First up is the 2017 Brickfilmer’s Guild Film Festival. This annual contest doesn’t have a physical prize, but does have pretty good bragging rights as it’s one of the biggest annual brickfilming contests and the past winners are all famously good films.
Second is Brickset’s Thor-related Brickfilming Contest. “The only requirement is that it features Thor in one form or another — it could be custom, brick-built, older minifig, newer minifig or anything — the rest is up to you” The prize pack is “a LEGO Super Heroes prize pack consisting of four LEGO MARVEL Super Hero sets and exclusive San Diego Comic-Con LEGO Thor poster.”
Last, but not least, Rebrick is holding a competition to celebrate the opening of the LEGO House. “Show us your idea of a day at the LEGO House in a fun stop-motion video – and your imagining could become a reality!” The animation must be betweeen 15 and 30 seconds. The grand prize is a trip for 2 to Denmark to visit the LEGO House!
Will you be entering any of these contests? let us know in the comments.
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For the Spirit of Adventure Contest, we are looking for brickfilms that convey a sense of adventure.
This theme is intentionally broad and is open to any interpretation. An adventure could take place in any setting and any time period. It could be any film genre, and could even be based on historical events. It does not need to be a dialogue-based film. As long as something adventurous happens, the rest is up to your imagination
The deadline to enter is Sept 10, 2017. Head on over to the official contest announcement for more details.
]]>As previously mentioned, this is the first year that we opened it up to entrants from across the globe, and it showed—we received 34 eligible entries; a record number for our festival!
The winners were voted on by an audience of ~100 Brickworld registered attendees. Without further ado, here are the winning entries:
Best Film (by a Brickworld Chicago attendee): “Sale of a Lifetime” by Casey McCoy
Best Film (International): “The Adventures of Kentucky Jackson” by Kris Theorin
“Full Time Job” by Tyler Eyerly placed 2nd and “A Horse’s Tale” by Gregory & Garry Moore came in 3rd in the international voting.
All the eligible festival entries were screened in a continuous loop for the 8000+ attendees of the Brickworld Chicago exposition on Saturday June 17 and Sunday June 18. We also presented a special screening of “Bricks in Motion” (the North American premiere!) to registered attendees.
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to everyone who submitted a film! You can check out all of the submitted films via the following playlist. Enjoy!
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We want this to be the best brickfilm festival ever, so we have very few eligibility requirements (see the official rules below). Your film doesn’t have to be recently made or contain any specific theme. We want your best work of all time. All eligible films will screen continuously in the Brickfilm Theater for the duration of Brickworld Chicago. The attendees of Brickworld Chicago will vote on the films to decide the winners. We’ve also pulled together a pretty awesome prize pack for the winner.
And while attending Brickworld Chicago isn’t required to enter the contest, we highly recommend it. In addition to the film festival, we will be running a LEGO animation workshop, screening a special film, showcasing models from our latest animations and just generally hanging out and talking about LEGO. You can register for Brickworld Chicago on their website.
Official Rules
- Anyone can enter a film in the festival, but you must be a Full Registrant of Brickworld Chicago to be eligible for the “Best Film” Trophy.
- Your film must be longer than 30 seconds and shorter than 5 minutes in length.
- Your film must be uploaded to YouTube.
- Your film should use LEGO elements to tell a story. It can be animated or live action, or a combination of the two.
- Your film must not have been submitted to any previous Brickworld Film Festival.
- By entering your film for consideration, you attest that you hold all rights to exhibit the given work. This includes (but is not limited to) visuals, music, and characters. Unlicensed use of copyrighted material is not allowed.
- Limit one (1) entry per director.
- Films should be enjoyable by all ages. Film content such as (but not limited to) curse words/swearing, excessive violence, sexual content, and drug use will be grounds for disqualification.
- To submit, e-mail [email protected] by June 5, 2017 with the following information:
- A link to your film on YouTube
- A completed entry form
- There will be two winners of the festival
- Best of Brickworld Chicago – a Brickworld “Best Film” trophy will be awarded to the film submitted by a Brickworld Chicago Full Registrant that receives the most votes from the audience at Brickworld Chicago.
- Best of Brickworld International – a Prize Pack (approximate retail value $250 USD) will be awarded to the film that receives the most votes from the audience at Brickworld Chicago.
- By submitting your film, the Brickworld Film Festival is granted the right to use and/or publish clips or the full videos, screenshots, director and crew names, and any other material related to an entry in the event program, the Brickworld Film Festival screening, the Brickworld website, re-screenings at future Brickworld events, and for any and all promotional purposes.
Prize Pack Details
- 8077: Atlantis Exploration HQ
- 60134: Fun in the Park – City People Pack
- 21103: The DeLorean Time Machine
- 71238: Cyberman
- Misc. Collectable Minifigures (x6)
- 40021: Spiders
- 852948: Female Minifigure Magnets
- 6868: Hulk’s Hellicarrier Breakout
- 852690: Designer’s Toolset
- Medieval and WWII BrickStix packs
- Signed copy of Brickjournal Issue #14
- Signed copy of The LEGO Animation Book
If you have any questions, please e-mail [email protected]. We look forward to seeing your films!
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As a LEGO Creator themed contest, the goal is for entrants to create a 15 to 45 second stop-motion animation showing the building and rebuilding of a LEGO Creator 3-in-1 set. Films cannot feature other LEGO parts that are not included in the specific LEGO Creator 3-in-1 set used by an entrant, nor can the video feature anything besides the LEGO set (such as hands or clay). The video’s background must also be clean and uncluttered, according to the ReBrick rules. I assume this is to ensure that the completed videos correspond with the LEGO Creator branding and are similar to the building videos already featured on the LEGO Creator website.
