Re: The 2008 Bricks In Motion Awards Nominations [CLOSED]
No, because he made like one of the best films of the year.
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Forums - Bricks in Motion » Contests & Festivals » The 2008 Bricks In Motion Awards Nominations [CLOSED]
No, because he made like one of the best films of the year.
The final straw was Natham's nomination in best set design.
I love that film but wasn't he commissioned by Lego to make it? ?
Yeah - I know what you mean. Any film that happened to make any amount of cash should be disqualified immediately. And any movie affiliated with LEGO (including, but not limited to using their products in the film) in any way should also be out. And the government should bomb Nathan's house as well.
isn't it sort-of not fair that Philip Heinrich is Smeagol andhe's in almost every category.
I agree. Just because he made an awesome film doesn't mean we should recognize that or anything. We should totally have left it out of the awards so that less talented people have a better chance of getting a Jpeg image of a shiny trophy. And we should bomb Philip's house too.
Seriously, you guys amaze me. Your genius is astounding.
- Leo
Last edited by Leonardo812 (August 3, 2009 (09:59am))
I agree. Just because he made an awesome film doesn't mean we should recognize that or anything. We should totally have left it out of the awards so that less talented people have a better chance of getting a Jpeg image of a shiny trophy. And we should bomb Philip's house too.
Seriously, you guys amaze me. Your genius is astounding.
- Leo
The sarcasm in this post hit me in the face as if it punched me. Good job sir.
Wait, was that sarcasm or real?
-Don
I'm proud that Horse is on there, I wasn't expecting it to make it 
I've got some serious competition. It's the frickin' big leagues now.
The sarcasm in this post hit me in the face as if it punched me. Good job sir.
Ooh - take care with the face.
- Leo
Night Owl wrote:Nah, I'm very much in favor of Playback getting a nomination; and yes, it's because of the two figures.
I don't think playback was the best compared to others.
Honestly I would give the edge to Playback pretty handily in this case - as the images demonstrate, the sets in Train 2 Catch are quite large, but IMO the attention to detail suffers - the crane is nice but beyond that it relies on large, simple structures, the blue staircase is one example of this, he also appears to have borrowed some design elements from real LEGO sets.
It's probably worth noting that all of the people voting in this were brickfilmers, a bit like the Academy Awards are decided by filmmakers. I would expect that our collective tastes might vary somewhat from the public.
How many of the people that post here at BIM are just the public and not brickfilmers. Show of hands. Anyone?
<2 Cents>
Pagano's set work on go mini man go was probably better than PlayBack. As Smeagol says it's in the detail. Perhaps the Best Sets category should have been best brick design or best construction. Clearly if you include the characters that are in PlayBack then it seems much more deserving. The mini-figure legs for fingers was pure genius. The characters didn't animate very well though (despite another nomination there), the dancing was awkward and ugly.
As for Leo comments. I thought I said dumb things at times. Bombing people's houses wtf, geez get a grip. You choose to quote me out of context and guess what? You missed the point. If you look hard enough you will see negative remarks in my post but they are of YOUR making not mine.
The point was not that Nathan's fine work should be disqualified for being professional work but that it sets a precident and that other professional brickfilms should have been included. For example the millions of bricks in the set of the Lego City commercials should be nominated for best set period.
Should Smeagol's film take out a few awards, best brickfilm of 2008 in many people eyes. It definately should and the reason is simple. The friends of Smeagol who make up BIM love that film. It is their awards and they should nominate what they like. My point from the first post is this doesn't mean it reflects the wider communities opinion or even needs to. Just that BIM looses some credibility if they are not a bit more objective. Would I have nominated unrenewable? Yes definately!
</2 cents>
How many of the people that post here at BIM are just the public and not brickfilmers. Show of hands. Anyone?
I know there are quite a few people here now and in times past who have never done much brickfilming beyond a test or two, if that. Dragoon, Film Brain, saulgoode, prof1515, jeorge, and thenoodle26 come to mind, though some of them are gone or inactive nowadays. And we get a fair amount of traffic from people who never post in the forums but just come to watch videos.
The point was not that Nathan's fine work should be disqualified for being professional work but that it sets a precident and that other professional brickfilms should have been included. For example the millions of bricks in the set of the Lego City commercials should be nominated for best set period.
I guess the delineation I would draw is that Nathan didn't produce the video strictly for LEGO, nor was he getting pre-built designs to use in his film. He was commissioned to make it by Go! Miniman! Go!, which was backed by LEGO, but he had to do the work himself, and appears to have retained ownership of the video. By contrast LEGO City commercials are centered around official LEGO set designs, so there's a distinction. If Nathan were to produce a video for LEGO in which they gave him the sets to use, and it was basically an advertisement for a particular product line then it probably wouldn't be seriously considered -- David Pagano, after all, is involved in the "Space Police" videos and I think it's unlikely those will be considered eligible.
