Lord of the Rings Brickfilm WIP

[Cwertle]

I have decided to undertake a large project, and try to make the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy into a Brickfilm.

I did though need a few tips on the making of it, so if anyone could help me with these things it would be great.

Sound effects- Does anyone know of good sites for free, safe, sound effects?

Fireworks- I am not very good at special effects so i was hoping for a simple way to have fireworks.

Large buildings and armys- I do not have a big a collection as most of you guys, so do you think I should use microscale for these?

Voices or subtitles- Which of these should I use?

Comments appreciated

[RPGer]

Wow, this looks great! I can't wait for more!

 

[Fives]

This does sound like a massive undertaking. I have dabbled in making stop motion LEGO movies, but nothing very big. From the sounds of it, you don't have the LEGO collection to do LOTR.

Anyway, I do have some advice on most of things you are asking. First, sound effects are hard to find for free online. The best thing you could do would be to take the audio from the films and match your footage with it. If you cannot do this, then you will just have to look on the internet a lot until you find what you need.

Large buildings and armies is tricky if you have a small collection. If you can't accomplish huge armies, Photoshop can be a good help. As for buildings, you may need to look for ways to gather more bricks.

As for fireworks, I'm unsure, but Photoshop could be handy here too.

If you want some inspiration, this is the best LOTR stop motion video I have ever seen. Hopefully it will inspire you:

[Cwertle]

Thanks for the advice! Maybe i could turn this into a comic instead of a brickfilm, that would simplfy things, though it wouldnt be as exicting.

Also, that was a great movie, gimlis laugh cracked me up!

[Cwertle]

Sorry for double post, but could a Mod change the topic name to Lord of the Rings Comic WIP? Thank you.

[Darkdragon]

I suggest not skimping on the sound. You don't want to put months of time into animating just to have your film ruined by horrible sound. Buy some professional sound effects and you will be very happy. You can create great fireworks effects using built-in tools in VFX tools such as Apple Motion and Adobe After Effects. Fireworks are very basic compared to many other effects (they are just color particle emmitter, no big deal).

I recommend getting your sound from Digital Juice http://www.digitaljuice.com/products/product_lines.asp?plid=156

For voice acting, you can conscript some voice actors but don't let your friends do it (unless they are professional voice actors). Again, don't let your film be ruined by bad sound. If you can't afford to do this, just write a script that doesn't rely on voice acting and instead works through visuals and sound effects to tell the story.

If all this sounds like a lot of money/work/difficulty then maybe you are right in thinking you should do it as a comic. The great thing about a comic is that you can use it later as a storyboard when you have more money/time/skill to create the actual animation.

[Cwertle]

Thanks for the advice! I am a bit tight on money, so I think ill use your idea as the comic as a storyboard, and probably start the brickfilm sometime after the Lotr sets come out.

I have experimented with making my own sound effects before, the attached file is a movie with one.

The movie is a bit outdated, I could certainly do much better animation than that.

[BUBA]

Wow, i´ve never seen that! It´s massive!

This does sound like a massive undertaking. I have dabbled in making stop motion LEGO movies, but nothing very big. From the sounds of it, you don't have the LEGO collection to do LOTR.

Anyway, I do have some advice on most of things you are asking. First, sound effects are hard to find for free online. The best thing you could do would be to take the audio from the films and match your footage with it. If you cannot do this, then you will just have to look on the internet a lot until you find what you need.

Large buildings and armies is tricky if you have a small collection. If you can't accomplish huge armies, Photoshop can be a good help. As for buildings, you may need to look for ways to gather more bricks.

As for fireworks, I'm unsure, but Photoshop could be handy here too.

If you want some inspiration, this is the best LOTR stop motion video I have ever seen. Hopefully it will inspire you: