out the logic and the reason.
AW: Could you please let us know the story behind the music for the film? What was your goal with the music, or what you took care in the most?
Gints Zilbalodis: I’m also one of the composers of the music for Flow. I needed the music right from the beginning of the film project, so I started making the music even before the script is finished. I’m not thinking about particular scenes, but I’m just trying out various emotions and see where it leads me. Of course, I make a lot more music than what ends up being in the film, so I only use the best stuff among them, or the pieces that are best suited for the film. I need the music to guide me, to figure out the tone and the tempo of the film. The music also gives me some ideas for new scenes or how the scenes would resolve.
It’s also great because I don’t have to use temporary scores. Sometimes directors use scores from other films first and then they ask the composers to replicate those. But I think it’s not a good approach because then you’re not really being original, you’re just copying something else. For Flow, I could just use my own music, and it’s not trying to copy anything.
When it’s all edited and I have the animatic, then we brought in another composer, Rihards Zaļupe, who is more experienced than me. He actually plays various instruments himself. I don’t play any instruments, I just write them electronically. So, it was great to have Rihards to help us add more of the human touch and some imperfections and various layers of emotion. And then we recorded everything with a real orchestra to give it a richer color to the music. We used real instruments in an orchestra, various percussion instruments, but also some electronic instruments because I didn’t want it to sound too traditional. I wanted the music to have its own, very unique style. We mixed various unconventional instruments and electronic instruments with the orchestra, so that it feels like it’s music just for this film. I think it only works for this film and not for any other film.
AW: We watched your wonderful film Away, which you developed all by yourself, in Annecy in 2019 which won the Contrechamp Award. This year, you have come back to Annecy with your new fascinating film Flow, which you developed with a team, as in a general animation feature film project. What have you learned and experienced in making a whole film by yourself that you feel has been beneficial in the production of Flow?
Gints Zilbalodis: It was very beneficial making Away. I guess it was like an unofficial film school making that film, where I went through every task myself and figured out my way of making it and trying out all the different techniques. This then helped me later to communicate my ideas to the team for Flow because I had done it myself. I had done some animation and music and sound so I could understand it better.
It was always my hope that making the film Away by myself would give me a chance to work in a team. And luckily it worked out. I was still learning so much while making Flow as well. I feel like only now that I’ve finished, I know how to work in a team. I’ve learned so much while making Flow.
For example, I learned how to articulate things. Before, I didn’t really have to explain anything; I just come up with an idea and I could do it myself. Now, I have to find words to explain various ideas and that was a new skill I had to learn. It was really great.
We had a really nice team, and it was also important for me to allow a lot of freedom to the team. If they have a better idea than I originally had, then we could adjust and make it work, so that their idea works.
And, of course, we have a very precise plan of the film so that we know what we were doing, and everything is really planned. But it’s also important to be flexible with the plan. I heard from our team that compared to some other films, they had a lot more freedom. And the quality improves because everyone’s really invested and has a personal attachment to the film, and then the work is better as well.
AW: In addition to the previous question, why did you decide to develop this film with many creators? What creative challenges and benefits through the co-creation have you experienced?
Gints Zilbalodis: It was always intentional to tell a story about working in a team, because it was also how I’m making this film. It was my way of forcing myself or tricking myself to work in a team because I found it a bit scary at first, because I’ve never done it. But by telling the story, I felt like I had to do it because it’s what the story is about.
The challenges were that I had to explain things with words. It was important to find some balance, because when I explain things too much, everything is super clear and there’s no room for interpretation, and I find that to be a bit boring. So, I had to find a balance where I have to really articulate things and then everything really has a purpose.
But also, there are some moments where I had to ask the team to trust me, that it will make sense when we finish it, when we add the music, because some of the scenes didn’t really work in the animatic. They didn’t really get a sense of the emotion. But when we add the music and the sound to the animation, it started to make sense. And it was important to have the team trust me that it will work in the end. It was finding the balance to have both very precise direction, but also to have some room for interpretation as well.