Assuming that each area will also have interactive elements, this could turn into something really, really cool.
BUT, it would require dedication and participation that is nigh-impossible to rally.

I'm going to address not as an interactive adventure, but as a community project, which it is.
Making an interactive film is tough enough, making one on a deadline and to some degree using another's ideas and character would also hurt the process. If I could, I would consider participating, but like so many others I don't know if I would want to commit the needed time. And that's going to be the main problem.

On the plus side, making a full film, while taking more time, is more fulfilling for an animator that just making a few short clips. And people could use their ideas and secondary characters to some degree. having this interaction between worlds would really jump-start the BFCU and bring publicity to each of the involved animators.

Do you remember the last community project? The one that each animator only did a few second clip? If I remember correctly, they had people jumping in, then backing out or not getting their stuff in. And that was for stuff they could set up and film in just a few hours. Sure, a huge reserve list sprang up to save the day, but getting people to do nearly a full film is going to be even harder.

Tell you what, if this looks like it will materialize, then I will help all I can with scripts and ideas. I just missed the last one, and would love to be in a community project at some point. And one last word, try to think of a way to simplify it was far down as possible to enable as many as possible to participate. That may help things along.

Sounds awesome! I won't be able to participate though.   I have to many other brickfilms I'm working on. Hope every think turns out awesome. Every thing is AWESOME!

Ah, ok. Having everything be interactive would be sweet though. It would add more integration of the concept, and be more than simply "Hey, if you liked that video, check out these too!" It would get viewers to be more likely to click the link at the end I think and avoid the weirdness of watching 90% of a film and then all of a sudden having to click a link to see the rest.

No, it's This, and you need to watch right it now. It's awesome.
Don't think I've ever heard of Super...

Edit: After reading through all the discussion, I'd still like to help out but everyone has really good points. So I'll just see where this goes and decide after that.

Last edited by Mighty Wanderer (February 13, 2014 (10:42am))

While reading your post I got really excited for a project like this, but when I read what Pritchard had to say I was brought back down to Earth. He's right in everything he said. Most people would loose interest really quickly and drop out, unfortunately.

There is this game I used to play with my sisters where one of us starts a story, then another one of us continues where the other left off, and so on. This is pretty much the same except for the portal room and the almost broken fourth wall. My point is, there was a group like this on Flickr that played the story-telling game with accompanying MOCs. It was really cool, but only a few players managed to meet deadlines and everyone lost interest after a short while.

I'm interested, but I don't think I could take part for the reason mentioned above.

Hate to double-post, but this is an important update. I've decided to try to get this off the ground, but in order to make it a bit smaller-scale. Rather than, say, six adventure videos, we'll go for three. That means I need three brickfilmers, each willing to do one of the following:

• A Space, Arctic, Racers or any other kind of sci-fi animation.

• A Castle, Viking, Greek/Egyptian/ancient history, or high fantasy (elves, dwarves, trolls etc) animation. Could also possibly be explorers or adventurers of some kind, or even mountain climbing or extreme stunts - it doesn't have to be fantasy, but needs the big nature or historical setting.

• A Wild West, Dream-world, Beach/Hawaiian, Ninja or Spy animation, although to be honest there's the most freedom in terms of content with this one. If you have an idea that I haven't listed but you think is awesome and suitably different to the others, then ask me and I'll probably say yes.

The idea is that each one is quite different to the others, so that a wide range of genres are shown. You can genre-bend (a robot knight in a Castle video? Aliens VS ninjas? Abraham Lincoln's time machine?) but it is important that each setting is vastly different.

For the purposes of this post, let's call the protagonist Arlen (that doesn't have to be his name, it's just a stand-in). Arlen is a regular minifigure working in the modern world, doing [something fairly mundane, let's say he's a painter (of walls, not art)]. He's bored of it. On the way home from work, or even when he's at home, two portals open nearby. Blot - the bad guy that everyone will be able to make - runs from one to the other, but Arlen gets sucked through as well. He ends up in a big chamber with lots of generic, blocky portals (literally just doors made of basic red-yellow-or-blue bricks) and is told by the Keeper (a really geenric figure, like 70s or 80s style) that he must help stop Blot from uniting three portal gems. There's no time to get anyone else, as Blot's already gone through another portal and the Keeper (being a keeper) can't leave the multi-portal chamber - Arlen must go through. Arlen sees the chance to leave the mundane behind and have a proper adventure, and so takes it.

So, obviously the story for the intro video is mapped out, but for the other three there's almost total freedom. The only criteria is:

• Blot must be the main villain. He can have subordinates (e.g. for a Castle video, an evil wizard might provide the main challenge) but Blot will try to grab the gem near the end of the video. Somehow, Arlen will stop him, but the how is up to you. The video must end with Arlen having the gem, and I'll explain why in a second.

• Arlen has no powers of his own, though like all minifigs he can build and rebuild things if there are enough bricks around.

• Keep it PG-13, people.

• Length should be between 2 and 6 minutes. No more, and certainly no less. Let me know if you think those parameters are wrong.

Arlen and any recurring characters (e.g. Blot) will have the same voice actors, as you might expect, but that comes later. First, would anyone like to volunteer to join? Like I said, there's a lot of freedom with this, and in terms of a deadline, I think the release date should be some time in the summer, like early july. That gives us all a lot of time to put together some high quality brickfilms.

So, anyone up for this? Let me know if you want any more information.

EDIT: Forgot to say, I'll take the intro video and the finale, when that comes around. If you'd like, I can post preliminary shots of the portal chamber and stuff sometime during the week.

Information on Blot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jampotstudios/9685361779/
BFCU Character Collection: http://www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/to … ge-thread/

Last edited by jampot (February 15, 2014 (05:06am))

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Brilliant! I don't mind at all; I'm not the best brickfilmer either, and by doing these kinds of challenges we learn and improve (it's why I try to enter every animation challenge). i'll put you down for sci-fi - welcome aboard! I'll let you know of the details once we have two more brickfilmers.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

It should be any one of the themes that I listed:

You don't have to do Castle, it can be Greek or Egyptian or anything on that list.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

I'm seriously interested in participating, but I'm not sure about my timeline. If we set it up in way that not all the films have to be released at the same time, I should be able to participate. Perhaps instead of specifying a number of jewels, you can just say "jewels", which leaves it open for the addition of more films, and you can put a bunch of extra portals in the portal room. I really like this idea, and want to make one of the films, I don't think I can get one done by July, simply because I'm not living in the same place as my LEGO collection right now, and won't be for at least a few more months, at best. I can currently only make the two films I have storyboarded and sets built for (and their each one set films, so I don't have enough bricks here to rebuild into new sets).

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