Topic: BRAWL 2023
BRAWL has returned!
What is BRAWL?
Brickfilm Rapidly All Week Long or BRAWL is a contest in which you have exactly one week to write, animate, edit, and submit a brickfilm. You can watch a quick overview video of the contest here:
Today is a special year, because it marks the 15TH ANNIVERSARY of BRAWL, and the 15th BRAWL!
Last year’s BRAWL was absolutely phenomenal. We had a behemoth 132 entries, destroying the previous record of 77!
When Does BRAWL Start?
The contest will start June 24th, 2023 7:00 PM EST (Eastern Daylight Time), and will end July 1st, 2023 7:00 PM EST (Eastern Daylight Time). You will have exactly one week to finish and submit a film. Any entries not received by the end of one week time period will be disqualified.
A thread titled "BRAWL 2023 Starts NOW!" will be posted in the Contest & Festivals forum. The thread will contain the theme, MOD elements, and submission information.
The Rules
The entry must be entirely made and submitted in one week’s time. To prove this, one or both of the MOD elements must be present in every shot (with the exception of fifteen seconds, more information about that below) of your entry.
Your entry must consist primarily of LEGO (or similar building-block toy) stop-motion animation. Live-action, CGI, hand-drawn, or other forms of film or animation may be used to supplement your entry, but stop-motion animation must be the primary focus.
Your entry must consist of at least 30 seconds of stop-motion animation. There is no maximum time limit.
No mature/explicit content is allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: swearing, excessive/gory violence, overt sexual content, and blatant drug references.
You must not make your entry public until the deadline has passed.
The entry you submit to the judges must be the entry made publicly available to everyone else. You cannot create a version of your film that includes the mod element to send to the judges, and then publicly release a second version of your film that has the mod element removed.Use of copyrighted material (including music) is allowed. Use of copyrighted material will not affect the judging of your entry.
Entries based off of previous copyrighted material (Star Wars, Marvel, Batman, etc.) are allowed, but discouraged. It could affect the judging of your film due to unoriginality.
Because of the limited time frame and because this isn’t a music contest, you are allowed to use music created before the contest, either original music created beforehand or copyrighted music.
Entries must clearly show the BRAWL 2023 logo for three uninterrupted seconds. High quality versions of the logo (shoutout to our wonderful graphic designer RealBrick) will be posted by the start of the contest. The logo may be inserted digitally.
Theme & MOD Elements
If you’ve never entered BRAWL before, HERE is a video overview of what mod elements are. If you have never entered THAC or BRAWL, please do so. Additionally, please read the rules below afterwards.
To ensure the BRAWL 2023 entries were made within the week-long time frame, the theme and mod elements (both color and letter mods) will be announced at the very start of the contest. The first mod element is a color mod. This will be a combination of two random brick colors connected together or touching (for example, a blue brick connected to a red brick). The second mod element is a letter mod. This could be any of the 26 letters of the modern English alphabet. You may use the uppercase or lowercase version of the letter, but the letter must be recognizable as that letter.
15-Second Leeway Rule:
The 15-Second Leeway Rule allows you to include up to 15 seconds of shots in your film that do NOT have mod elements present. The shot or shots without the mod elements do not have to be in order. The leeway rule allows you to not have to worry about placing a mod in difficult shots, or if you accidentally forget the mod in a shot. If you have any questions, please ask.
To prove that you made your film within the time limit, at least one of the mod elements must appear in every shot of your animation (excluding the 15 seconds as stated above). You do not need to use both mod elements. You can combine these mod elements in any way that you see fit, so long as at least one is present. You could choose to use just the color mod or just the letter mod, you could choose to use both, you could alternate between scenes, or any combination of the above. All that is important is that at least one of the mod elements be visible in every shot, minus your 15-second leeway.
Feel free to contact myself (e-mail, PM, and the BiM Discord are the best way to reach me) or one of the judges with a frame to verify that the mod (letter or color) is recognizable and will not disqualify your entry. However, try to ask other users first and contact one of the judges as a last resort, as we may not may be able to respond immediately.
The letter may be upper or lower case, but it still must be clearly that letter. The letter can be rotated but not mirrored. Again, it must be clearly identifiable as that letter. It may be written or printed on a piece of paper or sticker, drawn directly onto a brick, printed on a piece, or built from pieces and even integrated into the set. As long as the mod is intentional and recognizable.
The letter mod element may exist on a printed LEGO piece, but it must clearly be that letter. An eyebrow or wrinkle on a minifig’s face, or a fold in the shirt on the minifig's torso are not letters.All mod elements must be physically present in each shot of your entry. You cannot digitally insert the mod element after you have animated the shot.
Minifig parts (for example a red torso attached to grey legs) can count as the color mod, but bricks connected to or touching baseplates do not.
You do not need to include either mod element in the titles or credits.
If a shot must be clarified by changing the shot in anyway (changing brightness, black and white to color, etc) to be able to identify the mod element, the shot will be not counted as containing the mod element and will count towards your 15-second leeway. See next rule for one exception regarding the cropping of the image.
For particular shots where including the mod element would be disruptive to your artistic vision (such as extreme close-ups and shots with very low depth of field), you may include a legal mod element in the shot and then crop the mod element out in post-production. You then must provide an uncropped frame from that shot and explain in detail the cropped shot in the submission email. You will have to provide separate proof for each shot.
Judging & Prizes
The judges for BRAWL 2023 are:
Chris W.
Gregory Animations
StormTheBlank
Joshua Armell
Entries will be judged on criteria including originality, production values (animation, set design, cinematography, sound, etc.), story, and creative interpretation of the theme by the 5 judges. Films will be discussed and ranked collectively by the judges until a consensus is reached. The top 3 films will eligible for the prize pool. Entries below 20th place will not be publicly ranked.
Prizes
The LEGO Ambassador Network is once again supplying prizes for our prize pool, but only 2 out of the 3 in this case! Very excited for these:
Sanctum Sanctorum, and Lion Knight’s Castle, and the LEGO House Exclusive Wooden Duck, signed by the designer Jme Wheeler!
For the story of how we acquired the Wooden Duck, check out our documentary for Brickfilm Day 2023!
First place gets first pick, second place gets second pick, and third place gets the prize that’s left.
Spread The Word!
Use #BRAWL2023 and share this post/the overview video to other corners of the brickfilming world who may not know!
Get Connected!
The BiM Discord is always open, and feel free to talk to others in the #brawl-discussion topic. Try to find the answers to any questions in this post, but ask any questions you have over there, or below. I will be working both at the start and end of BRAWL, and throughout the week, so be patient if I don’t respond immediately. We do have other Bricks in Motion staff who can answer any questions on hand.
Who’s ready for a BRAWL?!
