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.
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To be honest, I was kind of hoping to have a BiM this year. I like THAC since it's fun and pretty much the entire community usually gets involved in one way or another, but I also like the long contests to really focus in and make a quality film.
Going back to the topic of contests, could there possibly be 2 THACs this year instead of a official BiM 2013? Perhaps one in late July/August and another at around Christmas time. Obviously organisers would have to be found, but I think it could be a great way to increase activity outside of Christmas time.
Hmmm, I remember we had a THAC in December 2007, followed by Easter 2008, followed by January 2009. Whilst they were not technically all in the same year, the gap between the contests isn't nearly as large as recent years.
It actually worked very well, I thought. Unless you live in a non-Christian country (does anyone here?) then everyone gets an Easter Holiday at some point, and there are precious few contests going on around Easter. In fact, there are hardly any contests going on at all. I remember when there were so many contests going on that I had to tactically chose based on how long the deadline was and who was entering.
Some may say there are no contests because this website is dead. I would say that this website is dead because there are no contests...
Some may say there are no contests because this website is dead. I would say that this website is dead because there are no contests...
It kind of is dead. It's just not 2011 anymore. 
I mean, the ones who throw the contests have kind of given up hope. It's just not fun around here anymore.
Participation in the last three summer contests has been a little abysmal. This is not so much to diss the people who DID enter, just to say there weren't enough of them to make me feel good about trying to organize other one of these competitions.
They were modeled after previous Brickfilms.com summer contests that were more successful, so I'm not sure what the key to getting more participation would be. If the winning entries are going to be ones that were thrown together in the last week of a contest's 4-6 month run, I don't really see the point in doing it. And we had a record low number of entries last year.
Brickfilming is dying. That's the problem. Everyone has seen it and done it. But me? I'm not giving up on it. People quit because it costs money, or they don't have enough time. Everyone needs a break. I've had one that was too long. A year and a half. I feel guilty about it.
Brickfilming is dying. That's the problem.
There are more brickfilms being posted online now than at any previous point, and a theatrical LEGO movie is being released in a few months. I don't see a compelling argument to be made, here.
I think it's a shame that these have fallen apart. I myself actually joined this site to participate in TOY after I saw an article Smeagol wrote in a AFOL magazine the summer of. I didn't do that well, but it was fun and I have stayed around since then. I have seen an overall decline in contests on here recently which makes me inspired to host one sometime. I hope that one day we as a community will be able to have these again.
Folks are welcome to organize contests, I encourage it! If they seem well put together, a mod will move them to the contests forum so they get some exposure. Admittedly part of the reason for no summer contest this year is simply that I don't have enough free time to shepherd one through in a way I'd feel comfortable attaching the BiM name to; hopefully if it's a priority to people I can try to get an official contest together for next year.
I do always try to make sure we have an annual THAC competition.
Looking back, most of my major developments in terms of quality and skill were thanks to the pressure and motivation of contests, and most of my failures were because they lacked that. I think they really help bring us together, and push us all to our limits. I've entered seven animation challenges, and those are great, but I've yet to enter BRAWL. (Hint, hint)
I've got TOY, two THACs, seven animation challenges, OYO, the Tongal thing, the Santa Yoda thing, the Lego Superheroes thing, and EASTER under my belt, and you know what, those were some great times.
Long, more involved contests are a bit hard to commit to, especially now with work and then college looming on the horizon, but short time-frame stuff like THAC, BRAWL, EASTER and the challenges are and were great fun, and attract quite a couple participants. (Well, the bigger BiM-Endorsed ones do.)
Speaking of which, has anybody come forward about BRAWL yet? It's normally held what, a month and a half from now? If somebody is going to do it, they'd better start thinking about it soon.
Having done EASTER, I'd like to say that hosting a contest really isn't that hard. Yeah, I slipped out on prizes, but the rest is easy. If anybody out there is thinking about hosting something, please, please consider doing it.
TOY was what got me to finally join this site and get involved. And who knows how many others joined because of cool contests. And third-party contests do get participants, just look at Spider's Christmas in a Minute, and didn't ZachFB get quite a few in his?
So yeah, don't be afraid to come out and host something. It's fun, and really helps the community.
BRAWL 2011--my first and only BRAWL--was kind of a disappointment. It was kind of disappointing for a lot of members, in fact. My entry didn't appear on the results list, and nobody told me if it was disqualified or anything. So, I'm still confused as to why it wouldn't be up there...
