San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend, and it gave us a look at the second trailer for “The LEGO Ninjago Movie”. Putting aside the constant LEGO Movie “parental issues” plotlines, there are some solid gags in this preview—as well as a tease at how this film will integrate the live-action world, which is something that was almost completely lacking from “The LEGO Batman Movie“. I am intrigued.

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie – Trailer 2 – YouTube

Retailing for 35 Singapore dollars (roughly $25 USD), the set includes 152 pieces, most of which seem to be used to build a smartphone camera mount. The camera mount looks like it can tilt using technic connections and do a dolly move by rotating at its attachment point (mixel ball joint) to the set. The set seems to include cardboard backdrops similar to the LEGO Studio sets.

This set hasn’t been officially announced by LEGO, so we don’t have many details, but it’s safe to assume that LEGO will be offering some kind of stop motion app in conjunction with this set. Which would explain why they recently removed their two stop motion apps.

It’s nice to see LEGO returning to this type of set after 15 years. We’ll have a full review of this set once it’s more widely available.

We’re a little less than one month out from the North American release of “The LEGO Batman Movie”, the first of this year’s two (!) sequels to 2014’s “The LEGO Movie”. In the time since our last post about it, there have been a number of trailers for the film, as well as a few TV spots with additional footage. Let’s review.

Teaser Trailer #1 – The Batcave

The first teaser sees Batman introducing us to his Batcave, general solitude, and the overall concept of the film. It also features an opening prologue, which suggests (albeit jokingly) that the film was written and directed by Batman himself. I would love it if that conceit carried over to the actual film.

Teaser Trailer #2 – Wayne Manor

The second teaser followed only a few days later, and gave some insight into LEGO Batman’s parentage (spoiler alert: Batman’s parents are dead) as well as how this film fits into the overall Bat-continuity. The Wayne Manor fireplace room is a gorgeous design, and the animation of Batman flopping around the floor like some sort of fish is very entertaining and well-posed. #ABR

Comic Con 2016 Trailer

The Comic Con trailer was the first to feature Michael Cera’s Dick Grayson/Robin, as well as more looks at the Batcave and Batman’s expansive costume collection.

Trailer #4

The succinctly-titled “Trailer #4” serves as an amalgam of the previous previews, while also showcasing more of the plot and characters—including Rosario Dawson as Barbara Gordon, and Zack Galifianakis as The Joker.

Extended TV Spot

Finally, the Extended TV Spot confirms something that I was curious about—this film will take place in “Gotham City” (or a reasonable brick-built facsimile) and not Bricksburg (home of Emmet from the original LEGO Movie). We also get more of the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery, including The Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Gentleman Ghost (real), Calendar Man (very real), and the Condiment King (really really real). Of course, my favorite villain (seen here in a quick glimpse) will most likely prove to be Killer Croc, if only for the retro LEGO crocodile head he sports in this film.

What are you most looking forward to in The LEGO Batman Movie? Did we miss any of the trailers? Let us know in the comments!

Warner Bros. has released some promotional images for its forthcoming, aptly-titled film: “The LEGO Batman Movie.” (Not to be confused with “LEGO Batman: The Movie”, a home video release from 2012.) The caped crusader, once again played by Will Arnett, will be swooping into theaters on February 10, 2017.

Batman in a new version of the Batwing, flying over… Gotham? Bricksburg?

A Batcave detail, with costume variations like the “Raging Bat” boxing outfit, and “Excalibat”, which seems to be a Castle-themed suit of armor. (I also see “Bat By Gaslight”, “Glam Bat”, “Current Bat”, and “New 52” signs at the bottom.)

It appears that the brick-built explosion motif will carry over from the first film, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Batman in his cowl and dinner jacket, microwaving a lobster. Nothing weird about that.

The man himself.

According to ComingSoon.net, a trailer for the film is supposed to drop today. No word on that so far, but we’ll update you as soon it hits the web.

How will this film tie into the established LEGO Movie continuity? We’ll just have to wait (though not quite as long as last time) and see.

Sneak peek: ‘Lego Batman’ shows his brick-made lair | USA Today

Here’s the first look at Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Lego Batman movie | Polygon

To say this book has been a long time in the making would be an understatement. Way back in 2008, David Pagano taught an “Introduction to LEGO Animation” workshop at Brickworld Chicago. After it was over, David Pickett walked up and nervously introduced himself as “that guy that made that weird brickfilm that one time.” Ever since, we’ve been building a friendship and creative partnership using films and LEGO bricks (and awkwardly referencing ourselves in the third-person).

One of the first things we bonded over was how frequently we were asked intensely specific questions about animating, such as:

• “What is the exact model of camera that you use?”
• “How many frames per second do you shoot?”
• “How did you make your character do that cool thing at 2:17 in your last movie?”

