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.
Ad
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
Having that room in the background is really cool!
You don't usually see things like that in brickfilms. Usually it's just one big room.
That molding adds a level of detail rarely seen in brickfilms, I think you should try your hardest to keep it. Moving the light closer to the camera and then putting it in at more of an angle might avoid shadows and let you have the light a bit higher up. This would be less realistic, of course, but if it isn't too extreme I don't the the audience will notice.
Cheating it digitally might work well. When you're animating light it with the shadows casting, then grab some plates with the fixed lighting and paint that in. Camera movements would be a bit trickier but if you really needed to you could probably duplicate camera motion with reasonable accuracy for the plate.
This is looking pretty great! Very excited to see your prolific output.
Thanks Squid, I'm really trying to keep this film as far away from the aesthetic of two guys in a room as I can, I've taken a cue from my dad who has been building houses for a bit and likes to have more open spaces between rooms to make small spaces feel larger. The key with LEGO is to make sure each room is clearly separate.
Thanks for the ideas folks the molding will stay, even if I have to use a super annoying lighting setup, keep in mind I'll take it off for the close ups when I switch from a 35mm lens to my 55mm lens by then the ceiling should be established in the views minds.
Awesome set! Absolutely love it!
We have that exact same type of large arched doorway in our house. 
Well I had a stretch of weeks that was completely unproductive.
I finally boiled it down to the fact that I was just afraid to shoot a dialog scene, in the past dialog has always been my 'easy out' type of animation, just simple clips of figs standing around talking to each other, however that is not really very cinimatic and does not lend it's self well to the animation medium
To over come that I tried something I've never tried before, that was a test animation of a scene at 6fps, this helped me get a good idea of if the cuts I had in mind worked well and if the movements I planned to add to the dialog flowed well. Over all it was a resounding success, there are a few things I'll be changing I wouldn't have caught otherwise, also as it was just a 'test' I tried some more creative ideas I normally wouldn't be quite brave enough to try that worked very well, I'll probably be doing this more often.
As far as animated dialog goes it's just a lot bolder then my old work, I mean this guy jumps up on a friggin' table, and I experimented with weighing the framing by who is controlling the scene rather then just trying to find attractive angles that get the point across. I've even got some dutch angles, I think that's a first for me.
Here is a jumping test not super happy with the swinging at the end, I'll need to do some more tests on that before doing the shot.
I'll agree. Everything looks great until the very last bit when he's on the ceiling.
The swinging is too choppy, and it might be best for him to be still like the other shots.
The more dynamic talking takes some getting used to, but I think it's a cool and unique way to spice things up.
I feel like the "blurs" don't flow from pose to pose very well. The last one sticks out the most, and then perhaps the first one. Here, the character starts elongating in a more vertical direction which is not at all in the direction he's going. In this instance, I think a brick-built blur would preserve the flow better. Here's an example from The LEGO Movie. On the other hand, elongating the character works very well in the jumps from the window to the couch, and from there to the arch.
I might come back and clarify this a bit later, but I've got to head to class.
Welp, I guess the better my films get the more scrutiny they'll undergo, I can sort of see what your saying but I don't feel as if it is very problematic if you aren't watching the same clip over and over with no sound. I did try to line it up better on the final clip but these shots can get pretty tricky with the rigs and hovering.
I think the final version looks good expecially with the sound, which I didn't want to upload as it sort of gives away to much of the joke. I'm also not trying to blur the minifig so much as stretch him, working on channeling some of that Chuck Jones magic.
My animation and storytelling are probably the two area's I need to work the most on, hopefully this film will see advances in both.
I mucked this shot up pretty bad let me know if you think my 'fix' worked or if this is usable, I'm to tiered and want to sleep on it.
Eh, I'm not so sure if it works the best. I'm assuming that you accidentally bumped the camera, and in order to compensate you made it appear to be moving in to show intensity/emphasis. My only problem is that the push in happens to late after he starts talking and moving to appear to be adding emphasis.
So yeah, not sure if it works. Sorry 
Eh, I'm not so sure if it works the best. I'm assuming that you accidentally bumped the camera, and in order to compensate you made it appear to be moving in to show intensity/emphasis. My only problem is that the push in happens to late after he starts talking and moving to appear to be adding emphasis.
So yeah, not sure if it works. Sorry
I have to agree with Sonjira. The movement does appear to be a little bit late - if it had started when he began speaking it would have been better.
As for if it is usable, I would recommend re-shooting the scene if possible.
Last edited by StefanMuscat (July 18, 2015 (05:20am))
I haven't worked on this in a while, but I have dug into a lot of the post work lately, you can see what the face animation prossess looks like in this beast of a gif
Oh man! I final did some more work on this!
Dude, nice 
Oh wow Sloth that is beautiful animation, its very creative!
Thanks folks, glad you like it, if you want to see a bit of behind the scenes on how I got this shot check out all the different layers and planning that went into it here.
Posts [ 41 to 59 of 59 ]