In contrast to the previous stop-motion contests on ReBrick, this contest does not allow Creative Commons music or sound effects. Unfortunately for those who aren’t musically talented (
), the rules state that all sounds and music must be original and created by the entrant or from a “LEGO movie editor/music creator.” If this is referencing the LEGO Movie Maker app, then many people are out of luck due to the recent closure of the app. (If there is some other LEGO movie editor/music creator app out there, please let us know in the comments!)
The contest is now open and runs until March 22, 2017 at 10:00 am EST. As with every ReBrick contest, it is only available for entrants ages 13 and older. I look forward to seeing many of your awesome entries there!
Do you think this contest looks fun? Are you planning on entering? What do you think about the rules? Tell us down in the comments below! Also be sure to check out The Set Bump on Facebook and Twitter!
]]>Have you been following Battle of the Brick Flicks by digitalwizardz? Every week he pits two well-known brickfilmers against each other and lets the audience vote which one should move on to the next round. My favorite part of this contest is the interviews he does with the brickfilmers. Always fun to get some behind-the-scenes info.
The talking dog is fun too.
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Bricks by the Bay is the latest LEGO fan event to add a brickfilming component to their schedule. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m involved with this one, too (though only as a judge).
Here’s the lowdown on the festival:
Show off your LEGO animation skills at the Bricks by the Bay Brickfilm Festival. Create a film that exemplifies the convention theme, or send us your most recent stop-motion masterpiece, and it might be part of a screening for convention attendees.
Winners in the following categories will be announced during the Bricks by the Bay Convention awards ceremony, and will receive a brick-built trophy and a LEGO set:
- Best Film
- Best Film in the convention theme (2104: “Fun & Games”)
- Best Story
- Best Technical Achievement
- Young Filmmaker Award (12 and under)
- Special “Sweatbox” award to the best Film by a convention attendee
All of the rules and regulations for entering the festival can be found here. The submission window closes July 1st, but it’s open to everyone (including non-attendees) and any film made in the past year is eligible. There’s literally no reason not to submit. Do it!
Brickfilm Festival » Bricks by the Bay
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We’re very excited to announce the third annual Brickworld Film Festival!
The Brickworld Film Festival is part of Brickworld Chicago, one of the largest conventions of LEGO fans in the world. Last year, we invited attendees to submit their brick animations (or live-action brick flicks) and screened the 8 entries (spanning a variety of genres and styles, from a live-action comedy sketch to a pulp-style space adventure) to an enthusiastic audience of over 160 people.
The event theme for Brickworld Chicago 2014 is “Candy, Sweet Escapes,” so we’re asking this year’s entrants to keep this concept in mind when creating/selecting their submissions. We expect to see some films featuring the Ice Cream Machine and Downtown Bakery. However, we’re also hoping to see other creative approaches to the theme; for instance, last year’s winning film, “From Baking to Bad Guys,” could easily fit in this year’s theme.
Like last year, David and David will carefully review all the entrants, and select the best one to declare the winner. Additionally, an ‘Audience Favorite’ will be voted on during the festival screening.
For those of you on the fence about attending Brickworld Chicago, keep in mind there’s more to the event than just the film festival. On Thursday, we’ll be teaching a three-hour workshop on brick animation, which covers basic techniques and includes some hands-on animation time. There are also displays, workshops, presentations, contests, games, and a ton of LEGO bric-a-brac to keep your attention.
Official Rules
- You must be a Full Registrant of Brickworld Chicago to enter.
- Your film must be longer than 30 seconds and shorter than 5 minutes in length.
- Your film must be uploaded to YouTube.
- Your film should use LEGO elements to tell a story. It can be animated or live action, or a combination of the two.
- Your film must not contain any copyrighted audio. Bricks in Motion has a great list of places you can find royalty free music and sound effects.
- Your film should incorporate the theme “Candy, Sweet Escapes” in some way.
- Your film must not have been submitted to any previous Brickworld Film Festival.
- Limit one film submission per person.
- Films should be enjoyable by all ages. Curse words, excessive violence, sexual content, and drug use will be grounds for disqualification.
- To submit, e-mail [email protected] by June 1, 2014 with the following information:
- Your Full Name
- Your Age
- A link to your film on YouTube
- A prize will be awarded to the film that best exemplifies the LEGO values of creativity, fun, and technical excellence; as decided by the judges.
- An additional prize will be awarded to the film that receives the most votes from the audience at the festival screening.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments. Also, leave a comment if you’re planning to attend Brickworld Chicago. We look forward to seeing your films!
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One can choose between five notable brickfilming contests with deadlines between Christmas morning and the end of year. Two of the competitions do not even require that the brickfilm be made special for that particular contest, just as long as it was made in 2013. All of the contests have prizes. 
BricksInMotion.com will be holding their annual Twenty-four Hour Animation Contest just a few days before the end of the year. THAC11 will start at 12pm GMT on Saturday December 28th, 2013. Brickfilmers that enter a THAC do all the idea-making, writing, recording, animating, editing and submitting in just one twenty-four hour period. It can be quite a grueling process. At the start time of the contest, details about THAC will be announced on BIM that will include the theme and mod elements. Although BIM has a few other official contests, I tend to view THAC as their most prestigious contest. Some notable past winners are Sméagol, Legoander, ForlornCreature, and SpastikChuwawa. The contest does have prizes from its sponsor Brickworld. Hazzat (Zoot Productions) is administering the contest announcement thread on BIM. Let’s hope for an on time start this year as there has been issues with that in the past.