We love seeing so many people eager to learn more about the subject we’re most passionate about, but there’s only so much you can explain in a short conversation or a YouTube comment. So in 2011, we started talking seriously about writing a book that could answer these questions in detail. Over the last five years, this book has grown from a dream in our heads to a real physical thing you will be able to hold in your hands. (It will also be available as an e-book—slightly less tangible, but still easier to access than the insides of our minds.)

In addition to answering the questions listed above, the book will also contain:

• A step-by-step guide for making your first animation
• Techniques for creating special effects like explosions and flying minifigures
• Acting methods for your minifigs—learn how to convey action and emotion
• The SECRET FORMULA for bringing inanimate objects to life
• Tips and tricks for designing sets—make three buildings look like an entire city!
• Advice for dealing with practical problems like lighting, framing, and capturing consistent photos
• Building ideas for LEGO-­based camera dollies and rigs
• Instructions and inspiration on the filming process, from storyboarding to post-production
• Recommendations for cameras, software, and other essential animation tools

We’re excited to be working with No Starch Press as our publisher; they have a long history of publishing great books about the LEGO hobby. You can pre-order The LEGO Animation Book through their website. Our hope is that this book will inspire and educate a whole new generation of LEGO filmmakers. We can’t wait to feature their films here on The Set Bump.

P.S. – If you noticed that our blogging decreased sharply in mid-2014, you now know why. We’ll be busy wrapping up the book over the next few months, but we’ll be back to blogging with gusto afterwards.

Zach Macias (MindGame Studios) and Philip Heinrich (SmeagolStudios) joined forces to create the most impressive LEGO version of the Star Wars teaser trailer.

A couple things that set this one apart from the others is the amount of effort put into LEGO-fying the trailer (note the brick-built smoke trails behind the landspeeder & X-Wings) and the careful mimicking of the camera movements (in particular in the shot in the woods with the cloaked figure). Also noteworthy is their use of digital effects to match the facial expressions. To better appreciate their work, watch this side-by-side comparison with the original.

That doesn’t mean the dozen other LEGO versions of the Star Wars trailer are without merit. One of the great pleasures in watching them is seeing the various way different builders adapted the trailer into LEGO. I particularly like seeing the various solutions that people came up with for the astromech droid with a spherical body.

Placid Sulfuric took the time to put 12 of these LEGO trailers side by side, which is a great way to quickly compare the techniques.

All that being said, Snooperking definitely deserves his nearly 4 million views for not only being one of the first people to do this, but also for having the most charming version. I love that he used actual LEGO pieces for the 3-way lightsaber rather than digital effects. Let this be a lesson to brickfilmers who chase pop culture trends that timeliness is paramount and that brick-built solutions can have mass appeal.

Oh, did you need more information than that?

Some of the rewards on this campaign are phenomenal values:

$25 gets you a HD digital copy of the finished documentary and the Bricks in Motion Collection, which features 2 hours of brickfilms by famous LEGO animators (including several of the writers of this blog).

$100 gets you a cameo in the film as a minifigure (+ the documentary and the BiM Collection).

For $250 Philip Heinrich will compose a song about you (or or a friend or family member), set to a custom-made 30 second animated short film by producer and animator Nathan Wells. This is such an outrageous value that I feel like I’m stealing from them by backing at this level (sorry guys!).

In summary, go check out their Kickstarter page and consider donating.

Something is happening in outer space…

Peter Reid’s Exo Suit is the latest release from the website-formerly-known-as-Cuusoo, LEGO Ideas. To announce the impending arrival of this set, TLG put out the above CG animated video, “co-created” (whatever that means) by Chris Salt of Oblong Pictures. I think having promotional videos for upcoming LEGO Ideas sets is a great concept on TLG’s part, but as with so many of their releases, this one suffers from being about twice as long as it needed to be.

Oddly, I don’t think the running time would have stuck out to me as much if the video had been done with stop-motion. As much as I’d love to see the real Exo Suit kit get animated (and I’m sure we will), it is a fragile-looking design. TLG tends to use CG when there are clear advantages to having a weightless wire-frame model, and that makes sense here from a production standpoint.

Except… none of those advantages are really utilized, and there’s large swaths of time where we’re basically looking at a video of a still image. It’s neat that the characters adhere to real-world minifig limitations (the influence of The LEGO Movie continues to be felt), but there is just SO MUCH DEAD TIME in this piece that it makes me wonder why they bothered making an animated video at all. When Exo Suit pilot Yve punches the keypad at 2:00, and the door starts whirring open with all the quickness of an inebriated turtle, I literally yelled at my computer screen for it to hurry up.

Anyway, I can certainly appreciate the effort that goes into making an animated video of any kind; this one just didn’t do it for me. Despite the less than stellar (space pun) execution, I’m hoping that promo videos for LEGO Ideas sets become something we see more of in the future. At the very least, it did get me excited about the set itself.