Honestly I would give the edge to Playback pretty handily in this case - as the images demonstrate, the sets in Train 2 Catch are quite large, but IMO the attention to detail suffers - the crane is nice but beyond that it relies on large, simple structures, the blue staircase is one example of this, he also appears to have borrowed some design elements from real LEGO sets.
I'm quite gobsmacked by this. I guess as a viewer you only get out of it what you want to see. The train station was a few weeks of design alone. So I'm not the best MOC'er I only build with the pieces I have and I thought I did a fine job.
The Olton Hall (red train) is a totally original design (4th build over a month). My first MOC from photo's. In fact I recieved email from one of the restorers of the real life Olton Hall (repainted and became the train in Harry Potter movie) saying how much they liked my MOC. At the time it was the only steam train MOC I have seen that used the techniques I came up with for the pistons and it still runs full speed on tight Lego radius curves. What is most bizzare is it's almost identical to the method that Lego themselves used later on the Emerald Night. Maybe you have to like Lego trains I for one love 'em.
The crane did start out as a kit but with a lot of modification. It has mindstorm 9volt motors in it and is fully controllable from IR remote.
..borrowed some design elements from real LEGO sets
What a horrid thing to say. It serves no purpose other than to undermine my achievements in completing this film. By connecting one brick to another don't we all borrow some design from Lego. I think only the green truck borrowed from my Uncle is an original Lego set. Everything else is either heavily modified or MOC so just what are you referring to here?
The construction site has a lot of detail (excalators, elevator, generaters, air conditioning units) but it was very hard to shoot such a big structure and within the time frame I had. The blue staircase, as you called it, is an escalator. The site was meant to be a shopping centre. When the characters get to the base they are whizzed to the top, the bad guy turns to watch the hero as he has time to waste. Who would walk up stairs like that? They are sliding with no arm or leg movement.
I should have slowed much of the animation down in Train 2 Catch but this film was pitched to Nickelodeon/MTV it was meant to look and feel like a cartoon. Fast edits, fast animation, slap stick violence. I am however very proud of the animation; The hero jumping to the crane, The motorcycle accident. Only bettered by the mini-figure dancing in Bodville - Go Mini Man Go".
Oh and David Pagano’s hand built characters were awesome and regardless of the exact breakdown of the Best Set category I think a deserving nomination.
I'm sorry you took that so personally, I just meant to provide an explanation of why in my opinion Playback had the edge over your film as far as set design nominees are concerned. Set design is certainly a weak spot for me so I was not meaning to imply that your film's sets were bad, they're certainly much better than anything I've built. I said nothing in my original post to the effect that your sets weren't good, just that they appeared relatively simple in design. Anything that big takes a lot of time to build, but I think attention to detail is what really makes a set impressive. (Not just any detail, however -- details that contribute to the aesthetic of the film and look good on camera.)
What a horrid thing to say. It serves no purpose other than to undermine my achievements in completing this film. By connecting one brick to another don't we all borrow some design from Lego. I think only the green truck borrowed from my Uncle is an original Lego set. Everything else is either heavily modified or MOC so just what are you referring to here?
Honestly, I think I made a valid point. The green truck I knew I had seen before, and that was one of the elements I had in mind when I said that. If you want some other examples, the first that comes to mind is your train station building, which is extremely reminiscent of LEGO's Townhouse. The brick pattern on the sides of the building, the door, and the staircase are completely identical to that set as far as I can tell, with the roof also using a similar design, reworked somewhat to accommodate the modified shape of the building. I also see the chimney of the town house peeking over the corner in that particular photo. That doesn't leave much room for original design elements on that set, reconfiguring it probably took quite a bit of time but the result does look very, very similar to the original Townhouse set. It looks good, mind you, but it does look like that set is strongly based on the Townhouse.
I'm willing to believe you that there is a lot of detail in the construction site, unfortunately as I watch the film I don't think a lot of it (especially interior details of the building) ends up being visible in the final product, and from the standpoint of judging sets in the films, that is all that matters.
I confess I had assumed that the train model was based on a set, given it says "Hogwarts express" on the front, that it is an original design is quite impressive. I apologize for that, I did not give you enough credit. I was very impressed by the sets / MOCs in your latest film, it's clear you put a lot of work into this stuff and I don't mean to belittle that.
With further explanation you did make a valid point (or two). The construction site was a nightmare to film. This was my first stop-motion brickfilm. My uncle built the construction site some 4 times over a period of about 6 months. Lego building is new to him and I love his designs (he has worked in construction most of his life) but it was fragile and kept falling to pieces while I was filming.
I have a very finite Lego budget, yes my wife has me on a budget. The station looks like the townhouse because it started it's life as that set. That's what is so great about Lego building as a past time. I buy a set build the Lego design and then pull it apart and building something else. So it's not based on the other set it is an alternate build of that set using the same pieces. As a result it does take away much of the character of the original. I still represents a lot of work getting a decent design when you are limited to what bricks can be used.
