‘Baths’ by Tomek Ducki

“Two elderly swimmers meet at the baths for their ritual swimming. This time they are diving deeper than usual.” Film by Tomek Ducki, Poland, 2013. Baths received 30 film festival awards and special mentions, including best short film at Cinanima, grand prize at Anibar, and grand prize at KAFF.

A note by Ducki on the film’s techniques:

Mixing different animation techniques was a crucial part of the storytelling. To effectively divide the two worlds and be able to balance between surrealism and realism we decided to have one moody hand-made world, and another crispy ‘digital’ one. The short format allowed us to try and experiment with an individual mix of animations for almost each scene. The most used techniques were: watercolor, paint on glass, ink on paper, cut-out animation, rotoscopy, digital drawings, photography, digital cut-out, digital compositing, and even some personal hardware inventions to use with mobile tablets. Most of the finished pictures were re-shot on camera using analogue optical effects for a special blur and color treatment.

Credits
Director, writer, designer, animator: Tomek Ducki
Animation assistant, director of photography: Katarzyna Zolich
Composer and sound designer: Jean-Marc Petsas
Sound re-recording: Michał Fojcik
A Polish Film Institute co-financed production
Produced by Studio Miniatur Filmowych and Peek & Boo