There are literally thousands of films out there that were made using LEGOs, often termed “brickfilms,” and that number is only sure to grow following the release of The LEGO Movie. A simple Google search or a few clicks around YouTube can yield hours of results, created by amateurs as well as exclusively brick-filmmaking studios. Here are a few of our favorites: 1. Fell In Love With A Girl Who can forget Michel Gondry’s groundbreaking White Stripes’ music video for “Fell in Love With a Girl?” Even more than 10 years later, this short film is still a stunning piece of brick art, and unique in that it uses the actual bricks themselves as the characters bodies, rather than using the more common method of filming the LEGO figures themselves. 2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail in LEGO Many of the most timeless cult classic films have been covered in LEGO, but few done so well as this scene from Monty Python by Spite Your Face Productions. This short was included on the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Deluxe Edition DVD.
3. Henri & Edmond – Le Nouveau Voisin (Henri & Edmond – The New Neighbor) The Henri & Edmond short films, by French director Maxime Marion, are arguably the most cinematic LEGO movies out there, while still maintaining a distinctly French feel. The shots, fades, lighting and effects are clean and professional, while the score and quirky dialogue keep the plot moving. In a perfect world, there would be an entire series of Henri & Edmond shorts or even a feature film from these filmmakers. The Dandelion is a funny little short from Daniel Utecht and Plastic Planet Productions. It is a great example of how simple stories done well can outshine projects with more manpower, or in this case, LEGO power, behind them. 5. En rejse til manen (Journey to the Moon) The first known “brickfilm” ever made, En rejse til manen (Journey to the Moon) was created in 1973 by Danish filmmakers Lars C. Hassing and Henrik Hassing. The silent short was filmed on Super 8 film and was only released to the public in 2013 on YouTube.
This short is innovative for its day and fun to watch, particularly when considering the primitive LEGOs with which the creators had to work. Lego Shopping was one of the most innovative brickfilms of those listed in terms of utilizing the actual bricks for the effects. The story was laugh-out-loud funny as well, which kept this short a head above many, many others out there. Here is a music video for The Who’s classic “My Generation” that uses the actual LEGO figures, and not much else. However, the editing and continuity are good and the stop-motion very smooth, which really holds the film together. More than that, the mini plastic band vents their frustrations at the end, making for an especially good chuckle. Who knew these little smiling gents could be so badass? 8. Lego Who Would Win in a Fight? While the sound and dialogue in this LEGO short are not the best, the actual stop-motion and the premise of the film are spot on. Add to that this is merely one of over a dozen Hobbit/Lord of the Rings shorts (second favorite being “The Hobbit Shake” a Harlem Shake Video) created by talented 13 year-old Gabriel Clifft.
9. Lego Operating Room: Special Delivery Sometimes corny is the best kind of humor and using Legos as the medium of choice just seems to fit the bill. 10. LEGO Ninjago Green Ninja Ice Cream Filmmaker “Monsieur Caron” seems to be one of the more prolific brickfilm-makers in a growing industry. The action sequence in this simple short film is exemplary of the medium’s versatility and fun.How many Lego pieces did it take to make The Lego Movie? As it turns out, the film’s creators, directing and writing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, didn’t just rely on actual Legos for the film; as the New York Times pointed out, just the number of bricks required for the task alone would’ve already cost millions of dollars. According to Warner Bros. Pictures, there are a total of 3,863,484 unique Lego bricks seen in the movie. But if you were to recreate the entire film only using Legos, you’d need 15,080,330, the studio said. With a unique blend of CG animation and actual Lego sets, the final look of The Lego Movie has a surprising visual depth;
it almost appears as if someone painstakingly animated each and every movement through stop-motion. That’s because the animators went to great lengths to ensure that they included aspects of real Lego pieces when creating their characters. In the video above, which was edited using footage provided by the studio, several animators of the film describe the intricate process of bringing virtual Lego bricks and scenes to life. “We tried to be quite authentic with the actual Lego product itself,” said CG supervisor Damien Gray. “There’s a lot of detail put into the sticker work, the decal work, the mold lines, chips, chunks, scratches — we tried to incorporate a lot of that.” In order to achieve that “played-with” look for Emmet and the other 182 unique minifigures that appear in the film, animators observed the physical models under microscopes to get every detail right. In addition to scrutinizing the appearance of the Lego bricks themselves, Lord and Miller also took into account other factors they wanted to mimic from stop-motion videos.