LEGO® Ideas #007 — Exo Suit – YouTube

It’s a little hard to keep up with all the proper nouns, but the visual effects and sheer scale of the sets are mighty impressive. The soundtrack also sounds a cut above most brickfilm soundtracks. Who else is excited for this?

One of the few reviews I’ve seen that actually focuses on the animation style of the film is this one over at Cartoon Brew:

Many films have attempted to break the Pixar-by-way-of-Disney animation mold by suggesting a more stylized approach to animated movement, among them the Madagascar series, Wreck-It Ralph, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Lego Movie pushes further than any of those films with a consistently inventive style of movement (the key word being consistent).

This feature on io9 has some interesting quotes from the directors. Chris McKay, who was in charge of the animation, has nice things to say about brick films:

There’s a charm to those brick films. I think part of that comes with the heart and soul of the filmmaker who comes to the table and wants to create something that is probably beyond their scope… We wanted the movie to feel like that.

This NPR review reveals a scene that got nixed:

They initially penned a re-education scene for Emmet, with his eyes forcibly held open, after he strays too far from Lord Business’ way of doing things. The Stanley Kubrick reference was deemed “not perfectly appropriate for family audiences.”

(Don’t worry, someone else has got a LEGO version in of that in the works…)

The AV Club review (contains the spoiler) nicely mirrored my own sentiments and Mr Pagano’s:

The only real bone to pick with The Lego Movie is that the gender disparity of the toys themselves—a pervasive criticism of the brand—has carried over to the film’s major characters… Wyldstyle, though confident and talented, often exists to play the foil of Batman and Emmet. And the only other major female character, voiced by Alison Brie, isn’t portrayed as a mini-figure, making Wyldstyle the catchall female protagonist.

The Variety review helpfully points out how many bricks it would take to build all the stuff shown in the movie:

…if someone had orchestrated the entire experience with plastic toys painstakingly repositioned and photographed one frame at a time… that would have taken no fewer than 15,080,330 bricks

This behind-the-scenes video is a random collection of footage, but it does shed some light on the animation process:

Lest you think all the reviews of the LEGO Movie are effusively positive (though most are), there are some naysayers with some valid points. This bit from the Wrap is what resonated with me the most:

But while the film’s underlying message about creative independence and playfulness is a strong one, the movie takes a third-act turn (which won’t be spoiled here) that’s bold but ultimately wrong-headed, restating what we’ve already figured out and ruining the delicate balance of this movie’s goofy, click-and-snap universe.

I have more to say on that last bit, but I’m going to wait a couple days before writing about all my concerns with the movie’s big twist.

Which reviews have helped you in digesting the LEGO Movie?

Here at The Set Bump, we’ve been keeping tabs on the progress and development of The LEGO Movie for a while, compiling what morsels of information we could to try and satisfy our curiosity. The announcement of the film (waaay back in 2009) left many unanswered questions in our minds — what would a LEGO motion picture even be about? Would it be done in stop-motion? Could it possibly be as boring as Clutch Powers?

Fear not, dear readers, for we now have answers and so much more. Sound the spoiler alarm (I’m about to spoil pretty much everything), and let’s dive on in.

Story

The LEGO Movie tells the story of Emmet Brickowski, a construction worker minifig who lives his average life in the average LEGO city of Bricksburg. Using very familiar-looking instruction booklets, Emmet helps build skyscrapers for the Octan Corporation, under CEO President Business.

But President Business has a secret alter-ego: Lord Business, a tyrannical despot with designs to conquer the entire LEGO universe by — what else? — gluing everything together.

Fortunately, a group of minifig Master Builders (i.e. our main cast and some licensed supporting cameos) has found the key to foiling Lord Business’ plan: the fabled “Piece of Resistance”. Unfortunately, that piece just happens to be glued to Emmet’s back. And thus, the odyssey begins…

There’s a larger story at work in The LEGO Movie, too (both figuratively and literally), but I’ll get to that.

Characters

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is the focal character of the film. Pratt plays the LEGO everyman to a T — his mastery of goofy charm (refined in his role as Andy Dwyer on “Parks & Recreation”) makes him a perfect fit to carry a LEGO film.

