Nomint’s incredible stop-motion for WWF is captured on a thermal camera, by “painting with heat”

After last year’s animation for WWF appeared from a sea of smoke, things have been heating up at London-based animation studio Nomint. For the latest instalment of its ongoing collaboration with the preservation organisation, the team have released In Hot Water — an emotive stop-motion animation that spotlights catastrophic climate issues of rising ocean temperatures, marine heatwaves, and their threat to both marine and human life.

The film follows the journey of a young boy through the ocean as the ever-increasing water temperatures transform the sea’s ecosystem, set to the soundtrack of Radiohead’s No Surprises and a slow blend of masterful sound design that mirrors the character’s descent. In true Nomint style, this carefully crafted narrative is made all the more poignant by the studio’s boundary-pushing methods for making. To achieve the film’s unique visual language this year, the team worked with thermal imaging cameras to capture a layered colour palette for the film by controlling the heat of each element of the set.

“This year’s technique was by far the most intricate and demanding we’ve attempted”, shares co-founder of Nomint, Yannis Konstantinidis. “While previous films relied on challenging stop-motion techniques like controlling smoke, fire, or melting ice, In Hot Water introduced an entirely new dimension: thermal imaging. Every frame required precise temperature control for individual elements, with props and characters heated to within 0.1°C to create distinct colours.”

Unlike on previous sets, Nomint had no use for an extensive lighting set up for a camera that only captures variations in heat. Instead, its tools for animating consisted of “3D-printed models, ovens, heated lamps, heat guns, and even freezing sprays”, says Yannis, all of which “had to work in perfect harmony” to create the film’s desired visual effect. With models fired in ovens before frames were composed, the whole behind the scenes process was a race against time to get each shot at the right temperature. “It felt more like a science experiment at times [...] From the very first test, we stopped thinking of this project as a stop-motion film and started referring to the technique as “painting with heat,” adds Yannis.

The project was a great example of the fact that not everything can be planned (especially with such an alternative technique for image making) and the studio faced some challenges, or, as we often call them: happy accidents. For Yannis and the team one of the more surprising elements of the project was all of the imperfections the thermal imaging captured: “slight heat gradients created organic textures, heat thumbprints that appeared when touching the model”. These indications of a hand-touched process became integral to the film’s depth and authenticity as well as acting as a powerful reminder that “as the industry continues to speed toward increasing automation, audiences will always gravitate toward the authenticity and emotional resonance of meticulous craft,” says Yannis.

Painstaking and precise, Nomint’s innovative heat-driven visuals were adopted to echo WWF’s message at the climate COP – “every fraction of a degree matters – a few fractions of a degree of global warming could mean the difference between a future for our oceans.” The almost impossible process of monitoring every element’s temperature “mirrored the fragility of the ecosystems the film is trying to protect”, concludes Yannis. “It wasn’t just about making a film; it was about ensuring that the process itself became a reflection of the message.”