“Flow”: an animated film made on Blender

In May 2024, an animated film made its mark at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, its rise has continued to be confirmed: a great success in theaters, a shower of awards (Golden Globe, César, etc.) and the ultimate crowning glory, the Oscar for Best Animated Film.

“One of the Most Groundbreaking Animated Films About Nature Since Bambi.”
Indie-Wire

“Flow” features a unique visual style, a hybridization between animation and video game cinematics.

Another notable fact about this film is its use of Blender, an open source 3D software. This production choice highlights the rise of Blender in animated cinema.

Extract from the film presented in Cannes in May 2024

A Wordless Scenario

The narrative of “Flow” is entirely silent. The film follows the epic journey of a cat and his animal companions through a world deserted by humans. This unique approach enriches the viewer’s visual and emotional experience, that state of Flow induced by the title.

A Visionary Director, First Alone Then Surrounded

The film “Flow” is directed by Gints Zilbalodis, a young 29-year-old Latvian director, known for his first feature film, “Away”, awarded at Annecy. Zilbalodis directed “Away” alone, using Blender from A to Z. He even did the music! Amazing.

For “Flow”, Zilbalodis surrounded himself for the first time with a technical team. The film is co-produced between France, Belgium and Latvia, notably by Ron Dyens (Sacrebleu Productions). This European collaboration enriched the production of the film.

An Animated Cinema Movie on Blender

The film “Flow” was produced using a Blender workflow. The director first created the 3D universe, then set up his cameras.
Instead of the traditional storyboard, the director sent an animatic: pre-animated shots including the cameras and the editing, serving as a working basis for the Franco-Belgian 3D teams. The back-and-forth between Zilbalodis and his team thus allowed the film to advance shot by shot.

This rather new process is explained in the following video (by Léo Silly-Pélissier, Animation Director).

Challenges and Successes

The 3D team was not specifically trained in Blender, so they received training the first week.

A rather young, passionate team, who knew how to adapt and surpass themselves, for a dazzling final result.

This unique workflow made it possible to produce the film quickly. A first work in progress presented at Annecy in June 2023 and a finished version in spring 2024 for the preview in Cannes.

What future for Blender in cinema?

Young directors are increasingly familiar with Blender. The software, being open-source, is accessible to all, thus attracting many emerging talents.

Since version 2.8 in 2019, Blender has caught up with paid software such as Maya, Houdini, or C4D. Its simplified interface and professional tools now make it a viable choice for film studios.

Blender is increasingly integrated into studio pipelines thanks to its interoperability solutions with other 3D software. For example, some scenes from “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” were finalized with Blender, using the Grease Pencil. This film is a revolution in the history of animated cinema for its drawn 3D aspect, using textures specific to comic books. A new type of rendering that we therefore owe in part to Blender.

In both small and large studios, we can therefore expect to see more and more films made with Blender in the years to come.

Grease Pencil was used for certain effects in Spiderman. It is really rewarding after these 10 years of development (together with @antonioya_blend & @mmendio ) to go to the cinema to see this masterpiece. What an experience!#SpiderVerse #Greasepencil #b3d #Blender #SpiderMan pic.twitter.com/SCDaSBdK3L
— Daniel Martínez Lara 🔶 (@_pepeland_) June 6, 2023

A huge congratulations to Gints Zilbalodis and his team for this animation masterpiece. Go see it in theaters or on VOD!

Pierre LAFOUGE

I am a director and the founder of Hollymotion, a french creative studio specializing in Motion Design. Passionate about animation in all its forms, I integrated Blender into my workflow this year and I’m here to share my journey, discoveries, and a few tips I’ve picked up along the way.

If you like my content, feel free to connect with me on Instagram 👋