Tom Bricks Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 As the title suggests I would like to get into making Lego movies but I'm not sure where to start. I have done three small movies already on quicktime but does anyone know a better way to make them? Pretty much everything will help so if anyone has made the before could you tell the program you use and any other tips to making a good film. Thanks in advance. Quote
JopieK Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 Yups, a better way to make them is using iMovie. It is great for LEGO stop motion movies I think. Quote
golego Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 Hi Tom, i guess i could give you some hints. But first i should know what system you use. As you talk about quicktime, i think you are on a apple computer, right? There are different steps (this goes to a windows system too) to make a brickfilm: PREPRODUCTION: 1: Story 2: Set-Building 3: Casting of Actors (step 1,2,3 can be in differnet order) PRODUCTION: 4: Animating the scenes with a Software. This Software is some kind of a Picture-Grabber (most have a preview to see the Pics onto your computer or laptop). You can use a still camera, a webcam or a Digi-Cam (USB or Firewire - depending on system, hardware and software you use)With Onion-Skining you can see the older steps of the animation and some other tools work like a flip-book. So you can control exactly how much you moved a object, figure and so on. Then you animate picture for picture, till your scene is finish. The Software combines these pics later to a little movie. POST-PRODUCTION: 5: Edit the animated scenes with a movie-editing Software. Here you combine and cut the animated scenes to your movie. Video-Effects, Transitions, Text and all that comes now, till your movie is ready to go to step 6... 6: Sound, Music and Voices Sound-Effects give the "naked" movie a finish and brings everything even more to life. There are a lot of websites with free royality SFX. Music gives emotion to you film. RELEASE 7: Burn it onto a DVD and show it proudly to friends and your girlfriend or woman. So she will know why you have been 15 days and nights in a dark basement without windows, only with pizza, computer your camera and LEGO. Realease it on your website, youtube or other video-sites to show your work to the world. Be very proud, if other people like it. 8: Start a new project, because its fun - goto step 1. ********************************************** More Tipps: - animate with two or more desk-lamps. Never do this in sunlight. It will give you light-flickers in your movie. Try to make interesting light (Day, Night, Inside - Shadows and Light, colores, LEDS) - don´t touch everything in every frame (pic) - it look unnatural. Think about timing. If you talk, your whole body is not shaking. So leave a fig for a few seconds doing nothing. If a guy listens to someone who talks - he do not need to be animated, only if he reacts... hope it´s understandable, what i mean... - FIX your Camera and the Sets with tape. This helps to avoid shaking. - use interesting camera-perspectives (cinematography) - a film always filmed from above (like in a theater) could be boring. Try to go onto the level of your minifigs. So the LEGO-World looks huge. - Bulild a Backdrop (Sky, clouds) - don´t film the background of your room, windows, desk... it looks strange and slingshots the audience out of your moving LEGO-World. - Use 12 to 15 fps (Frames per Second) In this range the human eye sees no more stumbling frames - the brain combines the pics to a fluid movie. And you can be more lazy because you dont have to animate 24 fps. Software could be: Apple: iStopMotion (grab), iMovie (edit), GarageBand (sound) PC: SMA, Animator DV, Monkey-Jam, TrickFilmCam (grab), Windows MovieMaker (edit), Sound-Software (?) have a look here for some links: http://golego.de/golego/studio.html Hope this help was first aid Steffen Quote
samthelegoman1 Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 (edited) Bricks in Motion is a good place to get a start in the world of Brickfilming! Edited July 1, 2009 by samthelegoman1 Quote
Tom Bricks Posted July 1, 2009 Author Posted July 1, 2009 Thanks everyone, especially golego who obviously put lots of work into that. And you guessed right, I have a Mac. Quote
phillip10 Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 ive been making brickfilms since last summer i put one on youtube, but it was probanly the worst ive ever made Quote
UserNameInvalid Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Personally I have no experience yet, but I've seen some good How-to videos on YouTube, giving good advice on software, setup etc, making it all look very easy. The advice golego gave is very helpful! (I am still planning to give it a go aswell) Also: why not post your movies here for feedback? I am sure there are some enthousiasts who can help you, especially people like golego. I might learn from the comments aswell! Quote
golego Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 (edited) good i was able to help - if you have more questions - please ask Edited July 2, 2009 by golego Quote
