Photography by Netflix and Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb
In waves It’s a movie that seems bigger than it is. Currently screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and positioning itself as one of Netflix’s best Oscar-nominated animated films, this film based on AJ Dungo’s graphic novel and its story of love and loss is great in honest emotion and visual splendor. The latter was, on a technical level, a Rubik’s Cube for director Phuong My Nguyen and his animators to overcome.
Water is always a challenge for animators. It’s constantly moving, of course, and highly unpredictable. In addition, in In wavesThe water needed to express the journey between two characters: the young artist A.J. (Will Sharp) and the surfer with whom he shares a deep love, Christine (Stephanie Hsu), which fights cancer.
During the Toronto Film Festival, Mai Nguyen told What’s on Netflix: “From the first day I worked on the project, I was thinking, ‘Okay, the water and surf scenes are going to be our biggest challenge.’ Adapting waves into an animated film, when you talk about water to animators, we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a lot of work.'”
It’s an independent film, acquired by Netflix after rave reviews and critical response at the Cannes Film Festival. We previously covered this feature back in June from Annecy, where it similarly ran and had a big presence alongside films like Ray Gunn, Steps, and Charlie vs. The Chocolate Factory. This is where we posted Review of the movie In addition to deep diving Interview with the creative team.
Image credit: Netflix
“We’re also a very independent, low-budget film, so that was another challenge to think about, because we couldn’t get a very realistic CGI rendering of waves and things like that. But in a way, I felt like it was an incentive for me to move forward into something more creative,” the director added.
Which started with pen and paper. She continued: “So I looked for references, and I also drew a lot with my team.” “We did a lot of drawings before we started the movie, and that helped us figure out what we wanted for the waves and also for the whole movie.”
The sheer challenge of actually animating water was part of the appeal for Mai Nguyen, who began her career as an animator and background artist. “One of the things I really love about water is that it’s always changing,” she said. “She can capture the lighting of the sky. If the sky is blue, the water is like a mirror of the blue sky. Or when the sun goes down, it changes and turns toward something more pink and things like that. It was a very cool playground as an animator and an artist.”
The ocean needed to deepen. Not just literally. “The ocean symbolizes the characters’ feelings, their journey, and what they are going through.” Mai Nguyen continued. “It’s not just a background, but it becomes that thing that really embodies the subject, from the first frame to the end. The waves are there. They start with the waves and end with the waves.
“It was a big part of the process, and I was happy to take on the challenge,” the director concluded.
Image credit: Netflix
In Waves premieres on Netflix on December 11.