Emmet’s a simple fellow, but his eagerness and sincerity make his adventure a joy to watch. And in the standard “hero’s journey” manner, he picks up a variety of allies along the way…

• Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) is the wise old sage and inveterate foe of Lord Business. Having failed to protect the LEGO universe in the past, Vitruvius foretells of a prophesied chosen one — “The Special” — who will unlock the key to Lord Business’ eventual defeat.
• Wyldstyle, aka Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) is an ambitious and headstrong Master Builder, who’s actively trying to become The Special by finding the Piece of Resistance. You may remember my considerable dislike for the name “Wyldstyle”; fortunately, it turns out the movie agrees with me (via lots of “what are you, a DJ?” jokes at her expense). For better or worse, a lot of Wyldstyle’s character centers around a sort-of love triangle (a “like triangle”?) between her, Emmet, and her current boyfriend…
• Batman (Will Arnett) is the Dark Knight as a hilarious parody; as if the Christopher Nolan films featured Adam West-inspired dramatics. Arnett is perfect in this role, and although much of his funniest material is in the trailer, there is one great sequence where millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne becomes integral to the plot.

Other helpful side-characters include Benny, a 1980s-era LEGO spaceman who REALLY wants to build spaceships; Unikitty, an anime-esque cat/unicorn hybrid with some serious anger issues (and some terrific brick-built alternate faces); and Metalbeard, a giant cyborg pirate who holds Lord Business responsible for his half-minifig, half robot condition.

In the villains’ corner, there’s really only President/Lord Business (Will Ferrell); his underutilized right hand man, Good Cop/Bad Cop (Liam Neeson); and an endless supply of robot police, robot feds, robot swat teams, and robot skeletons as cannon fodder for our heroes.

And then, there’s “The Man Upstairs”…

Design

The design of The LEGO Movie is where things really shine; it’s an amazingly gorgeous film. Every single setting has beautiful detailing and tons of NPU, almost to the point where it becomes distracting. There are dozens of visual nods to LEGO fandom, builder inside jokes, and some great micro-scale gags. Dave pointed some of these out in his review of the trailer, but that’s really only a small fraction of the insane beauty the filmmakers have packed in. That ocean! (I can’t wait to pause and frame-by-frame my way through the Blu-ray.)

For those of you who were worried about the use of computer graphics over stop-motion, I can honestly say that the film does not suffer one bit for it. The framing of many of the shots, as well as the overall texturing and lighting of scenes, really gives you that tactile feeling of being immersed in a brick-built LEGO world. There are one or two shots where the scope of what you’re looking at belies the film’s tiny toy-scale nature, but these are few and far between.

In many ways, the design of The LEGO Movie feels like not only a celebration of LEGO products and the hobby as a whole, but also of the craft of animation. Every major animation technique is at work here:

• The stop-motiony quality to the cinematography and character movement really helps set this film apart from things like Clutch Powers and the other CG releases. It’s super fun, and it feels like LEGO. I’m sure this approach will inform many stop-motion brickfilms in the future, and I would also have no problem with it becoming the new paradigm for CG LEGO animation. (Please and thank you.)
• There’s also some fantastically fluid 2D facial animation on all of the characters. The CG artists went so far as to give depth to the “paint” of the character face designs, as if the faces had been printed on like real LEGO minifigs. As someone who’s spent hours and hours staring at minifig heads through a macro lens, I truly appreciate this consummate attention to detail.
• And then, finally, the CG polish and shine brings everything together.

There’s a fourth filmmaking medium in the film as well — live-action photography. This was another detail made public by the filmmakers early on, though no one really knew what the implementation of it would be. As it turns out, the live-action sections are where the real story of the film lives.

Themes

In a broad sense, The LEGO Movie is built around a few overall motifs:

1. LEGO creations are not meant to be glued together, but to be continuously rebuilt into whatever cool models a creator can imagine.
2. You don’t have to build the greatest creation ever, as long as you’re building together with the people you care about.
3. Embrace the things that make you unique.

These are the main themes as depicted in Emmet’s character arc; though, as we find out, Emmet is not really the main character of this story.

About 2/3 of the way through the movie, Emmet sacrifices himself by tumbling out of Lord Business’ tower and down into a swirling vortex. Having blacked out, Emmet wakes up to find that he’s a toy LEGO minifigure in the human world, being played with by a young boy named Finn.

As the live-action scenes unfold, we come to understand that the events of the film up to this point have basically been a dramatization of Finn’s LEGO playtime scenarios. This makes sense as, earlier in the film, Emmet has a vision of “The Man Upstairs”, as illustrated by his mental construction of a distinctly humanoid hand. Additionally, Lord Business’ collection of non-LEGO human-scale artifacts (erasers, band-aids, highlighters, etc.) tells us that the LEGO universe must be somehow tied to our world.

Finn, however, is not “The Man Upstairs”. In a further twist (one which I found really enjoyable), it turns out that “The Man Upstairs” is actually Finn’s father, the real owner of the tables full of LEGO displays that make up the worlds of the LEGO universe. Finn’s father is quite unhappy, as those LEGO displays are part of his very adult hobby, and are NOT meant to be played with by Finn. When you consider the fact that Finn’s father — a businessman in a suit and tie — is also played by Will Ferrell, the central conflict and meaning of the story becomes unmistakably straightforward. Lord Business’ super-tall legs aren’t just for show.

