Re: The Squire and the Scroll
A Pixar Studio tour? That sounds awesome! 
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A Pixar Studio tour? That sounds awesome!
*Update*
Well, this weekend a film festival occurred. We had a blast and met a lot of really cool people (including Andrew Gordon and Carlo Vogele). However, when the results were announced, we got even more excited, because...
WE WON!!! We were (and still are) extremely excited because not only did we win one prize, but we won three! On the first night, we won 1st place in the teen competition (with The Squire and the Scroll Trailer), and on the 2nd night we won 3rd place (with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County) and the Grand Prize (with The Squire and the Scroll Trailer)! And the prizes were amazing too! On the first night we won an iPad, and the second night we won 2 season passes to a theme park and, best of all, A PRIVATE TOUR OF PIXAR STUDIOS!!!
We were literally shaking with excitement, and we still can't believe that this is happening to us. We just want to thank all you guys for your support and for helping us to choose which of our films we should enter. We will also keep you all updated on how things are coming along and will also try to take as many pictures as possible when we tour Pixar (though there hasn't been a date set for it yet).
So once again, thanks for all your support, and we will let you know how things unfold!
Where did you guys hear about these film festivals and lego conventions. I'd love to look into one but don't know anything about where they are ect. And congrats guys that is amazing.
Where did you guys hear about these film festivals and lego conventions. I'd love to look into one but don't know anything about where they are ect. And congrats guys that is amazing.
You might wanna ask these people. They should know about stuff like that. If not, then you could just Google Search it.
Last edited by Mickey (May 28, 2012 (05:22pm))
Where did you guys hear about these film festivals and lego conventions. I'd love to look into one but don't know anything about where they are ect. And congrats guys that is amazing.
A good technique for finding film festivals is looking in your local newspaper or hanging out around your theater. Both of these places will let you know if there is going to be a film festival. The internet is also a very good place to look. Just Google "(your location) film festival." The same goes for LEGO conventions, except in their case it is also good to frequently check such sites as Brickset or The Brothers Brick. Both these sites keep fairly up-to-date with any LEGO conventions that will be happening, and they will let you know when and where you can register for them too.
I know you are working on other projects right now but I was just curious, when will you post an update on The Squire and the Scroll?
In about 0.00001 seconds...
*Update*
Since our last update, we have finally finished our Tongal film and have begun once again working actively on "The Squire and the Scroll." Several new props are being created, and some wonderful new locations have been thought up and are being designed. The dragon is undergoing some wing upgrades (which we will post pictures of in a future update), the map is still being created (we moved some things around and are redesigning it), and the castle is being recreated (exactly) piece by piece on the computer so that we can animate with it digitally. Here is a picture of this WIP:
(Please note that the orange slope at the base of the left-hand tower are NOT intentional, and they are actually meant to be black. They are simply a glitch created by LDView.)
We also got quite a bit of animating done yesterday, so we took one of the shots and did some rough effects on it. Here is a screenshot:
(We purposely chose a picture that would not give too much away, so don't be frustrated that you can't see much. 
)
Well, I hope that satiates your craving for the time being, and hopefully we will now go back to an update every other week again so that you guys don't miss out on anything during the making of this film.
Freakin' awresome. Looking forward to the updates every other week again, and may all go well in the future with this project!
I've been watching this thread for several months, and all I have to say about everything (especially the trailer) is...
AMAZING!!!!
1 question: How far beyond the 36% in your signature are you? (you said 40% back in February)
*Update*
Since last update, we have been working hard on trying to get as much animating done as possible. We have also been working hard on completely remodeling the dragon, from the legs and arms to the wings and neck (which was actually non-existent in the original model). Though a lot of work still needs to be done and a lot of things still need to be figured out, we are still making steady progress. Here is a picture comparing the old wing (the one on the left) to the new wing (the one on the right):
And here is a picture of the joints setup:
The new wing is still being heavily tweaked, but any suggestions would be nice. Also, any ideas on what YOU think we should do to the dragon to make it look more menacing would be greatly appreciated! All critique will be taken into account when designing the revisions.
In other news, we have yet again redesigned the map, so it will be a little while before you get to see it. We even are reworking the script a little to better fit the topography of the map. Slowly but surely the pieces are falling into place. And to finish up, we have been looking into reworking the dragon's fire as well, so hopefully that will look much better too! If only our team was larger so that we didn't have to do so much work ourselves. 
Oh, and for all those who are/were wondering, our signature is incorrect, for the film is more than 36% done. We don't know how much more, but we do know that it's more. 
That wing....WOW!
But how are you going to make the physical version? I know before that you were going to have the dragon CGI when it was flying, then use a real one for the other shots. So will you simply make the dragon CGI all the time, or will you do some serious modding to the parts?
But how are you going to make the physical version? I know before that you were going to have the dragon CGI when it was flying, then use a real one for the other shots. So will you simply make the dragon CGI all the time, or will you do some serious modding to the parts?
A very good question. The answer is that we are probably going to have the dragon being CGI all the time, since if we were to use a physical model it would have to be modded and would be too awkward to animate. The only time we will have a physical part of the dragon is when the squire actually touches him (spoilers ), and even then it would only be the dragon's body (all the rest would be added in digitally). Also, please note that we are trying to make the wing as close to LEGO "purist" standards as possible, but there will still be cases when the dragon will do things that could never work in real life. We just hope that no one other than an animator or hardcore LEGO builder will notice.