A Repelling Spider is hosting another installment of Christmas in a Minute. The goal of the contest is to make a 20-60 second Christmas themed brickfilm that “can stand out and claim a victory”. There are prizes for the winners which were provided by contest sponsors Firestar Toys and Mighty Wanderer. The deadline is Christmas Eve, Tuesday December 24, 2013 at 11:59pm EST. For more information about this great contest, watch the announcement video here.
Members of the French brickfiming website Brick-à-Brack can enter Brickstars. Brick-à-Brack hosts their big annual brickfilm contest at the end of the year. Any film released in the year 2013 is eligible for this contest. Entries will be judged in several different categories such as Best Soundtrack, Best Production Design, Best Special Effects, Best Screenplay, Best Animation, and Best Brickfilmer. Other awards will also be given out for “Most Promising Video” and “Audience Award” that is voted on by Brick-à-Brack members. Past winners have included great brickfilmers such as France & Alex, Legoander, Aiwha, and Loïc F-B.
I was hoping to report about a sixth brickfilming contest, but it appears that Megabloks Toymation will not have a 2013 edition. That’s too bad as the past winners have had some really great entries.
Happy competing!
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Everything you need to know is right here, but allow me to make fun of the executional mandatories and highlight other silly tidbits from the rules:
The world of LEGO® is large, but you are free to use any of the characters that appear in the trailer as part of your creation.
Don’t let the fact that all the characters shown in the trailer are only available in sets that don’t come out until a week before this contest is over hamper your creativity!
If submitting a live action entry, do not reenact life threatening or potentially dangerous situations. For example, do not stand in the middle of traffic, do not swing a dolphin, do not try to fight crime like Batman.
Do not glue a LEGO brick to your back, do not name a character Wyldstyle, do not spoil all of Batman’s funny lines by putting them in the trailer…
For this project only, all entries will become the property of the Sponsor upon submission. However, Sponsor agrees not to exploit a submission without compensation to the submitter.
Phew! For a minute there, I was worried about being exploited!
As thefourmonkeys pointed out, there’s a long tradition of recreating movie trailers in LEGO, so I would not be surprised to see this trailer recreated in stop-motion. I would take the Honest Trailers approach myself.
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(If you are scratching your head thinking, “Brickumentary? Didn’t I already see that, and wasn’t the name better?” — you are thinking of “Blocumentary” from 2010, and the sequel webseries. Jess Gibson and her team did an excellent job with these, so I highly recommend them. And since the official LEGO YouTube channel is a morass of bizarre playlists, I pulled them together in a playlist on the Set Bump channel.)
Back to the matter at hand, “Brickumentary” is a feature-length documentary about LEGO being made by Futuristic Films. (Perhaps they’ll take a cue from the other feature-length LEGO movie coming out next year and switch to a simpler title like “The LEGO Documentary”). We saw them filming at Brickworld Chicago 2013, so production is definitely underway.
The tie-in ReBrick contest challenges users to make a stop motion animation that explains what an AFOL is in under 2 minutes. The grand prize winner will potentially be used in the film and potentially be commissioned to create additional brickfilms for “Brickumentary” and definitely for sure gets a signed Sydney Opera House set. Perusing the official rules pulls up some other interesting details (my emphasis added for humorous and editorial effect):
- The video must be uploaded to YouTube (videos submitted from other sources, such as Vimeo or Flickr might not play on ReBrick and will inhibit voting)
- You must capture your film using these specifications: 1920 x 1080 H.264 MPEG @ 24fps (23.98)
- Entries with military vehicles or vehicles featuring weapons will not be eligible for the Challenge
- Entry movies should not show recognizable features of any person or any commercial product
- Entrants may not use LEGO Bricks in their Entries that can be clearly identified as part of a third party branded LEGO set… Entrants may not use Minifigures from these sets or any decorated pieces that would identify one of these properties if used in an original creation
- …all intellectual property rights to your Entry and any materials submitted by you are automatically awarded and completely transferred to LEGO
In line with our increasing concerns over the exploitative nature of the LEGO Tongal contests, we urge you to consider the possible costs and benefits before entering this contest. Getting officially commissioned to do a brickfilm is a pretty cool opportunity, but considering that you are essentially doing spec work to get that opportunity, it might not be worth it.
Show Us an AFOL Competition – ReBrick
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1) In addition to the DC Universe Tongal Contest, LEGO also launched a Marvel one. Since I already made fun of the “executional mandatories” in the last post, I’m all out of jokes on this one.
2) I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of Monitogo Studios or Greg Tull. Even though he’s been making brick animations since 2008, none have been released online. Unless you were at SAICFF 2009, you probably missed their last animation.
David and I first met Greg Tull during our “Intro to LEGO Animation” workshop at Brickworld a few years ago. The workshop is three hours long, so we let the audience interrupt frequently with questions and comments. In addition to the usual questions about how to make characters fly and what frame rate we use, one audience member kept raising his hand to discuss the finer points of DragonFrame and advanced lighting techniques. My co-author joked “maybe you should be the one up here teaching the class.”
The very next year, Greg was leading his own workshop on brick animation which gave participants hands-on experience animating and taught them how to think about lighting and camera angles the way a Hollywood director would. It was a great compliment to our workshop and it was a nice opportunity for us to be students again. This year, Greg had a last-minute commitment that prevented him from attending most of Brickworld, but he still drove 8 hours (each way) just so he could give the “Advanced Animation Workshop” again.
I say all of this to give you a sense of who Greg is and show how dedicated he is not only to making brick animations, but to teaching and inspiring others. He follows through on his promises, even if it means putting in some extra hours of tedium on very little sleep. If that’s not the mark of a true animator, I don’t know what is.