(I’ve heard some comments from fans who question this portion of the film; saying that it’s a little insulting to AFOLs to be portrayed in such a way. Personally, I thought it was really funny.)

It’s at this point that The LEGO Movie becomes not only a action movie for kids, or a toy advertisement, but a fable about the relationship between AFOL and KFOL, parent and child. The film is fundamentally a feature-length “Build Together” spot — a series of LEGO TV ads that, perhaps coincidentally, began right around the time this film was announced.

A Few Gripes

I’ve already mentioned the somewhat distracting and complex artistry of the LEGO universe itself. The story, by contrast, is rather simplistic. To be fair, the way that story plays out doesn’t have a lot of padding or unnecessary scenes — everything is aptly cut — but it does feel slightly too fast-paced at times.

Which is crazy, considering the film runs for about 100 minutes in total. (Maybe I’m just getting old.) Plus, the notion that the entire tale comes from the imagination of a young boy really helps to lampshade a lot of the less satisfying story elements.

Another thing that made me a bit uneasy was the idea of “The Special”. I’m all for empowering kids to use their imaginations, but the word “special” is immensely overused in our cultural consciousness. As a concept, it just made me think of that line from “The Incredibles”:

When everyone’s super… no one will be.

However, given that the intent here is to embrace those things that make us individually special (and the fact that the prophecy is all but thrown out as malarkey in the third act), I’m willing to give The Special a pass, too.

The only thing in The LEGO Movie that I couldn’t find any rationalization for was the utter dearth of female characters. Seriously. Where are all the women?

• We’ve got Wyldstyle as the the only lady character with any real agency, though her role is not much more than that of Action Girlfriend.
• Unikitty (Alison Brie) is female, but is technically an animal and not a minifigure. Plus, she doesn’t come into the film until around halfway through, and even then, her presence is not terribly significant.
• Wonder Woman is on the poster, and they went through the trouble of casting Cobie Smulders in the role, but the only thing she does in the film was already shown in the trailer. I honestly can’t remember if she had more than one line of dialogue in the whole film. (EDIT 2/16/14: She speaks literally eight words in the entire film.)

If you ask me, an easy solution would have been to cast a woman in the role of Vitruvius. There’s honestly not much you would have had to change about the character. It’s great that we now have a recording of Morgan Freeman saying the words “Taco Tuesday”, but I would have gladly given that up to have this film pass the Bechdel test. Wyldstyle is essentially Vitruvius’ apprentice, and it could have been interesting to have a female-female relationship stand in contrast to the live-action father-son relationship.

Given the recent furor over LEGO Friends, and the fact that a lot of the film’s tie-in sets include female minifigures, I expected a lot more from The LEGO Movie in that regard. (EDIT: I feel like this girl might agree with me.) I think I might have cheered aloud when, towards the end, Will Ferrell tells his son that he’s going to have to let his sister play, too.

(Hilarious Duplo payoff notwithstanding, I don’t think it would have been too much to ask to actually see the sister on screen, though, even if just for a second. You can’t be what you can’t see.)

Putting it all together

One of the inside jokes of the LEGO fan community is that of the “Rainbow Warrior,” a name fondly given to those weird-looking multi-colored models we all built as children.

In some ways, The LEGO Movie is a bit of a Rainbow Warrior itself. For one thing, it ably tackles the unique problem of tying all the disparate LEGO worlds together; presenting the various play themes as parallel dimensions (and eschewing the nonsensical “play themes as planets” approach that Clutch Powers attempted to put forth).

But more than that, it manages to capture the fun, ubiquitous crossover vibe of every child’s playroom. Batman shooting his grappling hook at the Millennium Falcon in order to steal some spaceship parts from Han Solo and Lando Calrissian? That scene definitely happened in my backyard when I was a kid — and it happened in this movie, too.

Similarly, I couldn’t help but react to every pop culture reference and film allusion —

• Terminator (“Come with me if you want to not die”)
• The Matrix (Real/dream world analogies, The One, and the “Think Tank” room)
• Total Recall (The “Think Tank” again)
• Robocop (“Where are my pants?” is this film’s “I’d buy that for a dollar”)
• Super Mario Brothers: The Movie (Random dancing as a way to disable enemy forces, “cause everybody loves to dance, that’s why.”)
• Star Trek (“The Kragle” might as well be “V’Ger“)
• Clash of the Titans (“Release the Kragle!”)
• They Live (The subtle “Conform!” propaganda posters, and a few of the skeletal robot feds)
• Hot Rod (I kept waiting for Batman to do this towards the end)

And that’s not even including the official LEGO licenses. In a normal film, such an overabundance of seemingly random references might have felt lazy or unwarranted; but here, they somehow felt justified. I’ve already referenced “The Hero’s Journey” in this review, and maybe that’s all too appropriate — the minifigure might be the most literal encapsulation of The Hero with a Thousand Faces ever.

