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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Littlebrick wrote:My story started out something like this:
And it will end something like this:
Because that's the only thing that can stop Littlebrick.
Because that's the only thing that can stop Littlebrick.
That was gonna be my response if he found offense to me saying that 
Why does it seem like everybody is saying that they are growing apart from brickfilming? I dont get it. It seems like a lot of people don't even have fun animating anymore. Please don't leave this site. I was really touched about what you wrote BG and skullbrick. It seems like just when I am really getting into brickfilming, a lot of people want to leave. I don't get emotional easily but that really hit me to the heart.Please stay for a while longer. I am doubting if I should spend anymore money on brickfilming, because I might lose interest in a couple of years and just fade away. I even wonder if I should just stop brickfilming now. Please stay as long as you can. I understand if you have to leave though. I think I understand now that brickfilming is not a permanent hobby. I think eventually everybody grows apart from it. I will continue for as long as I can, but when I am older I think it will be a fun time in my life but glad it is over.
2008: My brother and I were totally into Lego. So as Lego fans we regularly check the Lego.com website, at the same time a Lego Star Wars contest was being held at Lego.com. We viewed many brickfilms included the first brickfilm I ever saw: Lego Star Wars - MTT Attack by NXTManiac94. At the time I didn't have a clue who you were NXT but that was just the begining. After watching many brickfilms my brother and I began to just play out huge fights and stories in our play room (Now my studio). And once in a blue moon we would use live action to make brickfilms (Not a smart move). But as the time went on the Legos slipped in my brothers direction.
2009: I began to loose interest in playing with Legos as my interest was swayed toward reading. As I began to read more and more my play time was cut short. I remember that in one month I read for over 74 hours.
2010: I completely forgot about Legos and fun somehow. I just was intent on making friends that year and it worked then my first year on Junor High I was somewhat stuck and couldn't find anything to do.
Late 2010: August: My life just came back from the most wonderful vacation ever. My life was sucked free of YouTube. And when I was surfing the web I came to find a video called : Lego - The Force Unleashed by xxxfancypantsxxx. I was so amazed that he did all of that with his Legos and a few expensive softwares. This inspired me to do more with my life and begin a real hobbie. So I began.
Even Later into 2010: September: My camera, Movie maker, 2 lamps used by the builders that build my house, and a second hand desk. That's all I had so after learning that all the softwares Fancypants used were for Mac I used what I had and on the 22nd of September BindingBrickStudios was on YouTube. The name Binding Bricks was one of the original names for Lego "Automatic Binding Bricks" - found on Wiki. So then I planed to make movies with this camera. As I didn't have a photo card I would take 1 second frames then in movie maker snap a shot and move on (NOT VERY SMART) but when I did get the card I began to animate my first movie. After just one night the film got over 200 views and I had 30 subscribers. Then I began to work on bigger projects then for Christmas I got a new Webcam, Photoshop, Desk lamps, more Legos and Premier Elements.
2011: Making movies, failed THAC and now working on a huge project. I think it is an amazing story.
Influences:
NXTManiac94
xxxFancypantsxxx
Keshen8
and
GOLDENCAMERASTUDIOS!
It's funny, almost every brickfilmer here discovered it by seeing someone's brickfilm on youtube or somewhere. Well, that's not really the case for me...
A long long time ago, I mean, like, so long ago that youtube wasn't even invented, I was playing with this thing called a "Palm Pilot" (it's kinda like a really really old ipod touch) and I discovered this app called "Diddle Bug". Diddle Bug simply let you draw stuff. that's it. oh yeah, and you could save stuff you drew and scroll through it. Well, one day, I found that if i drew a circle, made a new sheet and drew the same circle in a slightly different place and flipped back and fourth between the two pictures, it looked like the circle was moving. Soon, i was making these movies of these crazy adventures that this little ball would have.
A few years later, when my family got our first digital camera 
I found that if i healed down the right or left arrow, it would flip through the pictures really fast. So I wondered if that same thing I discovered on the Palm Pilot would work with the camera. So i took a picture, turned a little bit, took another picture, turned a little bit, and so on. When it was done it looked like the room was spinning! and I was like "WWWWOOOAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! THIS IS SO COOL!!"
