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2017 has been a great year for me. Coming out of a truly horrible nightmare of a year in 2016, I dove headfirst into BRICKFILMING (which I hadn't heard of either) which turned out to be a simple concept which I had actually dabbled in, far away in the past:
LEGO STOP-MOTION
I did several competitions and started winning a few of them, including one in which my submission was chosen for the official NINJAGO movie. They took my concept of a bus weighed down in the back and dragging on the concrete, sparks flying, and turned it into a bus weighed down on the side by too many school children, sparks flying, and used it in the second trailer and all of the TV spots!
But more meaningful to me was the week long contest at bricksinmotion.com known as BRAWL (Brickfilm Rapidly All Week Long) which I took first place with a short which is still very dear to me. "Ma Vie: Une Experience" or in English, "My Life: An Experiment" was inspired by the contest's theme "experimental" and was my homage to the French New Wave films that I love. Luckily I have a great friend who has long been a Francophile, who rose to the occasion and found time in her busy schedule to translate and record the lines on only a few days notice!
After winning BRAWL I did a couple other shorts which can be found on my youtube channel, but I was also starting to think about maybe hosting my own contest, or doing a collaboration of sorts. I came upon the idea of doing a collaboration rather than a competition, and decided that a half-hour long Christmas Special in the vein of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and Will Vinton's "Claymation Christmas." in mid September I posted a call for entries on the bricksinmotion.com forums, asking for short animations in one of two categories: A short film (roughly two minutes) reenacting their favorite Christmas memory, or a fake commercial that would be shown between the show segments. Upon recieving the story segments, I would write and animate the show's main story into which the various submissions would be inserted as flashbacks. By the end of November there were seven flashback stories (including one of my own) and a few commercials, though I knew those would trickle in later as I'd set a later deadline for those.
It took a lot of behind the scenes work of private messaging people, building up the current success of the project to get people excited, and staying on top of a couple people in order to get them to submit certain files in time.
I figured out the best order to put the flashback stories in based on their themes and how they would affect the overall arc of the show, and wrote the framing story around that. I then sent the script to the people who had submitted their stories, so they could record their lines for me. As I began the animation for the framing story, I was contacted by one of the guys who had done a story, my mostly namesake, Kristóf from Hungary, saying that he would like to help out by creating the sound effects, and original music for the show! I had grown an appreciation for his work, having seen it in many of the competitions we had both been in, and he was someone I had wanted to collaborate with. As I would complete each scene, I would send it off to Kristóf, and he would add the sound effects, and also suggested places where he felt a little music cue would help the story. Around this time as well, a few of the guys who had already submitted commercials and stories offered to help promote the show by creating promotional videos and even a trailer cut together from what clips we had at the time!
Finally the show was complete, and right on schedule for the release date of December 17th! The running time came out to just over a half-hour, and the collaboration included entries from all over the US, England, Ireland, Wales, Hungary, and Switzerland!
These new friends I had found in brickfilming had come together with me from across the globe and created something truly amazing, that I cannot be more proud of. There is never a dull moment in this show, and I hope that everyone will enjoy it and share with their family and friends.
Without further ado, here is "A Brickfilm Christmas." A very merry and wonderful Christmas season from everyone involved!
2017 has been a great year for me. Coming out of a truly horrible nightmare of a year in 2016, I dove headfirst into BRICKFILMING (which I hadn't heard of either) which turned out to be a simple concept which I had actually dabbled in, far away in the past:
LEGO STOP-MOTION
I did several competitions and started winning a few of them, including one in which my submission was chosen for the official NINJAGO movie. They took my concept of a bus weighed down in the back and dragging on the concrete, sparks flying, and turned it into a bus weighed down on the side by too many school children, sparks flying, and used it in the second trailer and all of the TV spots!
But more meaningful to me was the week long contest at bricksinmotion.com known as BRAWL (Brickfilm Rapidly All Week Long) which I took first place with a short which is still very dear to me. "Ma Vie: Une Experience" or in English, "My Life: An Experiment" was inspired by the contest's theme "experimental" and was my homage to the French New Wave films that I love. Luckily I have a great friend who has long been a Francophile, who rose to the occasion and found time in her busy schedule to translate and record the lines on only a few days notice!