“If you were animating this in real life, there would be all of these dust particles, and there is a bit of actual dandruff,” Miller told the Times. “We did a little test of how much was too much.” So what else from the film resembles real life? Take a look at this blooper reel in which the Legos (or is it their voiceover actors?) have a little too much fun:Filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller have made it their business to turn seemingly tired properties (a children’s book about giant food, an eighties television show about cops masquerading as kids) into intelligent and incredibly funny feature films that appeal to kids and adults alike, and their latest outing, ‘The LEGO Movie,’ is no different – it just comes with the added caveat of centering its action on tiny plastic things. If anyone could make a film about LEGOs work, it’s Lord and Miller, and that’s just what they’ve done with their witty and inspired take on the classic toys – but how did they actually make it, well, work?
Despite looking curiously as if the entire thing was made from actual LEGOs, ‘The LEGO Movie’ is a mostly traditionally-animated affair with some special touches. Though the film is not a stop-motion endeavor, Miller and Lord did draw their initial inspirations from fan-made “brick films” that utilize actual LEGOs to build out their settings and characters. Using real LEGOs for the film was, quite simply, extremely cost prohibitive, as the New York Times notes that “it would have cost millions of dollars for the bricks alone,” and considering that even a relatively small ‘LEGO Movie’ branded playset will cost you a cool thirteen dollars for just over one hundred pieces, that estimate is right on the money. Instead of going full-LEGO, Miller and Lord went for CG animation that mixes in real LEGO sets for some added veracity. Co-director Chris Miller addressed some questions about the film’s animation technique directly on Twitter, saying: @DrewAtHitFix it was mostly CG with some stop motion & also some real LEGO still sets comped in.
But Animal Logic made the CG photoreal.— Chris Miller (@chrizmillr) February 3, 2014 Using computer-drawn 3D animation allowed ‘The LEGO Movie’ team to utilize the same techniques of other animated films. The process for crafting ‘The LEGO Film’ by way was relatively standard – the animation team started with a fully hand-drawn version of the script, before moving into what is known as “layout” (a rough animation that centers on imagining both character and “camera” placement), followed by actual animation, and then lighting and grading (which turns flat animation into something nuanced and very real-looking). They also used a modeling program that approximated the experience of snapping LEGOs together, one so intelligent that it would reject brick combinations that wouldn’t work in real life. Of course, the ‘LEGO’ team also spent plenty of time playing with actual LEGOs, including building models of vehicles like Bad Cop/Good Cop’s police vehicle, and even a larger-scale piece like Metalbeard’s giant pirate ship.
The actual LEGO model for Metalbeard's pirate ship alongside the computerized rendering. The animation team didn’t just mix it up with big LEGO set pieces though, they actually put whole batches of LEGO minifigs under a microscope to examine them, to encourage their maximum understanding of how they are put together, how they move, and what they really look like. Perhaps some of the confusion regarding the realism of the LEGOs in the film is due to, well, the seemingly very realistic look of the Legos in the film – animated or actual. As the Times notes: Research went into exploring how many digital smudges and thumbprints would go on the figures and even how much virtual dandruff should be in the shot. The aim was to make the pieces look as if they had been played with out in the real world, not to make them pristine and perfect. The Charlie Day-voiced Benny, an eighties-era spaceman, looks like he’s been well-loved, buried in a sandbox, stepped on, bit and shot out into actual space – he even has a cracked helmet to complete the look.