The few glimpses of “Bound” on display on the Kickstarter page are promising, the animation is fluid and the facial animation is good (if you’re into that). There are some epic wide shots in the video (starting at about 1:21) and I really want to see the parts of the film set in the mine. I talked at length in my last post on this subject about why I think it’s important to support artists, so it should come as no surprise to you that I’m supporting this one.
Will “Bound” be a success like “Melting Point” or will it join “Ghost Town” among the ranks of brick animation projects on Kickstarter that didn’t quite make it? Only you can decide! Go check out the project on Kickstarter!
3) Here’s a really great interview with the directors and co-director of “The LEGO® Movie.” More interesting tidbits about how the film is animated:
…with stop motion there’s no motion blur because every frame is its own little thing. We found out if a character is moving really fast across the screen, it was going to get a little bit jumpy. And so, we developed this brick-built motion blur of the characters when they’re moving really fast, and we have these special clever solves for things like that.
See!? Even fancy Hollywood people with budgets of millions of dollars prefer brick-built special effects! Or at least brick-built-and-then-cleverly-replicated-in-a-photo-realistic-CG-environment special effects. I really can’t wait to watch every behind-the-scenes feature on this movie.
Miller: It was inspired a lot by brick films that people make online. There are a ton of these on YouTube where these people very creatively make funny, funny LEGO movies and the limitations of the characters is kind of funny. Also, there are some photographers that photograph the little LEGO people and try to make it look really epic, just from the lighting. And we thought that was pretty cool when they tried to marry a cinematic lighting style with a brick film aesthetic.
Lord: I think it was a choice we made the instant that Dan Lin pitched us the project. We were like, “Well, if you did it like this, we would be interested. But if you don’t, if no one will commit to that, then there’s no way we’ll do it.”
This commitment to the visual aesthetic gives me a lot of hope for this movie and what it could mean for other LEGO movies and TV shows in the future. If this is a runaway success, maybe the goofy CGI of the Cartoon Network shows and Traveler’s Tales games will give way to more “realistic” stop-motionesque CGI or maybe even honest-to-goodness stop-motion? I can dream at least
The interview goes into a lot more about the voice actors, some classic LEGO themes they are including, and so on, so definitely check it out if you are interested in every little scrap of information about this movie (and if you aren’t please let me know before I write 10 more blog posts on the subject).
There is also some shaky handheld footage of the Comic-Con panel available: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. I haven’t watched these all the way through yet, but the kid who asks a question at the beginning of Part 4 is awesome.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Video Project on Tongal
“Bound” – Fun. Animated. Brickfilm on Kickstarter
Comic-Con: Directors Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Chris McKay Talk THE LEGO MOVIE on Collider
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Here’s another chance to win some money for making a brick animation. As always, we urge you read the “Executional Mandatories:”
• No mixing of the DC Comics Super Hero characters with any Marvel characters
• DC Super Heroes should always appear heroic and their actions should reflect their identity
• DC Super Heroes can be placed in humorous situations but they should not appear dumb, stupid or silly.
• Content should be family friendly – no foul language, sexual situations, blood or extreme violence
• DC Super Hero characters should not be portrayed using alcohol, tobacco or drugs
• Do not use any crude body humor with the DC Super Heroes
• Do not use the DC Super Heroes in any religious or political situations
In other words, this is not the contest for ForrestFire Films.
The many LEGO Tongal contests have been a good source of new brick animations (awesome!), constraints and money are always big drivers of creativity, but we are still wary of this trend as it is very easy for these kinds of competitions to cross into exploitation of artists (not awesome). As always, we urge you to think critically about the costs and benefits of participating.
LEGO DC Universe Super Heroes Video Project
]]>I can’t believe I’ve never mentioned The BrickFlix Film Festival before! It’s not like I co-run it or anything.
BrickFlix is a yearly screening held in Durham, NC at The Carolina Theatre. It started in 2010 as part of the BrickMagic LEGO fan festival, but has since branched off into it’s own event. As far as I know, it’s the only yearly screening in North America that showcases brick animation and other LEGO fan films in a real theater. And after each screening, there’s a Q&A session where directors are invited to answer questions and talk about their films.
BrickFlix 2013 took place last week and, in addition to the 122 audience attendees, also saw our largest Q&A panel ever! Directors from Aquamorph Productions, Animato Studios, Sonjira Central, Annoying Noises Productions, and Lucasetak J were all on hand to explain their inspirations, accomplishments, and techniques.
We’re still waiting on confirmation for BrickFlix 2014, but as soon as we have a date, we’ll open it up for submissions. Rest assured that when the date is confirmed, I’ll let you know here. In the meantime, enjoy this year’s playlist!
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We’re grateful to all the Lego filmmakers who dedicated hours to making these films. We know how much work and courage it takes to make a film and show it to a crowd of strangers. Without them, there wouldn’t have been a festival.
This year we gave out two trophies. The “Most Popular Film” trophy went to Paul Vermeesch (and friends) for “Nottingham Tower.”
“Nottingham Tower” was easily the most technically impressive and ambitious film in the festival. It features smooth animation, fast-paced fight choreography, and impressive camera movements. We were quite pleased to see it win the popular vote; it was richly deserved.
The second trophy went to the film that David and I agreed on as being the most well-rounded. We looked for a film that balanced story-telling, creativity, humor, and technical skill while also fitting into the Brickworld 2013 theme of Heroes and Villains. The winner of “Best Film” was “From Baking to Bad Guys” by Caleb Schilling.
