Flags and Waves
1986 film directed by William Reeves
Flags and Waves is a 13-second American short computer animation test clip which was created by animator Bill Reeves and Alain Fournier for Pixar sometime in 1986. The clip included waves reflecting a sunset and lapping against the shore. Reeves and Fournier made the project with the feedback of John Lasseter to work out details of rendering water and waves realistically, including lighting, motion, and shading.
It was first exhibited at SIGGRAPH in Dallas in August 1986, along with Lasseter's landmark computer-animated short Luxo Jr. and another test project Beach Chair, by Eben Ostby. The methods developed during the creation of this project were the basis of the water in Finding Nemo. It is based on an oceanographic model of ocean waves which Fournier dug out of the literature from the nineteenth century.
Flags and Waves can also be found as an easter egg in the Pixar Short Films Collection – Volume 1 which was released in November 2007.
Content
The thirteen-second short begins with the title Flags and Waves and under it the title in French, Drapeaux et Vagues, superimposed on the SMPTE color bars while a high-pitch frequency sound is made. The bars are revealed to be a flag that is flapping in the wind, as the noise shifts to the sound of a calm beachside.
The public source identifies “Flags and Waves” as 1986 film directed by William Reeves. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Flags, Waves and film.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q54958519. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Flags and Waves” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.