Overall

If I haven’t made it clear already, I thought The LEGO Movie was really fun, well-made, and an absolute delight to watch. The stunning visuals alone make it worth the price of admission, but the story is efficiently told and has some legitimate stakes, too. It’s not a perfect film, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

Those of us who do LEGO stop-motion (myself included) can admittedly be a bit snobby when it comes to the relationship between CG and “true” Brick Animation. When discussing brickfilms in interviews and at workshops, I tend to describe them thusly:

Brickfilms are a way for LEGO fans to tell their stories through the use of film and animation techniques. They can use any style, and can be about anything, but they all have one thing in common — the use of LEGO bricks and elements!

If that’s true, then I think it’s fair to say that The LEGO Movie qualifies as a brickfilm. Given the nature of the film’s story — a child whose imagined LEGO worlds are directly translated into on-screen action — The LEGO Movie might be the most ambitious, high-concept brickfilm ever. A meta-brickfilm, perhaps.

At the same time, The LEGO Movie also feels like a love letter to the entire brickfilming community. The directors have stated these intentions in interviews, but there was one other fun touch I noticed in the film’s live-action sequence: the aforementioned swirling vortex that Emmet tumbles down is, in the human world, an over-sized kaleidoscope with the words “Magic Portal” written on the side. Kind of reminds me of another Magic Portal…

But that’s not so important. What IS important is that this film is going to get a lot of people building. And animating. Heck, I left the theater and immediately went to the LEGO store to pick up one of the sets.

Go see The LEGO Movie.

Let’s start with Emmet’s apartment

First of all, NPU on the ceiling lamps and the couch arms. Clearly they have some expert LEGO model designers on staff. Second, nice reference to your previous movies with those posters, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who apparently get a joint Wikipedia entry, I guess neither has accomplished anything significant outside of their partnership?).

There’s a lot of fun Octan propaganda in this city scene, but what I really appreciate that is that the LED board is covered in actual 1×1 round plates and that the highway road sign references locales from LEGO themes new and old.

Why is “The Batwing” in quotations marks?

I love the use of arches in the windows of the Master Builders’ forum. Also love the rainbow color scheme. Very appropriate for a band of rebels who are building without instructions.

You really have to admire the brick-built explosions. They even used the ice cream scoops piece for the smoke trails like AFOLs do.  (Again, this is slightly less impressive since this is is CGI, but still).

I can’t wait to get Lord Business’s cool helmet in a set.

Based on that recess on the inside of Vitruvius’s arm, he was manufactured at a Chinese plant. Of course, that makes sense since it has already been announced that there will be a line of Collectible Minifigures based on the LEGO Movie. But still, talk about attention to detail.

Another awesome brick-built explosion. I also admire the care that has gone into the landscape. Those slopes on the hills are pretty accurate to what can be done with real bricks. Even where they deviate from the LEGO palette (look closely at some of the rounded corners), they are mimicking the shape of curvy LEGO pieces.

What details did you pick up on?

The LEGO YouTube channel has some new trailers for, uh… the upcoming new trailer… for The LEGO Movie.

There are “Meet” previews for both Emmet and Wyldstyle (a character I really, really wish had a different name), but not a ton of footage that’s terribly different from what we’ve seen before. I’m as excited for the movie as the next LEGO fan, but I feel like we’re in danger of being caught in an infinite hype loop.

EDIT 10/29/13: There’s a “Meet” preview up for President Business now, which is actually my favorite of the three so far. It’s a nice little bit of insight into a character we know next to nothing about; plus, shameless LEGO fandom in the form of Octan shout-outs.

The LEGO® Movie – Meet Emmet – YouTube

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

Continuing our on-going coverage of “The LEGO® Movie,” here are some new details that came out in the media frenzy surrounding Comic-Con.

Unsurprisingly, the LEGO Group released the first image of one of the 17 tie-in sets, and announced the other inevitable tie-ins—a videogame (guess what it’s called?) and truckloads of merchandise. If you missed this news, I don’t blame you since it was announced within days of two new Minecraft sets, a Batman set, a Hobbit set, a Star Wars set, and the Back to the Future set went on sale.

On Saturday of Comic-Con the directors of “The LEGO Movie,” Phillip Lord and Chris Miller, were on a panel and had some interesting things to say:

The LEGO Movie is part-CGI and part actual real LEGO bricks in stop-motion, and Lord and Miller told the audience they absolutely do not want you to be able to tell which is which.

To further add to the confusion, Phillip Lord tweeted out this picture. Animation experts can see that it quite obviously staged—the camera’s not connected to anything, the lighting’s all wrong for animating,  etc.— but I’m sure there are some people who will take it at face value.

