Flow: 5 Free Lessons from an Award-Winning Blender Animation

At the Golden Globe Awards earlier this month, a surprising underdog emerged victorious, potentially making history. The animated film "Flow," created with a modest budget of just $3.7 million, defeated "Inside Out 2" and "The Wild Robot" to win Best Animated Feature, paving its way to the 2025 Oscars. To put it in perspective, the budgets of the latter two films were 54 and 21 times larger, respectively. What makes "Flow" even more remarkable is that it was created entirely using Blender, a free and open-source 3D software, demonstrating the potential of 3D animation.

The story follows a black cat escaping a flood apocalypse on a small boat, accompanied by a lemur, a capybara, and a dog. Together, they navigate the challenges of survival while forming new friendships. Through the eyes of the black cat, viewers witness both the destruction and beauty of this world.

What makes this seemingly simple yet profound work so captivating? Exploring director Gints Zilbalodis's creative journey might offer some answers. For independent creators or those feeling stuck, we’ve distilled key insights from the director’s interviews to inspire you: manage resources flexibly, maximize what you have, gain cross-disciplinary experience, foster collaboration among creators, and most importantly, focus on the essence of storytelling through visuals.

The story of "Flow" is simple, yet its visuals deliver an emotionally powerful impact. (Source: Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu, Take Five)

1. Flexible Resource Management: Finding Inspiration in 3D Space

Gints Zilbalodis's previous feature, "Away," was a solo project that trained him to work effectively with limited resources. Even with a team of about fifty for "Flow," he retained this resourceful mindset. Zilbalodis used Blender as the primary tool, utilizing its real-time rendering engine, Eevee, for visual effects. While this choice presented challenges, it also led to unexpected creative breakthroughs.

Unlike traditional animation, where storyboarding is an essential first step, Zilbalodis bypassed this process, instead creating storyboards directly in Blender. By modeling simple environments and using virtual cameras to explore scenes, he identified the best compositions and camera movements. This method resembles moving a character in a 3D game to view the environment from different angles, much like a director scouting locations with a cinematographer in live-action filmmaking.

Zilbalodis believes that if a perfect scene isn’t clear in his mind, exploring 3D space can help uncover compelling compositions and inspire new ideas. He credits Blender for fostering spontaneity and creativity throughout the animation process.

The director uses Blender to move the main character, a black cat, in order to find the best composition. (Source: YouTube)

2. Maximizing Existing Resources: Focus on Essential Design

Once creative ideas are tested and visuals selected, Gints Zilbalodis minimizes unnecessary design to ensure all scenes and resources are allocated with precision. This approach maximizes both budget and time. For example, he concentrates resources on high-detail objects in the foreground, while backgrounds and secondary elements are kept intentionally simple. Only areas visible to the camera are fully modeled and textured, with off-camera parts represented by basic shapes. By designing only the essential elements for each scene, he avoids spending resources on non-narrative details.

Zilbalodis’s choice of Blender aligns with this strategy. He taught himself Blender using YouTube tutorials, benefiting from the platform’s vast library of resources. Blender’s Eevee rendering engine further supports this efficiency by allowing real-time lighting and material adjustments, enabling quick testing of creative ideas. Unlike traditional animation, which relies heavily on post-production compositing, Flow takes advantage of Blender’s capability to complete visual effects directly within the 3D environment, saving significant time and reducing costs.

Focusing on foreground details, such as the black cat's body and fur, is one of the ways the film conserves resources. (Source: YouTube)

Focusing on foreground details, such as the black cat's body and fur, is one of the ways the film conserves resources. (Source: YouTube)

3. Storytelling Through Visuals: Immersive Shots and Natural Animal Characters

The director notes that while his animation style is influenced by Studio Ghibli, his cinematic language draws from filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson, Alfonso Cuarón, and Martin Scorsese. He explained that the team aimed to capture moments of animals interacting with their surroundings as if shot by real photographers. Creating an immersive experience with long takes was essential to achieving this, allowing viewers to not only connect with the characters but also feel as though they were experiencing the journey as the cat.

In addition to immersive cinematography, "Flow" adopts a naturalistic style. The team studied animal videos on YouTube and even filmed their pets to observe subtle movements, such as a cat's slight head tilt or a dog's distinctive gait. Unlike many animated films, "Flow" avoids anthropomorphizing its characters, relying instead on authentic animal behaviors to express emotion. The director emphasized that the goal was to immerse the audience in the cat’s perspective, enabling them to experience the story through its eyes.

The protagonist and its adventure companions. Unlike Hollywood animations featuring animal protagonists, this film avoids anthropomorphizing the animals. (Source: Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu, Take Five)

Moreover, Zilbalodis believes that large production teams often sacrifice the imperfections and raw edges that give animation its handcrafted feel in their pursuit of perfection. To counter this, he intentionally preserved certain imperfections in the animation, enabling viewers to sense the handcrafted nature of the creative process. This approach, combined with the team’s deep understanding of animal expressiveness, may explain why Flow feels authentic and emotionally resonant, even with its game-like visual aesthetic.

4. Embrace Cross-Disciplinary Learning: Teamwork Reduces Friction

Gints Zilbalodis's creative journey is truly remarkable. A self-taught talent, he completed his first Flash animation short at just eight years old. Before creating his first feature film, "Away," during college, he had already produced seven short films, blending hand-drawn, live-action, and 3D animation—he even composed the music himself. While not everyone can be a prodigy, his openness to exploring diverse fields and acquiring a wide range of skills offers a valuable lesson for all creators.

For "Flow," Zilbalodis established Dream Well Studio and collaborated with an international team. His prior experiences gave him a solid understanding of various roles within a production team, allowing him to communicate effectively and reduce friction. This cross-disciplinary expertise also influenced his decision to use Blender; in traditional animation, art direction, animation, and lighting are often handled by separate teams, but Blender enabled him to manage these aspects seamlessly, leveraging his broad skill set.

5. Encourage Independent Creators to Inspire Each Other: Showcasing the Possibilities of Different Tools

With a limited budget, the team allocated resources strategically, transforming constraints into creative opportunities. The film's complex water effects were managed by artist Martins Upitis, with some effects integrated using Blender's Physical Open Waters plugin, a tool available for purchase by Blender creators.

The director also emphasized that it is not just about telling a different story, but about expressing oneself through various technologies, styles, and cinematic languages. The synergy between "Flow's" narrative and Blender's technology and visual style serves as a prime example of storytelling through visuals.