We felt that of all the films submitted, this one did the best job of giving the audience an understanding of the protagonist’s motivations. The protagonist has a clear goal (become a real fire fighter), faces challenges along the way (he is better at cooking than fighting fires), but ultimately triumphs. The film also did an excellent job of setting a mood through the lighting and music, and it featured interesting animation throughout (the opening city shot and the cake baking sequence are my favorites).
After we finished the main festival screening, we showed some of our favorite brick animations that we’ve highlighted on this blog in the past year. You can see the playlist we screened here. Thanks to every one who came out for the festival! We hope to see even more people there next year.
P.S. On Thursday of Brickworld we taught a 3-hour workshop on LEGO Animation. We took that opportunity to publicly unveil the Set Bump Logo for the first time. Here’s a photo of that which is 100% candid and not at all staged:
It’s been a while since we blogged about a Tongal Contest, but this one was just too ridiculous to pass up.
You may be familiar with Akiyama Makuro and the robotic heroes from Tongal’s first LEGO Hero Factory project but this time the heroes are battling an army of evil brains that ruthlessly inhabit the bodies of innocent beasts, turning them into powerful and destructive villains. Although the heroes defeat the villains’ host bodies, the evil brains simply move to another host relentlessly applying pressure.
What are you waiting for? Go enter an idea! Or are you too busy mindlessly destroying stuff because you’re being controlled by an evil brain? That’s my excuse >:)
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You’ve heard us talk before about “The LEGO Movie”, the forthcoming motion picture from the LEGO Group and Warner Brothers. You’ve also seen our posts regarding various animation contests hosted by Rebrick.com. Well, now the two have become one…
Starting today, brick animators will have the opportunity to submit a video of their own for the chance to be featured in “The LEGO Movie”. From ReBrick.com:
Between March 25th and May 6th, submit your video on ReBrick. The top 25 films with the most community votes will enter a final round of judging, and the winning video will be included in the upcoming movie!
The setup is that the evil Lord Business (played by nice guy Will Ferrell) is going to destroy the entire LEGO world. Emmet, the hero of our movie, inspires all of the citizens of the LEGO world to go out and create cool stuff that will stop him.
We need YOU to help make that cool stuff in LEGO bricks and then shoot your character creating that cool stuff on camera to use in our movie.
To be honest, I found the contest summary a bit confusing, although the mods on ReBrick are answering questions in the comments section. Essentially, the entries for this contest are “video clips” and not “films” — that is, the point is not to tell a story, but to showcase some cool MOC quick-build action in a silent 15-30 second clip. Here’s the rest of the guidelines as I understand them:
- The running time of your clip should be between 15 and 30 seconds long.
- The final frame rate of your clip should be 24 frames per second. You can shoot on “ones” (24 unique frames per second) or “twos” (12 unique frames per second) or anything you want (probably a good idea to stick to factors of 24), as long as the final render is 24 fps.
- Your clip should feature one “hero” character and one “prop” (the prop can be a vehicle, a piece of equipment, or some part of the hero’s environment).
- Your clip must be uploaded to YouTube, and then bookmarked on ReBrick.com.
- Don’t add any sound or music, and don’t have any dialogue. If your clip wins the contest and gets featured in The LEGO Movie, they’ll add the sound design later.
- Don’t use any LEGO characters, sets, or pieces from licensed products, i.e. Disney, Marvel, DC, Lucasfilm, Nickelodeon, etc.
- Keep your set together after you complete your animation — if you win, they might need to recreate it for additional scenes.
- The full rules can be found on the ReBrick.com post.
The contest is open for entries between now and May 6th — but, as with the previous ReBrick contests, the longer you wait, the less time you’ll have for people to vote for your entry. So get building!
ReBrick | Blog | The LEGO Movie Competition with ReBrick
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We’re very excited to announce the second annual Brickworld Film Festival!
The Brickworld Film Festival is part of Brickworld Chicago, one of the largest conventions of LEGO fans in the world. Last year, we invited attendees to submit their brick animations (or live-action brick flicks) and screened the 14 entries to an enthusiastic audience of over 100 people. This year, we’re bringing the contest back… with a vengeance.
The event theme for Brickworld Chicago 2013 is “Heroes and Villains,” so we’re asking this year’s entrants to keep this concept in mind when creating/selecting their submissions. We expect to see many films featuring LEGO Super Heroes sets, Hero Factory characters, and the many action themes that LEGO has produced over the past 35+ years. However, we’re also hoping to see other creative approaches to the theme; for instance, this film from last year’s festival could easily be re-titled “My Mom: The Hero” to fit into this year’s theme.
Like last year, David and David will carefully review all the entrants, and select the best one to declare the winner. Last year’s winning film was “Battery Troubles” by L&H, and you should definitely check it out; both because it’s a great example of what we’re looking for in this festival, and because it’s hilarious. This year’s screening will also feature a new, additional category — the ‘Audience Favorite’ — which will be voted on during the festival screening.
For those of you on the fence about attending Brickworld Chicago, keep in mind there’s more to the event than just the film festival. On Thursday, we’ll be teaching a three-hour workshop on brick animation, which covers basic techniques and includes some hands-on animation time. There are also displays, workshops, presentations, contests, games, and a ton of LEGO bric-a-brac to keep your attention.
Plus, it’s also a rare opportunity to connect with other brick animators in person… previous attendees have included Shatterpoint Entertainment, Whistleworks Pictures, CarrollFilms, SteveFrog8, TLFScarheart, and DarkDragon.
Anyway, we’ve changed the film festival entry rules a little bit since last year, so be sure to read them carefully:
Official Rules
- You must be a Full Registrant of Brickworld Chicago to enter.