Producer Dan Lin said they had a fan contest and invited people to make short LEGO films, and some of that stuff made it into the film.

Hey, that’s good news for the three winners of the contest! It wasn’t clear if they would actually put those bits in or not. They also revealed some casting news:

Channing Tatum is Superman, Jonah Hill is Green Lantern — and Cobie Smulders is “the first film incarnation of Wonder Woman.”

Stay tuned for more details as they come out!

Is “The LEGO Movie”really the best film ever? Signs point to yes! on i09

Garrett Barati brings us this LEGO version of the trailer for the new Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy comedy “The Heat”.

What does this film have to do with LEGO? I have no idea, but there’s some cool stuff happening in here. I particularly like the brick-built 20th Centruy Fox and Chernin Entertainment logos, as well as the end title. I can’t find a 30-second edit of this trailer for comparison, but here’s the brick-free full version. 

The Heat – LEGO Trailer – YouTube

The first trailer to The Lego Movie is here. Shows fun, stop motion and Batman – Columbus Film | Examiner.com.

Lego Movie trailer shows off all-star cast, stop-motion goodness – SlashGear

‘The LEGO Movie’ Trailer: Lego Action, Lego Jokes & Lego Batman [Updated]

EDIT: Check out all our ongoing Lego Movie coverage.

The first teaser trailer for the much-anticipated “The LEGO® Movie” is out, and I have to say… it looks pretty great.

Many of us (myself included) were dubious of the choice to go with computer graphics over stop-motion, but it seems like the filmmakers have embraced a kind of stop-motion style — minifigure characters with appropriately limited animation and ranges of motion. It reminds me a lot of the animation approach taken with the “Nicelander” characters in Wreck-It Ralph, which were given intentionally jerky movements to approximate a kind of 8-bit sensibility.

Anyway, between the fun animation, character designs, voice and fig choices, and overall vibe of the trailer, I am definitely sold. Might be time to go watch “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” again…

What do you guys think?

The LEGO® Movie – Official Teaser Trailer [HD] – YouTube

So I speak from experience when I say that there is nothing quite like the feeling of contributing to a successful Kickstarter campaign. We are at a wonderful historical moment where it is possible for a relatively wide range of people to become direct patrons of the arts for a relatively small amount of money (i.e. these days you don’t need to be a Medici to help support working artists).

One thing that has become quite clear to me in the past few years is that we all end up paying for the culture we consume (i.e. animations we watch) one way or another. Sometimes we pay by watching ads before YouTube videos, sometimes we pay by spending a few dollars on the iTunes store, sometimes we pay by buying a movie ticket or a DVD, sometimes we pay with a subscription to NetFlix. However, those are all examples of paying to watch something that’s already been produced. It’s a rare an wonderful thing to get to pay to help make something which does not exist become a reality.

Which brings us to:

You should all be familiar with the work of Nick Durron (whose real-life name is Jonathan Vaughan, but I am incapable of thinking of brick animators other than by their usernames on YouTube/Bricks in Motion), if for no other reason than we’ve featured it here twice. With “Melting Point,” he is setting his sights higher than ever before and attempting to make a 30-minute brick animation.

The story follows a cop, Tony, as he tries to protect the city from a ruthless villain intent on melting the entire plastic world.

By this point, you should already have enough information to want to go donate , but if you need further convincing, don’t miss his clever promotional video which has lots of call backs to his previous works. The part of his pitch that really convinced me to donate is his ambitious desire to build an entire LEGO city as the set for the film rather than using CGI. We here at the very-soon-to-be-officially-renamed BrickAnimation.com are big believers in using physical, brick-built effects instead of CGI. I’m proud to be able to say that I am helping support another brick animator stay true to his vision by doing something the slow, costly way. If you look carefully at the project management triangle, you’ll notice that the majority of good projects are neither cheap nor fast.

On that note, I really ought to get back to putting the final touches on my Kickstarter project (I finished animating it earlier this week!), so I can finally get my backers their richly-deserved rewards.

Last month I got to attend the world premiere of the new LEGO direct-to-video film, “LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite”. It’s a CG animated feature from TT Animation; an offshoot of Traveller’s Tales, creators of the LEGO video games.

The “LEGO Batman” screening was held at The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan, and featured a panel of guests including voice actors Troy Baker (Batman), Travis Willingham (Superman), and Clancy Brown (Lex Luthor), as well as director/producer Jon Burton and director of photography Jeremy Pardon.

Yes, you still need a DP on a production with no real cameras.

When this film was first announced, I heard many LEGO fans cry foul; wondering, “are they just going to edit the cut-scenes from the LEGO Batman 2 video game together and call it a ‘film’?” You can all rest easy; “LEGO Batman” is more than that. The TT Animation team has put together a solid film that ranks up there with TLG’s previous home video releases, even surpassing them in some cases (I’m looking at you, Clutch Powers).