I respect your opinion because I like your films a great deal. So I did take your comments badly. For me it was harder to digest than the 95% of people that commented on Gizmodo saying "Train 2 Catch" was crap and didn't deserve to win. <sniff>.
Sorry for going a bit off-topic.
Brick4brains, I'm not the kind of person who opposes people giving honest criticism; I think a lot of people in the community find me to pretty harsh as well. The reason people get pissed off at you is that you barge in with long semi-coherent posts where you boldly present your opinion in a ridiculously overconfident way, when you in fact seem to know very little about the situation. It's like in the THAC thread; everybody has to stop and explain what's going on to you. I mean, look, I think it's great that you don't shy away from being openly critical of films, but unless you're going to put a little more effort into it, please don't bother.
As for Leo comments. I thought I said dumb things at times. Bombing people's houses wtf, geez get a grip.
Sarcasm... joking... my apologies for going completely overboard. I hope I didn't hurt anyone. I was trying to make the point of what I saw as some pretty flimsy arguments that sound suspiciously like two people whining because really, really good films got in.
- Leo
Oh you guys sure have me all wrong. Leo you of all people should have seen the sarcasm in my reply.
And Night Owl instead of intelligently arguing my point (which is what Smeagol does very well) or to qualify your claims regarding my ignorance you only have the e-balls to make things personal.
The difference between you and I NightOwl is I know I'm being a jerk. Speaking of THAC. I did like your entry but I didn't like the way you used friends to get preferrential treatment during the competition. Who else knew Steve's IRC? He didn't have it listed publicly. Given the situation would I have done the same? Yes probably but I would have at least been open to that criticism.
Flimsy and incoherent arguments. Yeah possibly. More like a contradiction there's no better way to start debate. At least I have opinions most of this thread prior to my post was just sucking up and back patting.
Just because my opinions differ from yours doesn't make them wrong (or right).
So for the benefit of NightOwl I'll re-iterate and try to keep things simple.
My understanding of a film set is the stage, lot or location where the film is made.
Having a nomination for an awesome character build appears to be in the wrong category.
Smeagol explained that the entire build was considered in these nominations so it was a worthy nomination. Again this illustrated that the description of this category was a misrepresentation.
You guys understand what it meant but as an outsider you made it confusing.
<Sarcasm>So in keeping with my tradition of long semi-coherent posts.</Sarcasm>I do think great films were overlooked by good films. It's a tough gig trying to shortlist all the films from 2008. The other main point I was making was whether or not professional films should be considered. Again Smeagol tackled this head on but he didn't convince me. I thought there was a few flaws in his argument.
The Lego City commercials were there to sell a product sure but the set was a brilliant custom build. Should it win the Best Set award probably not due to the fact it was a commerical made for Lego. IMO it should have got a nomination. Judge for yourself via this LINK. Nominatable (it’s not a word but it speaks well so I'm using it) probably not but you would have to admit that the light saber crop at the farm was totally awesome.
At the end of the day this forum is to exchange ideas and express opinions regarding films made with a plastic toy. Do we need to be so highly strung and emotional about it?
In 2009 we do, right now anyway, plan to limit nominations to films submitted to the directory. The majority of films this time around were shared by their creators on BiM, I think that in the future only including films posted by their creators on this site will be the most consistent way of selecting a pool of films eligible to be nominated.
I haven't seen the official LEGO vid (the link you provided doesn't work) that you were talking about but use of official LEGO sets, no matter how good the design, is probably where I'd draw the line on set design. Note that a film with some official sets or designs based on official sets can be nominated, as I see it, as long as it has substantial original set design material produced by the filmmaker for the film, which is more what we'd have to consider. (Effective use of official sets can be considered but it only goes so far IMO) Anybody who has basically unlimited resources supplied to them directly by LEGO isn't really fair to compare to filmmakers on BiM, and Nathan didn't get that kind of help just because the website paid him some money to produce his film.
Speaking of THAC. I did like your entry but I didn't like the way you used friends to get preferrential treatment during the competition. Who else knew Steve's IRC? He didn't have it listed publicly. Given the situation would I have done the same? Yes probably but I would have at least been open to that criticism.
Excuse me? What are you even talking about here? This kind of statement is exactly what Night Owl is talking about when he says "you in fact seem to know very little about the situation. [...] everybody has to stop and explain what's going on to you." The IRC chat he was referring to is the entirely public Bricksinmotion IRC chat that we've used for over a year now, it certainly didn't take any special connections or secret knowledge to enter chat and ask Stevie a question when he happened to be in there.
All good Smeagol limiting nominations to directory submissions is a fair response. Makes things a lot easier for pooling of the entries. That link was buggered it contained LINK at the end. Try this LINK it's an interesting video. The fact you haven't seen it probably indicates a loop hole in the current nominations which you have a cunning plan to fix for 09. <jerk mode>That other statement can just be ignored I included it to illustrate NightOwl's point that I can be quite irrelevant sometimes and also it seems to annoy him. </jerk mode>
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