The Making of Flow – A Journey of Self-Learning and Courage

We often hear filmmaking is going through an era of democratization, and this is undoubtedly true. What once required massive gear and large teams a few decades ago can now be done with a smartphone, and without even leaving your apartment. Interestingly, animation (which has always been considered highly complex, expensive, and time-consuming) goes through the same process. A grand example is Flow. The animated story, without a single dialogue line, was made entirely in the zero-cost software Blender and rendered on the director’s PC. Let’s talk about the making of Flow, its beauty and authenticity, the courageous independent approach, and other things that surprised us!

Flow is an animated adventure film with a running time of 84 minutes. It follows the journey of a dark grey cat and its unlikely companions as they navigate a world submerged by a massive flood. With no dialogue, the film still manages to draw viewers in, holding their attention until the very last moment. Over the past few months, Flow has racked up an impressive collection of awards including a César, a Golden Globe, and even an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Not bad for a small independent project with a limited budget, a modest crew, and entirely free software, right?

The making of Flow – how it started

The film’s central theme is the search for belonging – a journey to find the group where you truly fit. In a sense, the creator of Flow, Gints Zilbalodis, went on a similar journey in the process of making it. Prior to this heartfelt animated feature, he had done his projects by himself. Although Flow has a pretty simplified style (and we will talk about it further below), it features lots of precise character animation and water simulation (which is one of the hardest things to do). Thus, to make it happen, Gints needed support, both financial and creative.

The entire project has spanned about five and a half years and was launched in 2019. In 2021, they started hiring other artists. As Gints explains in his interview with Blender, the team remained relatively small, maintaining several elements of an independent approach.

The Latvian studio was relatively small, it all fit in one room. In total, we had around 15 to 20 people, but at any given time, there were usually only three to five people working, since different teams handled pre-production and post-production.

Gints Zilbalodis, a quote from his interview with Blender

For one, in Flow, the writer and director Gints carried on the tradition of wearing different hats simultaneously. In the credits, you can see his name among producers, animators, and even composers. For instance, he would design the initial scene in previz and hand it over to a set-dressing team. They, in turn, would refine it by adding more plants, props, buildings, and environmental details.

At the same time, although water is an essential part of the story, only two artists handled the water effects. Of course, the workflow became a bit easier once Belgian and French co-producers joined the project to work on sound, character animation, and additional aspects of the film. Yet, a huge part of Flow’s process was “learning by doing”.

The look and style development process in Flow

In another interview (with the YouTube channel 3DVF), Gints Zilbalodis says they didn’t have a big budget. In animation, this means you have to be precise – there’s no room for “deleted scenes.”

However, the budget wasn’t the main reason for the simplified look of Flow. On the contrary, it was a creative decision. Gints explains that he deliberately avoided over-polishing the film, wanting to preserve the imperfections and rough edges he likes. In his opinion, this style gives the animation a handcrafted feel, unlike the polished, photorealistic cartoons produced by big studios.

Therefore, in Flow the creators went for a naturalistic approach instead of a realistic one. This means you know perfectly well that you are watching an animation (without experiencing the “uncanny valley” effect). Yet, you quickly forget that, swept up by the captivating story and rising emotions. Also, animators carefully observed animal behavior (either their own pets or in video references from YouTube) and incorporated them into characters. Body language, how they walk, and micromovements of the eyes – everything reflects real life and feels authentic.

Flow’s ideas to make things feel authentic

Authenticity is one of the core values that make Flow so unique. It has no dialogue or voice-over and focuses on telling the story visually. It’s unlike other animation films, where animal characters have human traits. No, they remain animals throughout. That’s why music and sound become so important.

In the official making of the Flow video, Gints Zilbalodis elaborates on the process of choosing the characters for the story and getting their voices on point. He calls it almost a “casting,” in which he was looking at different animals and considering how they would interact. The important point in this decision was that their silhouettes and voices were easy to distinguish from one another.

As for the sound design, it also followed the path of authenticity. Every animal sound you hear in Flow is a voice from a real animal and not a human mimicking it. As Gints admits, the only artistic liberty they took was with the capybara. The real-life rodent sounds too high-pitched and unpleasant. It just didn’t match the calm and peaceful character of Flow. The creators needed something deeper, so they went for the voice of a baby camel instead.

Fast solutions for creative freedom in the making of Flow

With a “learn-by-doing” approach and a limited budget, Gints needed to establish an efficient process of discovery so that he could try different things. Instead of drawing a storyboard and relying too heavily on concept art, they did a lot directly in the free software, Blender. For instance, the director would create a 3D set, take a virtual camera, and explore different complicated moves and interesting angles. For him, it felt almost like a location scout for a live-action movie (with the exception that a lot of Flow’s camera movements are close to impossible in real life). In the subsequent video (for example, from 00:59), you can see how elaborate his animatics looked, and also the final results based on them:

As another way to skip certain steps, creators modeled the characters directly in 3D. In general, as Gints explains, many artists on Flow wore multiple hats, figuring out how to streamline tasks rather than having separate departments for everything. In his opinion, a smaller team made the process more flexible and efficient. His tip to aspiring animators is not to try and copy what big studios do when you work on an indie-scale project. In such a case, it’s better to find workflows and easy solutions that suit you and your crew.

The cherry on the top is that Gints did the final render of Flow on his PC instead of using renderfarms. Each frame took about 0.5 – 10 seconds to render in 4k. Impressive, right?

Learning online – the key to projects like this

In several interviews, Gints Zilbalodis mentions that he learned Blender through online tutorials. His Wikipedia page states that he chose not to attend university as Latvia had no animation schools, so he taught himself. Of course, on Flow, he worked with creators who had more advanced skills in particular areas, but it was still crucial for Gints to understand the basics so that he could communicate his ideas to the team. And boy, it sure paid off, resulting in a beautifully crafted, highly praised film – and rightfully so!

We at CineD also believe in online education and that the possibilities nowadays are endless. After all, the story is still the king, so if you have an exciting idea, you can teach yourself the required tools and bring it to life. That’s why we are so proud of our educational platform MZed, which offers over 60 courses and hundreds of hours of distilled filmmaking knowledge from industry experts. There, you can find anything from indie-style lighting solutions to elaborate technical guides on lenses to stunt coordination tips. And we’re always working on expanding our library with new courses (and intend to include animation ones in the future). So, check MZed out if you haven’t done so, and stay tuned!

Have you seen Flow already? How did you find its storytelling and style? What amazed you most, now that you know about its indie approach, creative solutions, and small-scale team? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

Full disclosure: MZed is owned by CineD.
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Feature image: combined stills and a making-of shot of “Flow,” courtesy of Janus Films.