- Your film must be longer than 30 seconds and shorter than 5 minutes in length.
- Your film must be uploaded to YouTube.
- Your film should use LEGO elements to tell a story. It can be animated or live action, or a combination of the two.
- Your film must not contain any copyrighted audio. Bricks in Motion has a great list of places you can find royalty free music and sound effects.
- Your film should incorporate the theme “Heroes and Villains” in some way.
- Your film must not have been submitted to any previous Brickworld Film Festival.
- Limit one film submission per person.
- If you would like your film considered for inclusion on the Brickworld 2013 DVD, you will need to complete an additional release form. (We’re working on this; more info to come.)
- Entries that feature actual LEGO themes or licensed characters will not be eligible for inclusion on the Brickworld 2013 DVD.
- Films should be enjoyable by all ages. Curse words, excessive violence, sexual content, and drug use will be grounds for disqualification.
- To submit, e-mail [email protected] by June 1, 2013 with the following information:
- Your Full Name
- Your Age
- A link to your film on YouTube
- A prize will be awarded to the film that best exemplifies the LEGO values of creativity, fun, and technical excellence; as decided by the judges.
- An additional prize will be awarded to the film that receives the most votes from the audience at the festival screening.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments. Also, leave a comment if you’re planning to attend Brickworld Chicago. We look forward to seeing your films!
]]>“The Grand Stratagem” by The Builder Brothers
“No Crawme’s Sing Along” by SpiderSock
“Red Eye” by Nick Durron
What are your favorite THAC X films?
]]>Parker W Young puts a nice twist on the classic brick animation trope of one character struggling against a stubborn inanimate object (e.g. The Dandelion) with “A Lego Christmas.” This is an entry in RepellingSpider‘s Christmas in a Minute Contest. You can see the other entries here.
Wishing everyone a tiny construction worker minifig to fix their electrical problems!
]]>First up, in the ACTION/DRAMA ANIMATION category, is “LEGO Portal 2 Part 1/2” by Kooberz Studios. Director Alex Kobbs has made a name for himself creating LEGO versions of popular video game properties (you can check out more on his YouTube channel), so in many ways, this contest was tailor-made for his work. There are a few neat animation techniques in the video, but what I was most impressed with was the sets — some really cool, detailed renditions of Portal 2 environments and backgrounds, and a ball-jointed GLaDOS that works really well.
(Full disclosure: I’ve only played through Portal 1, though 2 is sitting on my shelf, waiting for a day when I actually have some free time.)
Of course, like many LEGO-animated video game adaptations, there’s not much in the way of story here. This video is billed as a part 1 of 2, and I honestly can’t imagine what part 2 would be apart from more of the same. The video plays out like a clips show of game scenes, presented in a sort of Robot Chicken-esque channel surfing format. If you’ve never played any of the Portal games (or Half-Life, which I am assuming is where those characters who show up at the end are from), there may not be as much for you here, apart from some cool MOCs and animation bits. There’s also a behind-the-scenes video, which is something I always love seeing from other artists.
Next we have an entry from The Four Monkeys: a pretty faithful recreation of the Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer. The audio in their video comes directly from the real trailer; and with it, a storyline for the game told in voice over. Again, we have some really great set pieces that are pretty well matched to the trailer they come from.
I was also really impressed by a few particular moments — the shot of the guy on the jetski, the microscale city shot at 0:49, and the driving scene at 1:00. There’s a surprising amount of chroma keying, but it works and isn’t distracting. This is a solid piece, with as solid of a storyline as the source material allows. (I know I keep bringing up storylines; more on that in a moment.)
Finally, there’s “LEGO The Battle of Helm’s Deep”, a Lord of the Rings-themed sketch from Brotherhood Workshop (whom we’ve mentioned once or twice before). The film has some really nice lighting and shot composition, sweet battle scenes (check out those crowds of warriors!), and consistently well-animated minifigs. Again, I’m not terribly familiar with the source material, but I know enough to say that Legolas is the star here, and his skidding-into-frame and “I’ve got the boooooox” animation are my favorite parts of this short. I assume the “get you a box to stand on” bit comes from one of the movies, and while I’m not sure it’s enough for 2-and-a-half minutes of story, it is a great excuse for some LotR homage action.
Overall, the entries here are heavy on visuals and light on story; perhaps appropriate for what I’m assuming was a video game themed contest (admittedly I’m still a bit confused as to how LotR fits into that). It looks like voting took place on Twitter and ended December 8th, so we should be seeing the winners soon!
If you’re a fan of these properties, I definitely recommend giving these entries a watch. If not, there’s at least some cool brick animation to check out!
Lego Portal 2 Part 1/2
LEGO Grand Theft Auto 5
LEGO The Battle of Helm’s Deep
]]>2. You may not vote for yourself…
7. An entry should win based on it’s own merits. This isn’t a popularity contest.
So if you were a EB member before November 3, 2012, go watch the films and vote!
Some noteworthy moments from my viewing: the parallax effect when Superman flies in Super Heroes Daily Life, the frantic energy and general zaniness of Thor’s Day Off, and the grappling hook animation in Life on Gotham Street.
]]>I watched/played “Lego Adventures” by MySnailEatsPizza1 back when it first came out and really enjoyed it, but I was waiting for the results in the Bricks in Motion Kitchen Sink Contest to be announced before I did shared it here. Now that they’ve been announced I can say that this interactive film deserves its first place finish.