Captain Zuloo Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Bricks in Motion is a good place to get a start in the world of Brickfilming! Ah, but now the Eurobricks Brickfilm and Comic forum will be an even better place to get started in the world of brickfilms! Quote
fallentomato Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Bricks in Motion is a good place to get a start in the world of Brickfilming! To elaborate, Bricks in Motion is a large, active community of brick animators. They have a directory of finished films that have been submitted by members and approved by their review panel (this is primarily to ensure it doesn't get flooded with walk cycles, test and other unfinished films). The resources section of the website is still under development, but the Technique and Software & Hardware forums are the best places to get answers to any questions you may have about stop-animation with bricks. If you animate with bricks and haven't joined Bricks in Motion yet, do it now. That said there is another community entirely devoted to this hobby, the one that named it - Brickfilms.com. BiM was actually created after a large part of the community split off from Brickfilms after some internet drama . And though the site has been mostly abandoned by the community, it still has a lot of good Resources and Tutorials. They also have a forum about Animation and Effects. I know there are some other websites/communities out there, but these are the two I'm familiar with. If you know of more, please add them! YouTube is flooded with animating tutorials. I'd recommend the ones by Nathan Wells. All that being said, my personal advice is not to worry too much about getting the technique perfect on your first films. As soon as you have the bare requirements (bricks, a camera, and an idea), go ahead and make a (short) movie! You'll learn more about animating from doing/trying/failing than you will from reading/watching/thinking. Not to say those aspects aren't important, (I wouldn't have spent all the time putting together those links if they weren't ) but in my experience, nothing teaches like experience. Ah, but now the Eurobricks Brickfilm and Comic forum will be an even better place to get started in the world of brickfilms! Well yeah, everything is better on EB, but let's not waste time recreating what already exists. Quote
Captain Zuloo Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Well yeah, everything is better on EB, but let's not waste time recreating what already exists. Which is exactly why we are going to be creating something better than what already exists! Quote
Siegfried Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Well yeah, everything is better on EB, but let's not waste time recreating what already exists. Well I wouldn't agree with either! Everything is not ( necessarily ) better on EB... but it's different. Afterall, we're not trying to compete here, we're just trying to meet a need that our community has asked for. Most of all though, I don't think it's a waste of time to recreate. While I won't go so far as to compare LEGO sites to art, once again they are (like most creations) always at least slightly different due to varying factors; community (number 1 reason IMHO), staff and software are just a few. Thus to some this might be better than others, to some it might be worse, and to others it could just be another site to increase exposure. If people didn't bother recreating what already existed I think the world would be a very boring place. On the other hand, there would be a lot less Warthog MOCs! Quote
fallentomato Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Well I wouldn't agree with either! Everything is not ( necessarily ) better on EB... but it's different. Afterall, we're not trying to compete here, we're just trying to meet a need that our community has asked for. Most of all though, I don't think it's a waste of time to recreate. While I won't go so far as to compare LEGO sites to art, once again they are (like most creations) always at least slightly different due to varying factors; community (number 1 reason IMHO), staff and software are just a few. Thus to some this might be better than others, to some it might be worse, and to others it could just be another site to increase exposure.If people didn't bother recreating what already existed I think the world would be a very boring place. On the other hand, there would be a lot less Warthog MOCs! I realize now that "waste" was probably not the best word choice on my part - my comment came out more negative than I intended. I'm all for recreating (this is a LEGO site after all!), many of the tutorials I posted links to are far from perfect and could certainly benefit from restructuring. I just think it's important that there is an awareness of what's already out there so we are improving/adding to the knowledge base instead of replicating it. There are a lot of tutorials out there already, and while I look forward to seeing what new content gets produced here (and to producing it) I don't want to see the same glut of redundant brickfilming tutorials that plagues YouTube (sometimes I think there are more of them than actual finished movies) . I agree that every site offers a unique perspective, and I'm glad that this forum has launched, I just want to make sure it's really gives a EB take on brickfilming. Quote
