With many notable wins on the festival circuit complimenting a Best International Feature nomination, Flow has quickly become one of the must-see films of this year! Centered around a cat taking refuge on a boat alongside various species after their homes are destroyed by floods, it’s a warm yet urgent testament to the power of cooperation. I was lucky enough to recently speak with director Gints Zilbalodis about his artistic process, the power of animation and more. Many thanks to him and his team for taking the time, and I hope you enjoy the conversation!
This was your first time working with a team, but what lessons from your solo projects were you able to bring to this new film?
With each of the films I learn something new, and I learned with Flow as well. I’ve never storyboarded because I’m not really good at drawing and I don’t have an ability to imagine the scene in my head. Some people can imagine stuff, but I need to discover things and explore the set. So even though we had more resources and could hire storyboard artists, I decided to work the same way I always have by creating a 3D environment and exploring it with a virtual camera. This allows me to make some happy accidents, but it’s also important because I want to do long takes where the camera follows characters and gets very close to them, which is hard to draw. Speaking about my previous films, it’s kind of embarrassing that you can still see the films I made as a teenager and compare those to what I’m doing now with bigger budgets, but I think it’s important to show that there’s been growth and improvement. Maybe other people can see that everyone starts from somewhere and improves.
You’ve mentioned how important that process of discovery is for you, using the animatic to explore, but I’m curious how much of the visual language was found in the script writing process?
With Flow, it was basically the first time there was a proper script writing process. With my previous films I would just write a simple outline and go directly to making the animatic and improvise the film. But because the budget was much bigger, we needed to have a script. It’s really difficult for me to write—at least, it was. I think it’s gotten a little bit easier, but it was very useful to spend time writing so many drafts of the script which kept evolving. The first draft is very different from what you see on the screen. I would recommend people write scripts, it’s a good idea [laughs].
You leaned into the expressive movements of the characters, and have spoken about how much time was spent animating their eyes to be expressive. How does the lack of dialogue push you as a storyteller to communicate the emotions in a scene?
I had to use everything else to communicate what the characters are feeling. The environment isn’t just decoration, it’s there to convey what the characters feel. I start with the emotion and build everything around that, especially for the main character, the cat. How characters are framed makes a difference. If we see the cat from a profile or a wide-shot, making it a small lonely figure in the frame, that helps us convey the feeling. It forces you to come up with original methods, you can’t rely on the characters speaking. I think it’s a good exercise for any filmmaker to do a few scenes without dialogue. That’s how I feel about my favorite films, the ones I tend to remember. I don’t remember the famous lines of dialogue, but I remember the emotion and images, the editing patterns. That excites me, that’s why I want to make films.
I’m curious how the sound design process was for you, because there’s also a lot of emotion brought that way as well.
That’s a huge part. This isn’t a silent film, it’s a dialogue-free film. I considered sound quite early while writing the script, how we could use certain moments to build tension and have a variety of sounds. If they’re on this road movie, it shouldn’t feel repetitive. They visit all kinds of places. There’s a lot of water, but we use water in different ways. It can be terrifying, it can be very peaceful. Often, sound is done at the end, but our sound designer started working very early, before the animation was even started. We had to imagine how it would work and later fix certain things to fit with the finished images. I wanted some long scenes with just the sound effects, no music. Often, especially in animated films, the studio or producers or whoever push for music to always tell you what to feel. In Flow, music is a big part, but there are very long sequences without it. I wanted to have moments where you can immerse yourself in this world, sense all the textures. I thought our sound designer would be excited about this, but he said he was actually very anxious to have all this responsibility. He couldn’t hide behind the dialogue or the music, he was afraid to bore people or be repetitive, but I think he managed to do something amazing where you don’t think about the sound. You think about these things existing as real places and real animals.
You mentioned it’s kind of a road movie, but it’s not a traditional road movie. The ending is very open. How much of that comes from editing the script? Was that present in the early drafts?
I think there is a goal. The cat sees these giant cliff towers and gets obsessed with reaching them. The bird as well. They think they will go there and escape from the flood, but like other road films once you reach the destination it’s not that simple. It’s often more about the journey than the destination. It was important that these characters have agency and make decisions, and through their decisions we understand who they are. It’s set mostly in this boat but I didn’t want it to feel claustrophobic. I wanted the visuals to have a huge variety. It evolves. Two of my first films are kind of like a road film. It’s good to have guidelines, some sense of movement, but also to trap these characters on a boat. It allows us to have conflict. The road film is a good storytelling device.
You’ve spoken about embracing this handmade quality to the animation. Can you speak about your process of getting to that point?
Especially in CG animation, making things perfect and realistic is easier than something that’s abstracted with human imperfections. I’m excited that a lot of films are going in this direction. We have reached the limits of realism, but that also means we can’t get stuff for free. We have to design everything. We can’t take a realistic existing location—but that’s good because then everything has a reason to be there and is thought through. It’s about finding the balance. The world feels rich and detailed, but it’s not hyperreal. If you go into a more abstract direction I think you can feel more immersed. You allow the audience to imagine certain things, to fill these gaps with their own experiences. This applies to the visuals but also the storytelling, leaving room for interpretation so people don’t just see one specific cat. They see their own cat in this film, they project their own experiences into the film.
There are so many live-action adaptations of animated films being released. I’m curious if you can speak to the specific benefits of animation.
I think a story like Flow could only ever be done in animation. If you were to remake it in a live-action style, it would still be animated, but in a more realistic way, which would lose a lot of its appeal and expressiveness. With animation we can push things somewhat further to be more emotional than if we did live-action. But it all depends on the story. I consider myself a filmmaker rather than an animator. If the right story comes along I’d love to do a live-action film, but so far what I’ve been interested in is very suited for animation. It’s really a tool for storytelling. The technique isn’t that important, but it allows me to convey things I otherwise couldn’t do. There are certain things I can’t explain or articulate, but with animation I can go into a more emotional place and explain my feelings through images and music. That’s why I make films, to express myself. I don’t know if I could do this any other way. With animation I have the control to do that. I have the freedom to do that. I’m not confined by a specific place or character, I can imagine whatever I want.
Flow is in theaters this weekend, and I hope you make time to watch it on the big screen!
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