Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
A place to discuss, share, and create stop motion films.
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Does anyone remember that from Brickfilms.com about 2 years ago?
Anyways, I just checked the site (which is totally dead, btw) and it says the last post was, in fact, two years ago. Does anyone know if the project flopped somewhere along the line?
It died out a long time ago. I'm not sure when, but its definitely dead. There used to be a forum available to those working on it (I was a writer) but the link is long since dead - so Lechonology must have closed it at some point.
-MRB
Yeah, people stopped showing up to the forum, activity slowed, and soon it just died.
If you must know:
A script was written (I believed it was feature-film in length), storyboards were being made, and a weekly vlog was planned out on our work in progress. But the project stalled when Lord of the LEGO (one of the major animators the project was banking on) had academic commitments and Dave (David Wardell) just wouldn't follow up on his vlogs. Soon enough, people either lost interest or couldn't find time to commit.
The project became a massive undertaking with the scenes we had planned and, in my opinion, we were relying too much on too few skilled animators at that time (Lord_Of_The_LEGO, Nick Durron, MindGame, Matt Gillan, and Littlebrick).
The forum maybe dead (I actually disabled it do stop the spambots from registering until Jay Silver could figure out how to upgrade the forum), but the project is in slumber. If the newer generation of animators here at BiM are interested in bringing back the project, let me know.
I had considered just making a trimmed down full CGI version of the script that was written on my own but it would still required lots of voice talents. But given that more knowledge have been gain since then (the number of CGI animators has increased, more animators are familiar with the Ease in and Ease Out technique, and HD cameras are cheaper now), it can be revived.
I'd actually love to see a CGI community project. It's certainly more do-able for me than a stop-motion one, since my brickfilming resources are too limited for what I would like to get done. Super would be a great choice, I think.
I've actually been thinking about asking you if we could resurrect it, that would be something I'd absolutely participate in.
If there's enough interest in it, we can certainly resurrect it. As for it being stop-motion or full CGI, well, that depends on those who wish to participate.
Obviously we know the limitation of a stop-motion community project (animators have to have the same minifig parts, level of animation skills and camera quality). And if one's animation sequence doesn't work, reanimating can be a strain.
CGI eliminates all that but brings up its own can of worms, especially when it comes to bricks. There's no doubt conflicts in rigging, animation software, and animation skill and technique. Some of us have Carrara, but most use Blender. Some animate rigid-body minifigs (like me), others make them bendable (like James W and Littlebrick).
Of course, a major benefit to a CGI project is material sharing (ldraw models, Blender and Carrara projects, shaders, textures, riggings and animation sequence) and time saving. Ideally, a group of CGI animators would act as a render farm, each committing their CPU to rendering scenes, altogether reducing time needed to composite the film.
But again, depends on the amount of interest.
Ahh the misplaced nostalgia.
Personally was never a huge fan of the SUPER concept and script, even though I did contribute to the project some. I think a huge, singular story like that probably doesn't lend itself to being made by a large committee of people over the internet as well as something more episodic or modular where the success of the whole does not rely on everybody following through on their commitments.
Perhaps something like the "SUPER Universe" proposed back in the day could work. Only without the accompanying full film. People would make stories set in a shared universe but that way if one person fails to live up to their promised contributions the whole thing doesn't fall apart.
CGI eliminates all that but brings up its own can of worms, especially when it comes to bricks. There's no doubt conflicts in rigging, animation software, and animation skill and technique. Some of us have Carrara, but most use Blender. Some animate rigid-body minifigs (like me), others make them bendable (like James W and Littlebrick).
I personally think that bendable mini-figures would be more suited to a super-hero film (action scenes), but they would be quite a bit more difficult to animate; however, that is a price I would personally pay without hesitation. I have my (almost) fully rigged mini-figure; if we decided to do this, I'd be willing to donate it to the project. It might need some re-wiring, though. As for conflicts with different animation skill and technique, I believe that's why they have Animation Directors/Directors in the film industry. All we would have to do is get someone in that position, whose job would be looking at a WIP shot, telling the animator what needs fixing, and declaring it finalized when it's up to quality as the rest of the shots.
@Smeagol: If this were to be CGI, commitments would be less of a problem, I think. It would be extremely annoying, and yes, maybe it could still be a problem if a member left the project, but unless the person is a major part of the project, their work could easily be picked up by another member of the project, or an entirely new member.
@Smeagol: If this were to be CGI, commitments would be less of a problem, I think. It would be extremely annoying, and yes, maybe it could still be a problem, but unless the person who leaves is a major part of the project, their work could easily be picked up by another member of the project, or an entirely new member.
Right. The problem I see with that is I suspect it could end up being a community project made by you and Lechnology. With some help from 2-3 other people. The CG brickfilm thing doesn't hold a very wide appeal here, judging from what I've seen. Obviously it's possible that interest will be larger than I'd expect, though.
I was actually going to edit my last post with another comment, but since it's a perfect reply to your point, I'll just write it here.
Another point of doing this as a CGI film is that the members of the project would not have to be from this site. There are loads of CGI animation sites out there, filled with people who could be willing to help as modelers, graphic designers, set designers, etc. Now if we did that, its status as a community project would become questionable, but at least it could still conceivably get done.
Yeah, that kinda defeats the purpose of it being a community project if you have to create a new community to make it. Good luck getting a group of animators from another site to work on a LEGO movie project conceived, by a group of people they don't know, several years ago. I suspect that would be a tough sell.
Not impossible, though. With a good story, I think the fact that it's LEGO wouldn't be much of a problem.
Yeah, I think the majority of people we would get, will be the guys and girls who were on the project originally
What girls?
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, Sparks Flying was part of the project, wasn't she?
Wasn't there a female on the project? I thought there was.
The story for SUPER that we had developed was about a magical space rock falling from the sky and giving people superpowers, then those people fighting to prevent a robot apocalypse. To me that doesn't seem like a particularly original or intriguing concept. It was kind of fun in the sense of making a big brickfilm effects blockbuster together, but it doesn't really get past superhero comic book cliches. I think the rather uninspired concept was part of why people lost interest in the first place.
On a side note if you could successfully draw animators here with a project like that (even if they are CG animators) the introduction of a serious group of likely oldish, serious people would be welcome.
What girls?
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, Sparks Flying was part of the project, wasn't she?
Yeah.
I would like to see a reworking of the story as well, Smeagol; maybe even a complete re-write. Super heros with zombies, maybe?
I kid, I kid.
I think maybe Lech wanted it to be cliché
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