I was a total Lego freak back then (and I still am) so, i tried making this thing where this minifigure held a lightsaber and turned it on. It worked. I was thrilled. I then went on to make tons and tons of brickfilms. (I called them "picture-picture movies"). I really didn't worry about the animation or set bumps or light flickers (or even lights at all). It was simply enough that Legos were moving.
Years later, when I discovered youtube, I found that there were a few other people did this same thing. I was blown away. Manly because i wondered how they got the pictures on the computer and got them to play really fast. A year or so after that, I found out about this program called "Windows Movie Maker". I figured out how to make it so that the picture duration would be really short. I grabbed my best piece of animation, dropped it into Movie Maker, and added sound effects. I thought it was so cool that I kept making videos like this with sound effects and stuff. Months later, my dad suggested that I create a youtube account and upload the video. And so, I created the StanTheLegoMan account and uploaded 22 injuries in 21 seconds.
And I just sorta kept going from there.
I would say more, but this is really long already...
It's funny, almost every brickfilmer here discovered it by seeing someone's brickfilm on youtube or somewhere.
We shant be human without inspiration.
I started animating when I was about 9 years old.
I joined YouTube when I was 11.
I joined BiM when I was 14.
EDIT:
I'm 15 now.
Last edited by ZP (June 30, 2011 (08:46am))
AniMax wrote:VIMStudios wrote:Does it make a difference?...
I just wanted to know cause I'm homeschooled too.
I am too actually.
I'm home schooled too! 
Meh Story:
I Started brick filming when I saw some stop-motion on YouTube in 2006.
At first I had no idea how the heck the minifigs moved so it started with me recording some ridiculous videos about bionicles.
I moved them with my hand's while I danced around the room (Slight exaggeration)
Then I thought: O Hai little legos let's do da films with you! (thankfully I didn't run around in circles with them)
So I recorded a short videos that sucked.
Then I looked at how they REALLY did it, and got better (but I still sucked) 
I met a Friend who also did lego stop-motion too (He was better than me). He showed me a few tricks and I started.
I begged for a YouTube account and got one.
I uploaded my first proper Brickfilm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-X_M_AEsGE&NR=1
As I discovered more and more in the Brickfilming world on YouTube I saw all these people referring to BiM.
I checked it out. I got an account on BiM.
I've been making Brickfilms since.
My story started in March 2010. I've seen some forrestfire101's videos and it was like a magic for me how you can make minifigures move So I started doing some films by myself but I sucked a lot! Even that, I made my own account on YouTube and I did my stop motion videos on that account. But they were pretty horrible. In April 2010 I made an alternative account for that account. After nine months I decided to delete the alternative account. But YouTube deleted the main account because I was signed in email which I used for the main account. I was so mad I just wanted to stop brickfilming but I decided that maybe I could do vidoes like ZachMG does or something like that. (I could never be good like ZachMG by the way) So I made my new account - sfugity. And my biggest inspiration is Just Kidden probably 
so yeah that's my story. 
Stan the Lego Man wrote:It's funny, almost every brickfilmer here discovered it by seeing someone's brickfilm on youtube or somewhere.
We shant be human without inspiration.
Nathan Wells all the way!
RedBrick1 wrote:AniMax wrote:I just wanted to know cause I'm homeschooled too.
I am too actually.
I'm home schooled too!
Me three! Boy, there are a bunch of homeschooled brickfilmers. That's cool. 
I'm homeschooled.
I'm not sure, but I think there's a trend here. Maybe because homeschooled kids are home and bored most of the time (or at least the steriotype), they go on the interwebz, see a brickfilm on YouTube, and say something like "OH MUAY GAWDZ, DEYR LEGOZ ARR MUUUUUVINGGG!!! Nathan Wells was homeschooled; phantom, JK, Caidence, LegoComDude, RedBrick1, AniMax, Mighty Wanderer, and I (among probably a lot others) are as well.
Anyway, back to the origins. I don't want this to get moved, then closed like my Homeschooling thread was.
