Let's Play LEGOs, Episode 1: Let's Build a Treehouse

[JohnFromKS]

Hi. I am a new AFOL and very new to brickfilms. Here is my first real effort. It was filmed and edited entirely on my iPad. I learned a lot while doing it, so I'm hoping future efforts are even smoother.

I really enjoy watching build videos, so this takes that basic concept but adds a bit of storyline behind it. I chose set #31010, the Creator Treehouse, for my first one because it is still pretty new and doesn't yet have a lot of reviews or build videos. Future efforts will mix new and older sets.

Thanks for watching!

Edited June 15, 2013 by Darkdragon
Indexed

[BlueCaret]

Nice first video! You did a pretty good job at making it appear as though they were the ones building it, and good job on aquaman coming out of the water, always enjoy seeing minifigs come out of water, for some reason it's just cool and fun to watch :). The fun facts were a nice touch too.

Some constructive criticism: The sound effects were just a bit too cheesy and you could have done without them, or maybe some better quality ones next time. Whenever you have a character talking, the arms move too rapidly, certainly have them move just don't have the character have a seizure! Also try doing some close up shots once in a while too.

Pretty darn good considering it was all off your iPad! Who says its only a consumption device! :P

[JohnFromKS]

Wow, BlueCaret, thank you for the excellent feedback. I agree -- I think the building aspects and Aquaman/water aspects were my favorite parts. I think when I do more of these, I will probably focus more on the building and a little less on the "plot"; for instance, if I do another build video of a 3-in-1 set, I'll probably have the minifigures build all three sets on camera and minimize the "Oh, no, let's catch Catwoman!" parts :) (I do have some other videos in mind which are not build videos and would have more detailed plots.)

Your constructive criticism was spot-on. Though I am a bit partial to the sounds I used for (a) jumping characters and (b) Spider-man's webs. I liked those for a light-hearted video like this, but I hear what you are saying and will see if there are better options out there for the next one. And I'd definitely want something else for something less cartoony. Also, I am a little more comfortable now with my voice acting, so in the future, I'll probably do voiceovers, which will mean I have to rely less on sound effects to make things interesting.

I see now that the arms move way too much while the minifigs are talking, and I really like your idea about close-ups. I also will be moving from 12 fps to 15 fps, so I'll really want to smooth out the arm movements.

Also, side note: For some reason, the first 30 seconds or so of this on YouTube has really weird framing issues that affect the readability of some subtitles. It's not like that in my master copy, and I am 99% sure it wasn't like that when I first loaded it on YouTube or linked to it here, but for some reason it's like that now. I am going to try to set some time aside in the next few days to see if I can fix and/or re-load it.

Thanks again for your feedback!

[BlueCaret]

Your welcome!

Also, side note: For some reason, the first 30 seconds or so of this on YouTube has really weird framing issues that affect the readability of some subtitles. It's not like that in my master copy, and I am 99% sure it wasn't like that when I first loaded it on YouTube or linked to it here, but for some reason it's like that now. I am going to try to set some time aside in the next few days to see if I can fix and/or re-load it.

That reminds me, meant to comment on the subtitles, they were a bit hard to read. I was gonna suggest, and I'm not sure how easy this would be, but do comic book style speech bubbles instead? That'd add an interesting aspect to it considering it is a video. Assuming you don't move to voice acting anyway.

[burlogh]

It was so cute and funny! I've even forgot how awful is this set :)

[JohnFromKS]

Your welcome!

That reminds me, meant to comment on the subtitles, they were a bit hard to read. I was gonna suggest, and I'm not sure how easy this would be, but do comic book style speech bubbles instead? That'd add an interesting aspect to it considering it is a video. Assuming you don't move to voice acting anyway.

Funny you should suggest that. That was my original idea. However, I could not find any software that would allow for smooth word balloons. Basically, the closest I could find allowed me to manually draw a word balloon, but I would have to re-draw it again for each frame. So, for just three seconds of dialogue at 15 fps, I'd need to draw it 45 times and even the slightest differentiation from frame to frame would be picked up. Either that, or I could freeze the entire frame (including the speaking minifigure) while the thought balloon was on screen. Neither alternative seemed ideal to me.

I went back on forth with several different styles, sizes and locations of subtitles. The one I settled on seemed to work best for me initially, but I am close to the project and know the script, I am probably not the best judge -- I can recite the lines in my sleep, so it's hard for me to say if someone else would "get" what is being said :) I appreciate your feedback!

I did another video in the meantime just to be shared with local friends to promote an upcoming event of ours. (I would share it more widely, but it uses some copyrighted music.) In that video, I did voiceovers for all of the characters, male and female. I am hardly an expert, particularly for the female characters, but it got me over my initial "I can't use my own voice" fears :)

It was so cute and funny! I've even forgot how awful is this set :)

Thank you, burlough! I am still relatively new to being a LEGO fan, so I did not realize this was considered an awful set :) I personally kinda like it, but most of my stuff so far has been Super Hero sets (which are fun, but not always the most creative build experiences because of the specialized parts) and larger Creator 3-in-1 houses. I have stockpiled several other sets, though, that I hope to get to soon!

[Lordofdragonss]

Haha I anjeoyed this video so much! Subscribed to see more!