Make: Online is taking the month of March to talk about DIY moviemaking, and one of the first topics they’re covering is LEGO animation. And they’ve included my film “Little Guys!” as one of the most awesome LEGO films made, to be used for inspiration. I’m flattered!
Make: Online : Brickfilms: Lego stop-motion [Thanks, Nathan!]
Here’s the next two installments of episode 2 of the LEGO Club Show. I had nothing to do with either of these, but they’re still pretty cool. The interview with Patrick Boivin is of particular interest to stop-motion animators and aficionados, and it’s great to hear his insight and advice.
I just uploaded some images of the Maniac Monster and Blacktron Cadillac from the “Zack the LEGO Maniac” video to my MOCpages account and Flickr. Check ‘em out!
Zack, the LEGO Maniac Monster on MOCpages
Blacktron Cadillac on MOCpages
The LEGO Club Show continues, with part 1 of episode 2. Max squares off against the Power Miners’ Crystal King, who was REALLY fun to animate.
For the past few months, myself and some other folks here at Paganomation have been hard at work on segments for the LEGO Club Show, a new series from the folks at LEGO Club TV. Episode 1 has finally been put up on YouTube, after being released on the LEGO Club website back in January.
The intro to the show looks great — and is all stop-motion, as I mentioned before. While I didn’t work on the intro, I am responsible for Adventures of Max, Flappy the Mailbox, and the Zack the LEGO Maniac video. I’m really proud of the end results. Great work everybody! Enjoy!
YouTube – The LEGO Club Show!!!! Episode 1 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Recently posted to the LEGO Club TV YouTube channel is the intro to the LEGO Club Show that I’ve been working on segments for. I didn’t work on this intro, but I have to say, it’s pretty sweet.
I’ll keep you guys posted on when the actual show comes out!
UPDATE: I thought that portions of this intro were done in CG, but Roger @ LEGO informs me that the ENTIRE THING IS STOP-MOTION. Whoa.
Okay, so the LEGO CL!CK website I mentioned earlier is official launching with a bang: this wonderful little short that was teased on the site a week or two ago.
The short itself is also called “CL!CK”, and it plays out like a kid friendly version of a Jan Å vankmajer or Brothers Quay film – a silent, jittery, rough-and-tumble mixture of pixelation and stop-motion-looking CG (the shininess of the LEGO creations give it away, and are only distracting if you’re an animation nerd like me). It’s immensely charming, and overall feels like a great contrast to some of the slick, modern video work that one might normally expect to come from LEGO.
One thing in particular I noticed was the inclusion of Ole Kirk Christiansen’s name in the “Original Story By” credits. The founder of the LEGO company, Ole passed away in 1958, and so I’m really curious as to the genesis of this film — was it some sort of oft-delayed project that only now has come to life? Mysterious.
Either way, I’m totally sold on the LEGO CL!CK website now (you may remember my previous confusion). I can’t wait to see what the potential of this site holds, and if you guys make another short like this, I’d love to be involved (or star in it)!
Here’s a look behind-the-scenes at the LEGO Space Police series I worked on last year for LEGO.com.
Episode 6 of the Space Police animated series I worked on is posted. Mission accomplished.
Posted over on Boing Boing is this sweet LEGO Matrix video made by Trevor Boyd and Steve Ilett. Despite their website having the same title, it has no relation to my own LEGO Matrix video.
My first reaction was one of, well… LEGO film snobbery. Part of what I try to do, both with the work I make and the work I highlight, is help get the idea of LEGO animation beyond the point of just “oh HEY cool videos on YouTube.” That being said, I can’t understand WHY it’s so hard for people to put flippin’ WIGS on the heads of their MINIFIGURES! Why is this a problem?! You’re going through the effort of recreating a cool, effects-laden film scene frame-for-frame. Is it too much to ask that Trinity, Neo, and the agents have hair?!
After that initial internal diatribe, I took a closer look at the making of the film, which is laid out in beautiful detail over on LEGOMatrix.com. Turns out, the entire film was done in-camera — no digital post-processing to remove wires, supports, or armatures. Whoa. THAT got my interest. I LOVE the idea of the LEGO in animation all existing somewhere, and not being computer generated.
But I really became in awe of this piece after reading about “LegoBoard”, a custom tool the filmmakers wrote themselves to do the sweet 8-bit studs-out credit sequences. Not only was it all real LEGO, but it totally combined stop-motion and computer assistance in a unique way that I was really, really impressed by. Having tried a similar (albeit analog) technique for some of the studs-up background mosaics in “Little Guys!”, I can definitely appreciate the work they did, as well as the work they avoided doing.
Anyway, I highly recommend you check out the video, and definitely read the behind the scenes articles on the LEGO Matrix website – it’s fascinating stuff. It’s really inspirational to see such a detailed look at the making of a LEGO animated film; you don’t get that too often. And in this case, I take back what I said about the minifigure wig thing — these guys have a full Paganomation pardon.