As they say: El Problemo?

What ! When you get Dragonstop and stuff, its so much more fun; you can actually do everything you want to. We are working on the infinite supply of lego right now because the limited supply we have is so annoying, like if we want to build an epic set, pretty soon it has changed into a little plain looking thing just because we can't find the pieces we want! And what doesn't look better than awesome lighting (other than awesome animating)! More fun my foot!

Phew, done ranting. I have to go animate .

I find that if all the right tools are handed to you, there is no room for thinking out of the box. I have to come up with ways of sorting my lighting, and ways to make my set look bigger than it actually is. I love doing this. I am fully absorbed in the creative process, and every time I animate I learn something new. I'm not Ray Harryhausen (god rest his soul), but I'm having fun and that's all I care about.

So, free cocaine for everybody!

I guess I'll echo everyone else here: I'd really want to get a good laptop and software, and a more suitable camera.  Also I'd want a better studio.  The rest I'd probably spend acquiring as much LEGO as I possibly can.

Also I'd like to figure out a way to buy more time so I can actually spend more time brickfilming.

So what would you do with the remaining $49,999.75?

I'll just take the money, thanks.

Or, even better, don't do drugs in the first place and spend it on something more healthy and useful, like designing rocket-powered Zeppelins.  Failing all that, of course, you could always donate the money to impoverished brickfilmers.

Seriously though, while I understand what you mean--as they say, Necessity is the Mother of Invention--I think it only works up to a certain point.  Sure, a lack of funds can help to be innovative and create new ideas (I suspect this is how our hobby started in the first place), but if at the end of the day you have a specific vision of what you want to achieve and you lack the necessary resources to make it happen no matter what you might try to do... well, you're basically stuffed. 
Though I suppose in this case it does come down at least partially to personal preference and whatever floats your boat (or Zeppelin for that matter).  Still, what's wrong with imagining the posibilities?  And who wouldn't say yes to getting better and more efficient equipment, like a new camera or more advanced animation software?  In this case, it was nothing to do with the creative process; you're just able to work at a faster rate--meaning you get more time to work on the creative stuff.

Why anyone would even contemplate spending good money on that anathema most often referred to as "Mega Bloks" is beyond me.

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (July 27, 2013 (08:45am))

I find all of these posts saying "buy computer, buy camera, SPEND REST ON LEGO!!!" (or something along those lines) to be quite... humorous. Just for kicks, I am going to look at the "spend rest on Lego" part.

More Lego.
    Lets see, assuming we were spendy in the other categories (computer, software, camera, etc), we have, say, about... $44,000 left. Lets see how much Lego this could get us. We will use the standard 2x4 brick from Lego's Pick a Brick site to start us off.
    The 2x4 brick from the official Pick a Brick site is $0.30. That means that we can buy 146,666 bricks. Sounds like a lot... Lets keep going. The volume of space taken up by a 2x4 brick minus the studs is about 4.56 cm^3. Hmm. That means our 146,666 bricks takes up a volume of about 668,797 cm^3. Most of us here don't have a good idea of a measurement like that, so lets convert to ft^3. Converting gives us 23.62 ft^3. Uh oh, sounds wimpy. Lets find the dimensions of a cube that has that volume. Turns out our $44,000 buys us a cube of 2x4 Lego bricks (packed perfectly together) that is 2.87 ft per side. Wow. Expensive cube of plastic that isn't really all that big. Fortunately, we all know that you can find much better deals elsewhere. Lets assume that we can get our bricks for $0.08. Probably a bit low, but we'll go with it. Running that price through our calculations gives us a perfectly packed cube of 2x4 Lego bricks that is 4.56 ft per side. Much bigger. If it still doesn't sound like much, for reference, that would fill my 9x12 ft room to almost 10 in (9.84 in) deep in Lego bricks (though, assuming 2.5 grams a brick, I am not sure I would want to put 3,031 pounds of Lego bricks in my second story room...). So, not bad at all (and that is perfectly stacked and packed, it would be a fair bit more if they were loose).
    Now, clearly, a real Lego pile consists of many different pieces of many different sizes and prices, but that is a fun generalization.
    Maybe you want to go the minifigure route though? Assuming an average of $5 a minifig (I have no idea, just a rough guess), that would buy us 8,800 minifigs. Nice. If we give each minifig a floor space of 23x31 mm (approximate dimensions of a series special minifigure 'display' plate) that works out to about 67.5 ft^2. That means our army of minifigs could be closely lined up row by row in approximately a 8.2x8.2 ft space. That's a lot of minifigs.
    Just for fun, have you every dreamed of getting a dump truck load of Lego bricks? Well assuming a medium dump truck size of 10 yd^3, that would cost you about $134,000. If you want a semi truck load, though, you are going to have to shell out around 2 million dollars to buy the approximate 25 million bricks to fill it. Curiously enough, that is only about 11 hours worth of Lego's production output (Source). Impressive.

    Now, the point of this (and yes, I know this is a thread on a completely hypothetical question, I'm just having fun)? That is a lot of Lego. A lot more than any one (or two, or three) of anyone around here could ever practically use. I know I sure couldn't. I couldn't even store that many Lego bricks much less use any significant portion of them to make something. My suggestion? Save a couple thousand dollars and just buy what you need, when you need it, for your brickfilms.

Additional comment. To everyone who said, "I would finish so-and-so film of mine." I have to ask. Really? Is the lack of $50,000 really the reason you are not finishing a movie of yours? Sounds like a motivation issue to me (and this applies to myself and all of my unfinished projects also). About the only thing a magical $50,000 would do is let those who work quit for a while. It sure wouldn't be finishing any of your films for you...

As for me? I personally think along the lines of fallentomato and Lechnology. Hire a couple of the really good animators, a composer, etc and make an amazing movie. Maybe even start a small company like Lechnology said. Ahhh... one can dream.

Last comment. If people think that $6,000 isn't enough for a computer, software, camera, lights, etc, etc, for your personal brickfilming hobby, reconsider. It really is plenty.

I'd waste it all on LEGO bricks, I dream big but I hate using CGI.
But if I had money left I'd buy the 5D and a good lens to get close to the guys.

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I would build my own Hackintosh with Os X Snow Leopard, a Canon T3i, LEGO, Dragonframe, and Adobe Production Premium (Student edition. Hehe.). Oh, I would also register a trademark for ElectricVolt Studios™. Without the ™ though. And I would buy a desk. Then I would go bankrupt and have negative amounts of money because I only have a dollar saved up.

How about buying medium blue baseplates, avg. $3 per plate for a 16^2.