Which is not to say it’s a perfect film. “LEGO Batman” is TT Animation’s first venture into film-making, and there are some artifacts from that crossover. You might think I’m referring to the visuals — the entire film was made using TT’s game engine, making it essentially a feature-length machinima piece. But “LEGO Batman” was rendered as a film and not as a real-time video game, so there are noticeable improvements in lighting, staging, animation, and picture quality. The director also called out a few set pieces that had been upgraded to CG LEGO brick-built status, having been simpler CG backgrounds in the game.

(One detail I found particularly amusing was that the production team added dust and scratches to the character textures, to make them seem more like real LEGO minifigs. While we’re constantly working at Paganomation to remove imperfections from real minifigs, the CG artists on this film spent time putting them in.)

In fact, it was actually the pacing of the film that felt the most like a video game. The story is entertaining and well-told, but it’s laid out in a strange, level-based way: action scene, story scene, action scene, story scene. This would work well in a video game, but it was a bit distracting at times to feel like I had to “complete” the action scenes in order to continue following the story. When the creators brought up the fact that they started working on this film before the LEGO Batman 2 video game, I was not terribly surprised.

Another thing that stuck out as a video game holdover was an unusual amount of violence in the film. Of course, it’s “LEGO Batman”, so it’s all very cartoony violence between super-powered heroes and villains, but it still struck me as odd. Nothing you’d need to shield your kids from, but kind of unnecessary at the same time.

All of this said, I really did enjoy “LEGO Batman”. It has a solid, funny, attention-keeping story, and some great voice acting. I think the voice actors were my favorite part of the film; probably helped in part by the Q&A panel after the film (which also confirmed my belief that Clancy Brown is awesome).

The film had a nice balance between familiar voices, like Clancy Brown and Rob Paulsen, and folks I’d never heard of, like Troy Baker and Travis Willingham (although they both have super-long IMDb credits lists, so what do I know).

Stealing the show in the voice department, though, was Charlie Schlatter as Robin. The Robin subplot got a bit uncomfortable at times; he’s not treated very well by some of the characters. But his performance was really funny, and his story has a satisfying arc that has him holding his own with the other heroes by the end of the film.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend checking out “LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite”. It’s one of the better entries in the LEGO home video pantheon — probably helped by the decades of development all of these DC characters have had. The Blu-ray/DVD drops May 21st, and you get a nifty Clark Kent minifigure with your purchase, so it’s win-win.

LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite (pre-order via Amazon.com)

Technically, this won’t be the first official LEGO feature — there are the four Bionicle films, as well as The Adventures of Clutch Powers; though these are all direct-to-DVD releases. (Also, did you know they’re planning a live-action Hero Factory movie?) I’m sure we’ll cover all of these films on this site at some point, despite the fact that they’re CG animated and not what we classify as true “LEGO Animation”.

Anyway, from what we know, “LEGO: The Motion Picture” won’t fall into that category, either, as it will be mostly CGI with some live-action photography. Other information about the film that has been released thus far (some of it just rumors, I’m sure):

• The release date of the film (as of this writing) has been announced as February 28, 2014.
• The working title (according to the often-misinformed IMDb) is “LEGO: The Piece of Resistance”.
• The film’s story was penned by Dan and Kevin Hageman, who previously worked on the “Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu” animated series on Cartoon Network, as well as the forthcoming animated feature “Hotel Transylvania“.
• Also credited as writers are co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, known for the surprisingly delightful “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” film adaptation.
• In an interview with MTV, the two directors discuss the plot of the film, and how it’s “weird, in a great way.” (Color me intrigued.)
• “Parks and Recreation” actor Chris Pratt has been cast as “Emmett”, the main character of the film.
• Will Arnett has apparently signed on to voice Batman (a minifigure Batman, I’m assuming). My gut is telling me “awesome!”… but my gut is also very hungry.
• Finally, there’s LEGOTheMotionPicture.com, where you can enter a vehicle design contest for a chance to have one of your LEGO creations featured in the film. There’s also a Facebook fan page if you’re into that sort of thing.

What do you guys think? Does the “LEGO Movie” sound like something you’d go see?

UPDATE [08/29/12 11:00am EDT]

Apparently production folks’ ears must have been burning as I wrote this post, because just as it went live, some new casting and plot information started floating around:

• Morgan Freeman has been cast as someone called “Vitruvius”; possibly named after the Roman architect (or a Da Vinci reference)?
• Elizabeth Banks has been cast as someone TBA.
• Australian animation house Animal Logic will do the CGI work.
• The film’s plot on IMDb: “An ordinary Lego mini-figure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil Lego tyrant from gluing the universe together.”
• Some alternate plot info from Gizmodo.
• A twitter account for the film.