Sometime mid-summer 2010 my friend posted something on google buzz saying "I have a good idea for a stop motion video" of course I ask "wut r thatz???" Eventually he told me when we met up the next week and I was like "ZOMGZ I'Z HEARD OF TAT BEFAR!!!!!!" so roughly a week later I made a real peice of crap of a hinge brick opening up composed of six frames, one of which I cut out and spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to put the frames together on the computer. Then I attempted to send it to the friend who had told me what stop motion was. Then the next day I finally figured out how to save it as something other than a WMM file and rejoiced, making about 5 animations the next day, getting lots of "wowzys buddy, thats cool" from my parents. Then I saw some stuff from Pagnomation and FP and my jaw dropped. I continued for a few weeks, rapidly improving animation. Then I stopped for a month or so, and slowly from about Septemeber to now I learned things other than animation, became a strong, and one of the only, supporters of what I like to call The Digital Age of Filmaking, in the brickfilming community. Yup George Lucas, you made a believer outta me. Then briefly after that I discovered the concepts of "Cinematograhpy" and "CGI". Although I still lack experience in making an actual full film(Which will be mended in a number of short weeks). And here I am sitting right now typing this sentence.
*Hits "submit" button*
It all started here
2008: I had moved to a new state and all my new friends loved lego but i didn't at the time. Then one day I went on youtube and searched lego Batman and watched the first video I saw Lego Batman: the villans. I was like how did you make teh legos move and I started buying legos. I made horrible films with my dads digatal camera.
2009: I was having troble with brick films and I was deppressed of my dad having to go to Iraq so I took a break from brickfilming. I decided to buy more legos and spend more time with my friends. In late 2009 I got my self back into brickfilming and found out about stop motion
2010: I spent half the year searching for a webcam and finally got a logitech c250 and started making stop motion. Then I made my first brickfilm the lego rap. My parents were really proud of me. I started making more and more brickfilms
2011: I made my first big brickfilm Butler the savoir but then I went through a slump. I couldn't come up with any films. I was not proud of my camera quality. Then I got a new camera the c910 because I couldn't get the quickcam. Now I finally got two film ideas and armed with an HD camera I'm ready to show the world what I'm made of.
I was inspired by Fancypants, then I saw in the description of one of his youtube videos that there were contests on BIM. So I checked it out and created an account. Now I am an awesome brickfilmer! And that's my story!
I don't know for sure how I got started, but I'll try. I started going on the internet because Lego magazines prompted me to. In 2009, I was making series of pictures that told a story for the gallery on the Lego Indiana Jones website. I found this site somehow and saw that people used stop-motion animation to make Lego films (I had already heard of Lego films, but never saw one until I came here). I thought I would do it, because it's like what I was already doing but with more pictures. I made a batch of choppy tests (now gone) and a choppy little Indiana Jones short film with my parents' digital camera. I made a choppy short film at a summer animation class with the (teenage) teacher's old Lego (5 fps, Windows Movie Maker). I called it "Bricks", and thought to make a series out of it. Then I made a slightly less choppy short film (6.5 fps, Stop Motion Pro) for school about recycling. That was when I moved to the tabletop. Then I got a webcam and upgraded to 12 fps. I made a few light flicker-filled tests. Then I realized I had to turn the focus and light contols to manual (left gain on auto). I started Bricks: Episode 1 without a script. There was some slight light filcker. I turned the gain off auto and it was fine.
Nathan Wells was homeschooled; phantom, JK, Caidence, LegoComDude, RedBrick1, AniMax, Mighty Wanderer, Funtastic Films, and I (among probably a lot others) are as well.
Added myself to the list.
ANYWAY...
How I got started was watching Graeme Allen's films on Vimeo. And of course I wanted to make my own film. I made a (failed) Lego Agents movie. But my films weren't really found until I posted the first episode of John And Kristene. To the Vimeo group known as Brickfilms. I received lots of advice by a lot of people but mainly The one and only Living Lego. 1 1/2 years later I finally got the Camera known as the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. I also downloaded the program monkey jam. I consider this the stage of when my films went from crap to average.
Off-topic (But it's my thread, so nyah!)
...but mainly The one and only Living Lego...
I'm "one and only". I just got a mega ego boost.
So you're Nathan...
2006. Summer. Bored. Internet. Youtube. Brickfilms.
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