Like any good interactive branching narrative, there are lots of different paths you can take in “Lego Adventures.” Some are dead ends, some are infinite loops, and all of them are a lot of fun (SPOILER: you haven’t really won until you have a pet dragon). The animation and sets in “Lego Adventures” are decent and serve their purpose. The story is a bit convoluted (like any good interactive branching narrative), and seems mostly to exist to tie together some disparate set pieces (superhero fight, escaping a military base, a day at the zoo) the animator envisioned, but in a contest called Kitchen Sink, you can’t really fault the winner for taking a grab-bag approach. Take some time and play through it, you won’t regret it.
Also, if you haven’t seen it before, don’t miss the archetypical interactive brick animation, “Ronald has a Spider on His Head,” by SpastikChuwawa.
]]>Let me preface this by saying how great it is to see the LEGO Group supporting the brick animation fan community with a stop motion app and numerous video contests with substantial prizes. Additionally, I know how much hard work goes into every brick animation released on YouTube, so all the entrants to the ReBrick contest should be very proud of their accomplishments.
That being said, the results of this contest highlight the problems inherent in video competitions that involve a public voting component. Opening a contest to public voting seems like a great way to ensure a fair result, right? (Yay democracy!) However, unless people are incentivized to watch multiple entries, voting will always favor entrants with large, established audiences. One might as well just compare the number of YouTube subscribers each entrant has and declare the winners that way. Additionally, if the voting period overlaps with the entry period, entries finished early will tend to accumulate a disproportionate number of votes. These means that great videos entered by up and comers close to the deadline are basically doomed. (Yay democracy?)
Public voting doesn’t always ruin video contests. Sometimes, public voting will be used in conjunction with judging so that there is a “People’s Choice” winner/finalist in addition to a winner selected. Other times, judges will whittle down the field of entries to a few finalists and let the public vote to determine the winner (as opposed to the reverse, as ReBrick did). I have also seen really elaborate voting systems (i.e. the annual IAWTV nominations) where voters don’t necessarily have to watch every video, but a back-end system ensures that every video is viewed and voted upon by an equal number of voters. In this situations like this, voters are been treated like judges, so it’s more of a crowd-sourced judging than a random popularity contest. So, if you are creating an online video contest, please be thoughtful about how voting is implemented. Judging is almost always better than voting.
Having watched all the entries to the ReBrick contest, here’s the video that I think should have won because it best fits the theme of “spooky fun” and is well made:
And here’s one that was legitimately scary (to me at least):
One final note, the ReBrick contest has lessons for those who seek to enter online video contest too. Read the rules carefully, lest you be disqualified like two films were that would have otherwise been semifinalists were in this contest.
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“What Does LEGO Mean To You?” on Tongal
The goal of this project is to produce a 2-3 minute video that is emotionally resonant and explores what LEGO means to you or your family, or what LEGO means to the world.
This contest is actually open to videos other than stop-motion animation, but given that the winning video(s) will be featured on a relaunched BuildTogether website, mimicking the hybrid live action/stop-motion style of the previous commercials might be the best way to go. I really hope the Four Monkeys enter this contest (nudge nudge), I can’t think of a better poster family for the power of building together. As with other Tongal contests, there are multiple phases, so be sure to read the details.
2012 Brickfilmer’s Guild Animation Festival
Speaking of the Four Monkeys, they are currently accepting submissions for a contest that will highlight the best brick animations made in 2012. All you need to do to submit a video response to their YouTube video. You can enter up to three videos and there are very few restrictions (read the description of their YouTube video for details). You’d be silly not to submit. They are also looking for sponsors to donate prizes, so those with LEGO-related businesses should consider what they can donate. Also, have you been to the Brickfilmers Guild yet? It’s like MOCpages for brick animators.
Superhero Moviemaker Video Contest on Eurobricks
This won’t be the same old superhero movie we’ve seen a hundred times. We want to see a superhero or villian in daily life, not fighting the bad guys (or causing trouble for the hero).
This contest is a great excuse to use the LEGO Super Heroes Movie Maker iOS app and there are exclusive minifigs on the line. The theme has the typical cheeky Eurobricks humor and I look forward to seeing what the community produces. As always, you should go read the details.
Are there other animation contest out there right now that you are excited about? Let us know in the comments.
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The details on the aforementioned ReBrick Halloween video contest have surfaced…
- The building contest is open to all users 16 years and older holding a ReBrick account. The voting process is open to all users holding a Rebrick account.
- To submit an entry: Upload your video on YouTube (we do not host content on ReBrick) and add a bookmark to the video in the special themed category: Building Challenge on ReBrick.
- Video must not exceed 3 minutes.
- Entries must incorporate the theme of spooky fun.
- The contest begins October 1st at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST). Entries submitted to ReBrick before this date and time will not be accepted into the contest. Competition are open for submissions until October 29th 2012 at 8:59 A.M. EST.
- A panel of judges will review the five (5) bookmarks with most likes and select one (1) grand prize winner. The five semi-finalist videos will be reviewed based on creativity, originality and theme.
- Judging will begin at 9:00 A.M. EST on October 29th 2012 and will end at 9:00 A.M. EST on October 31st 2012.
- Entries must only contain elements from the LEGO® collection.
- All entries and entrants must follow the ReBrick House Rules.
- We reserve the right to disqualify any entry that does not follow the official rules. Any form of cheating will result in a banning of user profile from ReBrick.
Grand Prize is a LEGO® Monster Fighters Haunted House signed by LEGO designer Adam Grabowski and a LEGO® Monster Fighters Exclusive Grab Bag — so that’s pretty cool!
I also asked ReBrick editor-in-chief Signe for a bit of clarification on the “Entries must only contain elements from the LEGO® collection” caveat, and here’s what she had to say:
- Q: Do the films have to contain things specifically from the “Monster Fighters” play theme?
