Gints Zilbalodis: “I see similarities between Flow and Fury Road”

The animated film noticed at Cannes and Annecy has just won a Golden Globe. We met its creator to talk about his creation.

How to make a great film about a little cat facing the end of the world? Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis explodes the codes of animation with Flow, the cat who was no longer afraid of waterwhich comes from receive a Golden Globe in Hollywood. Faced with competitors much bigger than him: Vice-Versa 2 And Moana 2 Disney studios, The Wild Robot from Dreamworks and the new Wallace and Gromit designed for Netflix. Only one other independent film was in the running: Memoirs of a snailby Adam Elliot.

Last June, during the Annecy animation festival, he revealed to us the secrets of making this bomb that you haven't finished hearing about. Here is his interview, originally published in number 556 of First.

Flow, the cat who was no longer afraid of water: a visual and narrative shock [critique]

Visual and narrative tour de force (no dialogue is spoken), Flow, the cat who was no longer afraid of water is the epico-poetic story of a cat and a few animals who try to survive the Flood in a world where humanity has disappeared. Having passed through Cannes (UCR) and the Annecy festival (where it left with four prizes), this atypical feature film is already a favorite for the Oscar for best animated film. It is the work of Latvian Gints Zilbalodis, 30 years old and with the shifty eyes of a shy person who gets a lump in his stomach at the slightest social interaction. “I made my first film completely alone and the story was about feeling alone. This time I had to work as a team and it turns out the film is about our ability to trust others. The irony of the thing did not escape me”smiles discreetly the director, who tells us about his formal obsessions.

FIRST: What immediately strikes you with Flowthis is its magnitude. It feels like a mixture of The Impossible And Mad Max: Fury Road.

GINTS ZILBALODIS: Live action inspires me a lot. I see the similarities with Fury Roadwhere dialogue is almost secondary and all that matters is
the chase. Except that I am in favor of long takes. Not just to show off, but because it allows you to add several layers of reading in a single sequence shot: you start far from the character, you get closer, you move away again… It creates this feeling of objectivity and subjectivity at the same time, without having the impression of manipulating the public too much. In the world of animation, the possibilities of camera movements haven't been explored as much as they should be. As there is a sort of contract with the viewer, a consented suspension of disbelief, we must be able to allow ourselves to be more expressive, to push the sliders of emotion through the framing. The story is really important to me, but sometimes I think it's actually my excuse to have fun with the camera. (Laughs.)

How do you compose your plans?

Typically, in animated film, everything starts with a hand-drawn storyboard. We didn't do it with Flow. Instead, I went straight to a 3D animatic. I place the characters in scenes that are not yet animated, and I move my virtual camera to find ideas for shots. Sometimes, I add lighting, because it gives me the position of the shadows, which is taken into account in the composition. And I sometimes put on music to feel the tempo, the tone of the sequence. Since there is no dialogue, the feeling of immersion must trump everything. It requires spontaneity and flexibility. I didn't reread the script once after writing it, and I moved away from it regularly because what worked on paper didn't work at all in real life. At the Coen brothers, each shot is planned before filming. I am incapable of doing that. I had to experiment for two years to get where I wanted.

Ultimately, you are almost closer to the mechanics of creating video games than to animation.

There is something of this order, yes. Moreover, the tools used in these two arts are increasingly common. As in video games, I attach a lot of importance to the environments, because I believe that the narration also comes through there. This is why I favor wide shots. And I wanted the settings to sow doubt, to make us unable to tell whether we are in a modern or very ancient world. Little by little, a mythology is taking shape. I guide the audience's gaze, but I let them draw their own conclusions.

As opposed to detailed environments, there are these animals that are almost sketched and yet very realistic in their movements…

This is perfectly conscious. There was no motion capture, but the animators used a lot of references. We sought the balance between realism and something more graphic. It required a lot of visual testing in 3D. We could modify in real time the “faces” animals to see if they performed under different lights. I like this idea of ​​working with digital material as if it were modeling clay. It's never technical for me, it's handmade, even if it's done through a computer. This is often the trap with computer-generated images: the creation process becomes almost clinical. And we end up with photorealistic characters, certainly very impressive, but who already look dated a few years later. I modestly aim for timelessness.

Here is the trailer for Flow :