Awesome update! The new wing looks fantastic. In terms of making the dragon more menacing: darken the teeth, and make them different colors. The less clean-kept the dragon looks, the more menacing I think it'll seem. The only other suggestion for making it look more menacing is maybe put some kind of old armor on it; I don't know if the dragon has a backstory, but if not, making him be an old battle-dragon or something of the kind could work out to your advantage. I feel like if he had some scrap metal on various places, he could look a load scarier. But seriously, it looks freakin' awesome as it is as well Looking forward to the next update!
-kcirbfilms
Absolutely mind-boggling!
I would say that one slight change for the wings would be to make them look slightly more weathered (not so much solid red). Also, if you can make the teeth a bit sharper.
Can't wait for more!
Well, it's that time again!
*Update*
First off, we want to thank you guys who responded with tips about the dragon. All of your suggestions have been taken into consideration, and some of them may make it to the finished product! We really appreciate all the help you guys give us.
Second, we just finished the last "forest" scene in the film. It was by far the hardest, and it took all of us to get it done. Here is a picture:
You can see more pictures at our facebook album here.
Our dad also contructed a jumbo "lazy susan" for us, which is perfect for rotating large models and getting cool pans. You can catch a glimpse of this in the picture above (it's the round wooden thing that is under our set).
Finally, our last bit of news is that we finally have finished the CG castle! BuilderBrother Daniel pulled an all-nighter and mangaged to get it finished in time for today's update! Here is a rough render of the finished model:
This model is composed of about 6,500 pieces, though the real model has more like 10,000 (because of internal supports). Talk about a lag-monster!
First, give me a sec to wipe the drool off of my mouth. 
Second, may I suggest adding some green slopes to the model?
As it is, while the landscaping does look cool, it looks extremely blocky.
That's not necessarily bad, but it would look out of place if all the other landscaping in the movie is done with more plates, tiles and slopes. (Although I see how it may not be practical to do that with the model already being so large.)
Second, may I suggest adding some green slopes to the model?
As it is, while the landscaping does look cool, it looks extremely blocky.
That's not necessarily bad, but it would look out of place if all the other landscaping in the movie is done with more plates, tiles and slopes. (Although I see how it may not be practical to do that with the model already being so large.)
In the primary construction of the model, we considered all forms of building the slope that leads up the castle. We settled on using regular bricks for several reasons:
1. The blocky look that standard bricks provide gives a "LEGO" feel to our film. While we are trying to make The Squire and the Scroll realistic in some areas, we are also trying to maintain the fact that it is a Brickfilm, not just an animation using minifigures as characters. Most of landscape in our film is being built more or less according to this "blocky" style. Mixing slopes and bricks we felt would make the slope of the hill look confused, so we had a choice of making the hill completely sloped or completely bricked. We decided that bricks would look better.
2. As you guessed, another reason we chose standard Lego bricks is because there are a lot of standard Lego green bricks for sale on Bricklink. Because their are so many for sale, bricks are sold at much cheaper than slopes (and because we had to order so many, slopes would have been a good amount of money more). However this was a very secondary reason.
3. Last of all, remember that the hill of the castle had be strong enough to be moved as one unit to Bricks By the Bay. Bricks can be built into a stronger interlocking system than slopes can. Even as it was, the hill barely made it to Bricks By the Bay in one piece, and if it had had slopes it most likely would have broken up.
Those are our reasons for using bricks. We must mention that we did try other styles of sloping hills, but they were always too brick heavy, too weak, or just didn't look good, and so we settled on bricks. (On a side-note though, that castle model was huge pain-in-the-neck to build because each brick had to exactly correspond to the real-life model. That means if you compared the LeoCAD model and the Lego model, each brick is exactly in the same place. Therefore, don't expect any future changes to the hill, as it would be a huge undertaking to fix it on the CGI model.) Thanks for your feedback though!
My reaction: 
First, I love your guys' setup...I wish I had that much room, lego, and other stuff *cough*table*cough*. 
Second, I can see what Pritchard meant, but looking at other pics of the castle, and the trailer, you don't notice the blockiness of the hill much when in video, and when placed on some baseplates.
*Update*
Well, it happened again. We managed to get a week behind in our updates. Ah well, nobody's perfect.
Anyhow, since last update, life has been pretty crazy around here. I (BuilderBrother John) finished the awards video for BiM 2010 (viewable here), and I also managed to catch the flu as well as start school. However, the Squire and the Scroll has not been forgotten, and we did manage to get some things done. For one thing, we are off to a new "location," so along with that comes a whole new set of challenges and obstacles to overcome. A picture of the model can be seen below:
We also storyboarded a new sequence, and have managed to choreograph what we hope will turn out to be a gripping sword fight. And, just for fun, we made a modified version of the logo that we might animate and use either at the beginning or end of the film:
Anyhow, that's all for this update. Our next update should be on schedule, but if not, know that we have good reasons for it being so. 
Lots of dark grey!
Anyway, looks pretty nice (both pictures). I am going to guess that the top pic is of a mountain and trail, or else a huge cave (probably the first of the two). However, It appears that you guys still have a bunch to build and add to the cliff thing (judging from the picture on the computer).
So yeah, I can't wait to see how everything is going to turn out (like the sword fight).
Keep it up (and school is a pain ).
P.S. I'm a little hurt by your first comment...I mean, I think I'm perfect.
So how's progress? 
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