Whittleberry Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 As much as the founders of this brickfilming forum in Eurobricks want it be the center of brickfilming help on the web, you have to understand that BiM is the place where all the experienced brickfilmers hang out. If you really want to get into brickfilming, you'll find it to be a very useful resource, both the community and the handy guides they create, like this one for free brickfilming software. I'm not trying to bash this effort, since if golego (an AMAZING team of brickfilmers) want to help here as well then you'll get a lot of quality info, I'm just saying (like fallentomato) that you should be aware that there's already a huge more knowledgeable community out there. Quote
Siegfried Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 I realize now that "waste" was probably not the best word choice on my part - my comment came out more negative than I intended. It's OK. The written word is often unclear. As to if we'll add or just replicate, only time will tell. Besides, sites come and go so even replication is a good thing. As much as the founders of this brickfilming forum in Eurobricks want it be the center of brickfilming help on the web, you have to understand that BiM is the place where all the experienced brickfilmers hang out. Do we? I thought we were just trying to create the center of Brick filming and Comics on Eurobricks, and to my knowlege no EB staffer has said otherwise. As I said before, this is just a response to member requests and an effort to reduce our waaay too big "Other" forum. To be honest, I personally haven't even been to BiM so until I get around to it I'll have to take your word for it. Quote
Whittleberry Posted July 4, 2009 Posted July 4, 2009 ...to my knowlege no EB staffer has said otherwise. I was referring to Captain Zuloo's earlier posts... Quote
Captain Zuloo Posted July 4, 2009 Posted July 4, 2009 I was referring to Captain Zuloo's earlier posts... Haha, we certainly won't be able to beat places like BiM as a stronger brickfilming community, just as we won't be able to beat Classic-Castle.com as a medieval community. The point is, that Eurobricks tries to cover as many themes as possible, the site accommodates for everyone's interests. So the Eurobricks Comic and Brickfilm forum is by far the best already...of all the brickfilm forums in all-round forums. Sorry if my earlier posts were unclear. Quote
Sméagol Posted July 4, 2009 Posted July 4, 2009 I've never gotten around to registering here until now, always thought it was a neat community though. As the administrator of Bricks in Motion, I think it's great to see interest in brickfilming in other AFOL communities - it seems clear nobody's trying to "replace" Bricks in Motion or Brickfilms with a new site, when this is really just a forum for people to share their brickfilms & comics. Nevertheless, since Brickfilms.com has fallen apart in the last few years under new ownership, we're still rebuilding at Bricks in Motion and the site is still a work in progress. I'm currently building/programming the resources section and it's coming along nicely, but we'd always love to get more content if anybody here has resources or tutorials they'd like to see linked to or published in the Bricks in Motion resources section. It makes sense to share your films and ideas within your own community, but I think it'd be great if we could share our knowledge base with each other, too. And we welcome your films in our recently opened film directory. -Sméagol Quote
Rubén Riojas Posted July 4, 2009 Posted July 4, 2009 About lighting: It doesn't matter that much if you only have one lamp, just make sure it' on full power and put it it a tall spot to light your entire set, I use videogame boxes and books t raise, gotta be REALLY careful for it not to fall. Quote
Siegfried Posted July 4, 2009 Posted July 4, 2009 I was referring to Captain Zuloo's earlier posts... He's not EB staff. I've never gotten around to registering here until now, always thought it was a neat community though. Welcome to Eurobricks! Quote
General Armendariz Posted July 4, 2009 Posted July 4, 2009 I've never gotten around to registering here until now, always thought it was a neat community though. An honor to have you here Bricksinmotion is a great site Welcome Quote
Eurobricks Emperor Bonaparte Posted July 6, 2009 Eurobricks Emperor Posted July 6, 2009 I've never gotten around to registering here until now, always thought it was a neat community though. Thanks, and you are most welcome here! - it seems clear nobody's trying to "replace" Bricks in Motion or Brickfilms with a new site, when this is really just a forum for people to share their brickfilms & comics. Indeed, I couldn't have said it better and I'm sure BiM and Eurobricks.com have a lot to offer to each other! This is not about competing, being the best or any of that. This new place on our AFOL community offers the opportunity to brickfilmers to show their work to a broader audience of LEGO fans who might not yet be much aware of brickfilming today. And maybe some might like to try to make a brickfilm by themselves in the future seeing the work of others. Quote
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