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Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

reuters.com

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Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#51

Post by dkh »

Timwi wrote: post #33
tzs wrote: post #9

That's kind of surprising. Academy members are not required to watch all the nominees for Best Animated Feature before voting. In fact they are not require to watch any of them. Several years ago I remember that after a year where the movie that won best animated was not the one that those in the animation industry overwhelming thought was sure to win some animation industry magazine survived Academy members asking w…

Could they have heard of it en masse because of its success at the Golden Globes?

Historically the Golden Globes are the biggest predictor of the Oscars, so, yes, but then you have to ask how it won the Golden Globe lol

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#52

Post by guelo »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #49
guelo wrote: post #46

I am baffled. My family found it boring, senseless and my kids didn't want to finish watching it. My theory is that the lack of talking makes people imagine there is something there when there is nothing. It makes zero sense. The graphics are also not very good.

What isn’t there to get? it’s a dead simple concept

How? I feel like I'm being trolled. None of it makes sense. There's an unexplained great flood, unexplained human ruins, weird whale-like creatures, some kind of being sucked up into heaven thing that happens to the stork-like bird. I've seen people online trying to put it into a sensible plot but it's so heavy on made up symbolism that to me it's bullshit.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#53

Post by agumonkey »

stvltvs wrote: post #40
brundolf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A takeaway may be that cutting-edge rendering doesn't really matter for cartoon-stylized films, especially for kid viewers

Yep, grew up on cartoons like Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, etc. Looking at them now, they are laughably bad in most respects, but they sparked our imaginations and didn't need to be sophisticated to do it.

yes, there's a balance to get and visual "perfection" is nothing real, even star wars had blunders and visibly lesser tricks, but the whole created a deep sense of wonder and you got along

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#54

Post by dkh »

FpUser wrote: post #42

I could not give a flying fuck what it was rendered with , tech level is not impressive. But what a story and presentation. I find Flow beautiful. I, my daughter and my grandson watched it and could not take our eyes away from it.

You may not care, and you don't have to, but certainly it means a lot to the Blender Foundation, who for 23 years have been actively working on something free & open-source, and now finally it is in the big leagues.

Just as Flow's win looks even more impressive when you look at the films it competed against, who produced them, and what resources they had, Blender has been a project competing for parity and to be taken seriously while remaining totally free, and going up against systems that are either wildly expensive or not available outside the studio that made it at all.

Flow is not good because it was made with Blender, but Blender is proven to be very good and in that top echelon because Flow was made with it. For those who make or use Blender, this is big. Those folks have already believed for years/decades that Blender was great and serious, but now a lot more people outside that circle will know this, too.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#55

Post by jgilias »

guelo wrote: post #52
thatswrong0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What isn’t there to get? it’s a dead simple concept

How? I feel like I'm being trolled. None of it makes sense. There's an unexplained great flood, unexplained human ruins, weird whale-like creatures, some kind of being sucked up into heaven thing that happens to the stork-like bird. I've seen people online trying to put it into a sensible plot but it's so heavy on made up symbolism that to me it's bullshit.

I assume people found it refreshing that for one there’s an animated picture that doesn’t just pour down your throat the same story rehashed for the 1000-th time, and spelled out by a committee to ensure it’s “easy to understand”.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#56

Post by eurekin »

guelo wrote: post #52
thatswrong0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What isn’t there to get? it’s a dead simple concept

How? I feel like I'm being trolled. None of it makes sense. There's an unexplained great flood, unexplained human ruins, weird whale-like creatures, some kind of being sucked up into heaven thing that happens to the stork-like bird. I've seen people online trying to put it into a sensible plot but it's so heavy on made up symbolism that to me it's bullshit.

I haven't seen the movie, but based solely on your comment, it reminds me of how Miyazaki films are often described—full of fantastical, otherworldly wonders that evoke the joy of exploring the unknown.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#57

Post by dkh »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #37

Was wondering this when the film started winning stuff earlier in Awards season... What is the connection between these things? Quirky meme video from awhile back: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMkyTWLpV/ I don't really understand the Blender model/meme-world crossover here - can someone explain? Similar models? Similar concept? Same creators? Kinda wacky. Complete coincidence?!

Look, I don't know if you have seen the movie, and I get that both the film and this TikTok video contain 1) a black cat and 2) a lush green backdrop. But one is a feature film that marvelously captured the mannerisms of its animal characters, has made countless adults cry and just won an Oscar. The other is a vacuous, seconds-long video where 2 static animal models rock back/forth a couple times on their Z-axis and spin a couple times on their Y-axis. Do you really think the similarities are striking, enough so to raise questions? Do you actually think there's a chance they are made by the same creator?

I think to most people, the film and this video look like polar opposites.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#58

Post by Hoasi »

stvltvs wrote: post #40
brundolf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A takeaway may be that cutting-edge rendering doesn't really matter for cartoon-stylized films, especially for kid viewers

Yep, grew up on cartoons like Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, etc. Looking at them now, they are laughably bad in most respects, but they sparked our imaginations and didn't need to be sophisticated to do it.

If the goal is sparking the imagination, these flaws are often a feature, not a bug. You have to do a little bit of work to complete the picture. That's also why the original book is almost always better than the fully rendered movie inspired by the book. No matter the budget.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#59

Post by watt »

legitster wrote: post #23

I did not find Flow to be a technically impressive movie. The animation was very imperfect. The rendering (especially shadows and textures) were off. The whole movie looked like a video game cut scene. But oh boy, what an amazing cutscene to watch. I'm worried that the story the media is putting forward is that this was an innovative and cutting edge movie - based only on a superficial appreciation of the (stunning)…

Recently I reminisced about Blender foundations first(?) effort, Tears of Steel, with the script like "Look, Celia, we have to follow our passions; you have your robotics and I just want to be awesome in space!" - "Why don’t you just admit that you’re freaked out by my robot hand?!"

It's not about the textures and shadows.

Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar

#60

Post by autoexec »

riffraff wrote: post #31
tootie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adored Flow. It's hard to say it was truly "better" than Inside Out 2. I think part of the calculation has to be that everyone expected Pixar to deliver something top notch so it only really met expectations. Flow was made by a no-name team from Latvia and was really something unique and interesting. I went into it kinda blind with no expectations and was blown away.

I didn't think inside out 2 was a very good movie. It had good ideas but didn't do very well with them (contrary to the first movie, which was great). I'm not surprised a movie which wasn't "just a sequel" managed to beat Moana and IO2.

I was also disappointed by inside out 2. I thought it followed the story beats of the first one a bit too closely. Flow was the better film.
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