After winning BRAWL I did a couple other shorts which can be found on my youtube channel, but I was also starting to think about maybe hosting my own contest, or doing a collaboration of sorts. I came upon the idea of doing a collaboration rather than a competition, and decided that a half-hour long Christmas Special in the vein of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and Will Vinton's "Claymation Christmas." in mid September I posted a call for entries on the bricksinmotion.com forums, asking for short animations in one of two categories: A short film (roughly two minutes) reenacting their favorite Christmas memory, or a fake commercial that would be shown between the show segments. Upon recieving the story segments, I would write and animate the show's main story into which the various submissions would be inserted as flashbacks. By the end of November there were seven flashback stories (including one of my own) and a few commercials, though I knew those would trickle in later as I'd set a later deadline for those.
It took a lot of behind the scenes work of private messaging people, building up the current success of the project to get people excited, and staying on top of a couple people in order to get them to submit certain files in time.
I figured out the best order to put the flashback stories in based on their themes and how they would affect the overall arc of the show, and wrote the framing story around that. I then sent the script to the people who had submitted their stories, so they could record their lines for me. As I began the animation for the framing story, I was contacted by one of the guys who had done a story, my mostly namesake, Kristóf from Hungary, saying that he would like to help out by creating the sound effects, and original music for the show! I had grown an appreciation for his work, having seen it in many of the competitions we had both been in, and he was someone I had wanted to collaborate with. As I would complete each scene, I would send it off to Kristóf, and he would add the sound effects, and also suggested places where he felt a little music cue would help the story. Around this time as well, a few of the guys who had already submitted commercials and stories offered to help promote the show by creating promotional videos and even a trailer cut together from what clips we had at the time!
Finally the show was complete, and right on schedule for the release date of December 17th! The running time came out to just over a half-hour, and the collaboration included entries from all over the US, England, Ireland, Wales, Hungary, and Switzerland!
These new friends I had found in brickfilming had come together with me from across the globe and created something truly amazing, that I cannot be more proud of. There is never a dull moment in this show, and I hope that everyone will enjoy it and share with their family and friends.
Without further ado, here is "A Brickfilm Christmas." A very merry and wonderful Christmas season from everyone involved!
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NEW YOUTUBE ANIMATION CHANNEL
1 min read
That's right, check out my recent animation at www.youtube.com/channel/UCmE9U…
While there is lots more new content on the way, for now you can check out my recent short "Fooled," which won grand prize in the recent brickvideostudio.com contest.
Or "Changing of the Guard" which took 3rd place in the bricksinmotion.com THACXIV 24 hour contest back in January.
And one or two others.
While there is lots more new content on the way, for now you can check out my recent short "Fooled," which won grand prize in the recent brickvideostudio.com contest.
Or "Changing of the Guard" which took 3rd place in the bricksinmotion.com THACXIV 24 hour contest back in January.
And one or two others.
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I put up an early concept drawing a while back for this album cover, and now you can see the final product. I've created a folder for the artwork here:
thegroon.deviantart.com/galler…
which includes the outside and inside sleeve artwork for the CD gatefold digipak.
I also had to do a version for the vinyl LP which is on its way. This was an interesting challenge, since the aspect ratio of the two is slightly different, and I didn't want to crop too much. But more on that later.
I'll be adding some more of the 8 page booklet soon, so stay tooned!
thegroon.deviantart.com/galler…
which includes the outside and inside sleeve artwork for the CD gatefold digipak.
I also had to do a version for the vinyl LP which is on its way. This was an interesting challenge, since the aspect ratio of the two is slightly different, and I didn't want to crop too much. But more on that later.
I'll be adding some more of the 8 page booklet soon, so stay tooned!
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THAC XIII RESULTS!
1 min read
The awards were announced in a chat on Saturday at noon.
www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/…
I'm happy to say I made the ranked top 10! 8th place ain't too shabby considering how long it's been since I've played with my legos, let alone did any kind of stop motion with them! See previous journals for the gruesome details....
www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/…
I'm happy to say I made the ranked top 10! 8th place ain't too shabby considering how long it's been since I've played with my legos, let alone did any kind of stop motion with them! See previous journals for the gruesome details....
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THAC XIII ENTRY - RELEASED!
1 min read
The Voyage (after a 20-something hour day I realized that I needed a title, and hadn't even thought of that, so the title isn't the greatest) is public now, and can be viewed on vimeo and youtube. I guess the judging is still underway, so fingers crossed, and I'll keep you posted!
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