- A: No, we just think the Monster Fighters theme is great for Halloween, and that’s why we chose to highlight that theme.
- Q: Or does it mean that the films in general must use only LEGO parts (and nothing from competing brands)?
- A: Yes, exactly. No competing brands. And don’t dress up in homemade Halloween Minifigure costumes, it’s only LEGO products you can use in the film ;o)
- Q: Can people make films using any LEGO sets or parts they want, as long as the topic is appropriately spooky?
- A: You can use any part/set from the LEGO collection you want. We want a Halloween film, so spooky with a twist of fun.
So there you go, guys and gals! Better get building… the contest is only open until October 29th!
]]>The contest *officially* starts next week — and we’ll update you guys with the rules and prizes at that time — but if you’ve been toying with the idea of doing some mysterious and spooky brick animations, you might want to act on that impulse…
ReBrick | Blog | It’s Time for Some Spooky Fun…
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It’s been just about a month since BrickAnimation.com launched, and now that we have some substantial content, we thought it would be a good time to address a glaring issue with our site: it has a boring name.
BrickAnimation.com was a logical domain for us, but it lacks the poetry of titles like The Brothers Brick, Boing Boing, or Gizmodo. We’re hoping you can help us come up with something better.
Here are some ideas we came up with, to give you a sense of what we’re looking for (of course, your name will be much more clever):
- The Brick Animation Handbook
- Moving Bricktures
- 8 Stud Theatre
- Blocks Office
- Studs and Sprockets
The Contest
Post a comment below with your idea(s) for a new name for this site. The ideal name is related to brick animation, easy to say and to remember, and no more than three syllables long. The name cannot contain the word LEGO, “brickfilms”, or any other registered trademark. For consideration, please submit your comment no later than October 24th. And keep in mind, by submitting a name, you are giving us permission to trademark it (and signifying that you agree to our Official Naming Contest Rules). You can enter as many times as you like, but you can only win one prize.
Prizes
- Grand Prize: David and David will create a minifig in your likeness (we promise not to use it in any voodoo rituals) and feature it as the star of a short (< 30 seconds) brick animation. After we’re done animating, we’ll send you the minifig!
- 2nd – 4th place: An honest-to-goodness Little Guys!
figure from Paganomation - 5th – 10th place: A tiny-but-evil Pinchbot from NNN
That’s all there is to it; so get a-brainstormin’!
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In a move that comes completely out of left field, LEGO and Fox Sports have joined forces to align Cleatus, the Fox Sports robotic football mascot, with LEGO Hero Factory. Now, I’m all for wacky mash-ups:
Remember when the Jetsons traveled back to Bedrock in Elroy’s time machine as uninvited guests to the big Flintsone/Rubbel family camping trip? How about when Josie and the Pussycats linked up with the Scooby Doobies in the Laff-A-Lympics?
But, what’s really interesting about this contest is that they’re going long with the concept:
The Pilot that LEGO and Fox like the best will be ordered to a mini series of an additional 3 episodes (4 in total) which you’ll be required to delivered as laid out under the Project Details. If Sponsor orders your Pilot to series, they will retain the option to order an additional 4 episode, 120 second per episode “Season 2 by July 1, 2013” at the pre-negotiated rate of $30,000. Or, they may elect to order single episodes at the rate of $10,000 per episode.
Let’s just hope whoever wins this really knocks it out of the park. The Hero Factory characters have enormous potential for expressive animation because of their ball joints (for the best example of what is possible, see the Bionicle fan-film “The Legend of Ignaqua“), but the budget is kind of low-balled for a stop-motion animation series. Was that enough sports puns for you?
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The LEGO Group has just been going to town with these Tongal contests. The latest one is for their “interactive game” Life of George, and it’s a bit different than previous contests. Rather than a single video, the contest is for a webseries of three 1-2 minute videos. Additionally, only the four people selected in the pitch phase will be able to compete in the video phase (no “wild card” entries). If the winning videos are anything like the viral marketing campaign for the game, they should be a lot of fun.
It’s awesome to see TLG running so many paying contests, and even more awesome that well-known people from the brick animation community like The Four Monkeys and Builder Brothers are winning. But I’m curious as to why TLG hasn’t been promoting the Tongal contests very much (the Superhero ones being the only exception). I discovered the LEGO CITY one only by chance, and have been watching Tongal closely ever since, but I’m sure there are lots of brick animators out there who have no clue these contests are happening. What do you think about all these Tongal contests?
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LEGO has just launched a Tongal contest for LEGO Friends videos with $20,000 at stake. This is the latest of several contests TLG has run through Tongal this year (a few are still open for submissions, so be sure to check them out). The winning entries of the past contests can be viewed on the Fan Creations tab on the new LEGO YouTube page.
While the current phase of the Tongal contest is just for submitting the story ideas that will guide the later video entries, I’m already thinking ahead to the problems that animators will run into in the video phase. Unlike minfigures, which have 7 points of articulation (2 at the hip, 2 shoulders, 2 wrists, 1 at the neck + a bonus 1 with hat/hair), the Friends mini-dolls only have 4 points of articulation (1 at the hip, 2 shoulders, 1 at the neck + bonus one with hat/hair). Because their legs are fused together, mini-dolls can’t perform the standard walk cycle (or the many variants) of their minifig cousins.
So how are the LEGO Friends figures going to get around when it comes time to animate them? Submit a video or image of a mini-doll walk cycle in the comments of this post before September 20th, and I’ll feature the best ones in a follow-up post.