I might host a contest sometime. Not BRAWL or Septemberfest (if there will be one this year) or anything. I'll leave that to the members of "higher position" you could say. But, something...sometime.
I really love those big, fun contests. It would be something like that that could get me back to brickfilming again. Who knows?
Well honestly with that kitchen sink thing... I'm not quite sure what y'all were thinking. The theme for that contest seemed so obscure and niche that its no wonder only 8 people submitted. I don't know how many entrants there usually are, but TOY really seemed to have a good turn out.
Is festival of souls a BiM official thing or is it run by someone else?
Well honestly with that kitchen sink thing... I'm not quite sure what y'all were thinking. The theme for that contest seemed so obscure and niche that its no wonder only 8 people submitted. I don't know how many entrants there usually are, but TOY really seemed to have a good turn out.
Is festival of souls a BiM official thing or is it run by someone else?
Festival of souls is not an official BiM thing.
The premise of Kitchen sink, I'd argue, was not obscure or niche, it essentially was a plea: "Try new things!" I've become tired of how same-ish almost all films posted on this site are, so whenever I can encourage people to try to think outside the box, I do -- we did this with the Avant-Garde theme and Kitchen Sink was essentially another twist on the same idea. I'll certainly accept the blame for both themes; neither of them were very popular, and I did intentionally put TOY in between them because it was a more straightforward theme.
That said, Kitchen Sink did seem to alienate people. I don't know if that's because we communicated our intent with that contest poorly, or simply because many brickfilmers don't like to think outside the box and are intimidated by the challenge of a contest that asks for innovation. Hoping it was just my mismanagement of it. I fear it is the latter.
I wasn't interested in entering Kitchen sink because I don't like interactive videos. They don't work very well, though, I guess they're a little bit interesting.
If I want an interactive adventure, I'll go play a video game.
It was the same for me; as I really enjoy the technical side of animation, I want to see all the animation that someone has done when they release a film, so I end up frustrated trying to see all of the different videos involved in an interactive video. I was really excited for the official BiM contest, and was then disappointed when I saw it was an interactive adventure theme, because I just have no interest in making one; and I think a lot of other people were coming from the same place, just not interested in interactive videos.
If any of you didn't know, Squash recently put up a fun-looking contest. You should check it out.
^^ OH YEAH FINALLY A GOOD CONTEST HAPPENS but I will only have 10 days to animate if I enter that because I'm on a grand odyssey for most of the summer
Also I see what you are saying smeags but I have to agree with mr squid. But if I may say something, I (think I) joined BiM shortly after the avant garde competition, or maybe it was a video from that which convinced me to join. Anyway, I was extremely impressed with what came out of that contest and a bit dissapointed that I hadn't joined the site earlier to do that one. I don't remember how many people entered that but I feel like that was a pretty cool way to challenge people to try new things. Maybe, if more contest were like that one but the theme was more specific... Like that one contest where you couldn't use any sound. Themes like that make stuff interesting and challenging.
Also just off topic wondering, how many entrants on average would you say are needed to consider something successful?
Having joined a day after Topit, I agree. Avant-Garde seemed fun, and a lot of good videos came out of that contest. Squash's new contest--while hard to understand what he means exactly--will hopefully get some good entries. I hope lots of people enter that.
I wasn't interested in entering Kitchen sink because I don't like interactive videos. They don't work very well, though, I guess they're a little bit interesting.
If I want an interactive adventure, I'll go play a video game.
UHHH don't listen to me I'm just being stupid. I wrote my last post without looking back at the Kitchen Sink announcement, and I had honestly forgotten that it stipulated the entries be interactive in some capacity (I didn't run the contest, just sort of oversaw it), though the "try new things!" element was absolutely the intention behind it. I think your critiques are all pretty fair, and I do feel badly about talking legogod out of having BiM 2013 be a horror themed contest, though I hadn't liked the results of previous recent horror contests at the time.
...though I hadn't liked the results of previous recent horror contests at the time.
Like FoS. 
Those were weird.
My beef with the horror contests we've had lately (and legogod's problem too if I recall) is that all the entries tend to be comedies, instead of attempting to seriously fit in the horror genre. It's a challenge in the LEGO medium for sure, but I don't think it's one unworthy of being attempted.
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