While thinking of things I might do for the animation project we have to do at the end of the semester, I thought about doing something with stop-motion and toys and stumbled across a community of people who make stop-motion films with Lego bricks. Lego bricks? Totally! Browsing the site for awhile and watching some of the shorts made me realize Lego bricks are an ideal medium for a beginner to get into stop-motion, and an expert can use the medium to make engaging films.
To start, check out this one:
This film is a good example of a good film made simply by a beginner. It has dialog, a few characters, and an interesting idea behind it. The background is simple, as are the movements. He also re-uses parts of the animation to save time (similar to what we read about animation pioneers in the book), specifically when Zues and Poesidon are arguing in the beginning. What he ended up with though was a pretty entertaining little piece of animation.
Next, we have a film called “Brick Fiction.”
In this one, the creator has taken the audio from sections of Pulp Fiction and added animated Lego guys acting out the audio. He has recreated many of the scenes, duplicating character movement and backgrounds, as well as drawing on the Lego heads to make the people resemble their characters (check out Samuel L Jackson’s facial hair or Uma Thurman’s lipstick!), but this also shows the drawbacks of working with Lego people. The range of motion isnt that great (look at the dance scene) and EVERYONE is always smiling (the guy getting shot in the apt for example). Despite all that, the film maker has made something interesting with the limited format.
With an original story suited more to use the drawbacks of the medium as an advantage, however, some films can turn out really neat! This first one has a single gag that makes the whole film really work:
And the second one here is a take-off on early silent shorts that has a unique feel to it and works well:
And these films have inspired me to look into doing stop-motion for my project! I don’t have any Legos, but I do have other action figures…
Edit: My posts for this week are here and here.
March 1, 2010 at 3:40 pm |
Great use of you tube clips! I have been thinking about using stop motion for my final project as well. The idea of legos is a little bit easier because the way the bodies are it is expected that the movement will be a little rigid. This is why it easier for a beginner to us them. I enjoyed the spoof of Pulp Fiction the most because it is realistic for us to a similar one and willn not have to use to much creative juices to come up with a script and dialougue. Thank you so much for sharing this and inspriing my final project as well!
March 1, 2010 at 3:46 pm |
[...] on James Davis and Brenda [...]
March 2, 2010 at 8:13 pm |
These are great! I almost want to use legos to make my animation. It does seem easier than claymation or drawing (for those like me with little art talent) and the stories are relatable and recognizable. It does make conveying emotion a bit more difficult and thus alot more depends on the background music and dialogue.
March 16, 2010 at 5:59 pm |
This is a great inspiration, my friend is a film major, so he’s going to help me set up the stop-motion i may do for the animation project, and we both pooled our Lego resources so that we can have at least some sort of setting. It really is the best start for stop motion and a great substitute for hand drawing frame after frame, especially with the resources and attention span i have at this point in my life.