Flow

 

Flow

After eight years of planning and consideration, we finally got a 4k TV—a BIG 4k TV. The truth is that every year I've proposed the idea, Clara rightly rejected it because our current TV still works fine. It still works fine, now finally in the bedroom. It may be working fine the day of my funeral, so .... Clara finally conceded. After teasing various content—a few minutes of things to gawp at—we elected to all huddle together and watch the Oscar-winning animated film Flow, which was made in Blender. 

Flow is a beautiful film about a cat's journey through an epic (Biblical?) flood. Cat struggles to survive, they encounter other animals. Ultimately, the film's journey of survival is about learning empathy, trust and kinship in the face of shared danger. The film's director, Gints Zilbalodis, said that the cat's journey mirrors his own, as he moved from being a solo filmmaker to a part of a team. I enjoyed it very much, although my neurodivergent children struggled with the lack of dialogue. You must follow everything closely and think, instead of being told what's happening or what things mean. The visuals have a simplified indie game-like quality that contrasts with the animated films from the studios. It's very telling that Wild Robot, a marvellous movie that looks absolutely eye-popping, lost out in the Oscars to this tiny effort. Wild Robot costs hundreds of millions of dollars, took thousands of people four years to make. In contrast, Flow took a handful of people, less than four million dollars and five years to make. 

Doing stuff

Some frustration with crashing. So much crashing. Unlike with my old system, it's happening in the viewport instead at the start of a render.