fallentomato

Those coming to Brickworld Chicago this year should submit a film to the first annual Brickworld Film Festival run by David Pagano and myself. And every LEGO animator ever should check out these two official LEGO contests to create commercials for LEGO City and Monster Hunters.

Karate, magic show, and soccer, are all awesome. I like that they are showing how each of the characters has many interests and hobbies. I really wish they'd put a few male figures in the sets (especially the larger ones). I get that LEGO is trying to balance out the low number of female minifigs in it's boy-marekted sets, but having an imbalance the other direction is not the way to fix that. Having a good mix of male/female figures in all themes is. Olivia's dad Peter is still the only one. Even Belville had some male figures for us men who like pink to use as a gateway.

Very nice work! A great accomplishment for your first flick!

A really impressive technical achievement. The lighting, camera moves and transition are top notch. Many kudos on making the floating scenes look so natural. My only quibble would be that the animated faces doesn't blend with the actual face perfectly. Not sure if anyone other than us animation snobs will notice that though.

I try to be observant It's a nice change of pace to see a brick animation that really rewards it. The Fabuland heads are really great for their range of movement. I really need to put one on a Belville body and animate with that... I'm honored to hear that my interview was helpful, I've done several of them and am never quite sure who reads/listens to them, so it's always nice to hear that (especially coming from someone who has made a great animation)

Thanks for sharing this! Fabuland animations are a real rarity and this one might be the best animated of the ones out there. After watching it about half a dozen times I think I understand what's really going on. <- The progression of my emotions while watching again and again. I think my absolute favorite moment is the sweeling lighting and music in the bedroom at 1:20. The horses randomly turning into cows, pigs, and sheep is nice too. This film had such an impact on me that it drove me to write a blog post rounding up all the Fabuland animations I could find. Again, great work!

It's been a while since I've posted a regular MOC (as opposed to an animation) on Eurobricks , but I'm particularly proud of this one (and am trying to get it turned into a set on Cuusoo: bit.ly/LK5hH0). It is inspired by some of my favorite sets from the LEGO action themes of my youth (the early 90s). The Crystal Exploer Sub and Flying Time Vessel should be really obvious influences to anyone familiar with them This is the "default configuration" because I think it looks the best like this, but the different vehicle components are all designed to be exchanged eaily to convert it into a number of more traditional vehicles. View inside the cockpit: View inside the trunk: I originally built this vehicle as a semi-trailer: More photos on flickr. Let me know what you think (and go support it on Cuusoo if you like it!)

Edit: double post

The Magic School Bus was definitely an inspiration Thanks so much!

Fun! Great job for your first animation! Very clean and smooth.

Robert Vylan pontificates on the meaning of sports before declaring them pointless and proposing some new ones. Sherry is not happy about this. It's been over seven months since the last regular episode, but this is finally done! I hope you all enjoy it, it conatins my favorite joke I've ever written.

It's so great to see a project win without being bouyed by a pop-culture franchachise (don't get me wrong, I love me some pop culture).

So this isn't specifically about LEGO animation, but I thought others here might be interested in seeing the talk I gave to my college film group this week:

Not obnoxious or annoying?

I think it speaks volumes to how open TLG to feedback that this meeting is happening, despite the invalidity of many of the signatures on the petition. Way to go TLG! I hope it is a useful meeting and look forward to hearing about it.

It's been a while since we talked about the implications of the Friends line. One thing that came up in that conversation was the idea that marketing one town-like theme at girls (Friends) implies that the other town offering (City) is aimed at boys. Some contend LEGO City is a gender-neutral product offering. Here's some proof that LEGO city is marketed specifically at boys. TLG put out a pitch for a new commercial for LEGO City here. Highlights: LEGO believes that every young boy has the potential to become a hero A call for heroes! – A strong call for action talks directly to the boys and adds a sense of urgency and excitement Target Audience: Boys 5-11; sweet spot is 5-7 boys.

You're right that there's nothing here we couldn't have inferred, it's more of confirmation that TLG sees the market for town products split on gender lines.

Well Brickworld should definitely take priority :)

As all you are getting you MOCs together for Brickworld, don't forget to enter something in the first annual Brickworld Film Festival that David Pagano and I are running. Or else...

Since there was such a lively discussion here about the gendered marketing of the Friends line, I thought people might be interested to see this. I was trying to keep my opinions out of it, but obviously the very act of posting it means I think it's worthy of discussion. I don't think TLG should be marketing products along gender lines, that will only increase the existing imbalances of boys and girls playing with their products. If you're really interested in my thoughts, you can read the long article I wrote when Friends came out. Yeah, they changed the initial instance of "boys" to "young people" after some people pointed it out in the comments. It's good to know that they recognized that as a mistake when it was pointed out.

Anytime A macro lens is a must for close-ups. I have been using one for my upcoming episode and really loving it:

Your best bet is going to be a DSLR. That's what professional animation houses use (as well as the high-end brick filmers). I use a Micro 4/3 camera (Panasonic Lumix GH2). Micro 4/3 cameras are similar to DSLR in terms of picture quality and ability to swap lens in and out, but they have no physical shutter. That's good for stop-motion, because it's possible to wear out the shutter on a DSLR after many exposures (most are rated for 30,000). You might want to check out Bricks In Motion to see what cameras people are using there. Some animation programs can control motorized jibs for smooth camera movements while animating. Dragon Frame 3 is what professional animators use and has this ability. Hope that helps!

Very creative. It's sad that so much of human history is represented by violoence, but I love the brick animation in the beggining.

I'm a big fan of the alternate builds. I wish LEGO still included ideas like this on the packaging for sets. Very good work using limited parts to make something new and cool. That's what LEGO is all about!

You seem to be talking about feminist sepratism, which is a radical tail of feminism. All large groups contain radical fringes, who are often the most vocal. But considering the fringes to constitute the bulk of a group is dangerous. Saying that feminism is by and large about female superiority, is like conflating the civil rights movement with the Black Panther Party or conflating all Muslims with militant Islamists. The feminist critiques I've seen (and given) of the LEGO Friends sets are primarily feminist arguments of the social-constructionist variety. That is, gender is socially constructed in an on-going basis and the LEGO Group's efforts to segregate their markets by gender are problematic (though obviously retailers and consumers are also part of the equation). I agree that if LEGO Friends gets more children (girls or boys) playing with LEGO who wouldn't otherwise, that's a good thing. In particular I'm stoked to hear so many anecdotes of girls who have never shown an interest in LEGO before being interested in the Friends sets. I just wish that Friends was a little more like Fabuland and a little less like Belville. By which I mean that Fabuland was a line focused on role-play and story-telling that was marketed to both boys and girls. Obviously the building experience in Friends is better than either Fabuland or Belville. ?