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Topic: Brickfilm of the Week: Rübermachen (November 21, 2015)

http://bricksafe.com/files/sillypenta/Rubermachen.png

This week’s Brickfilm of the Week is Rübermachen by Felix Czepluch, Cornelius Koch and Theodor Becker.

Rübermachen is a 2008 drama brickfilm by Felix Czepluch, Cornelius Koch and Theodor Becker that follows two refugees attempting to cross the inner German border. It was created for the 2008 edition of Steinerei, the annual German brickfilm festival and competition. It combines stop-motion segments with brick mosaic animation created with Photoshop, and features sets made primarily from model railway decorations, to achieve a more serious tone.

Felix Czepluch and Cornelius Koch are known for founding the German brickfilming forum BrickBoard.de in 2004, which they ran for close to ten years before control was handed to current admin Mirko Horstmann. To my knowledge, Rübermachen is the only film they co-directed and the last brickfilm by Felix. Cornelius most recently released the co-production with Steffen Troeger iWater earlier this year (as well as one shot also made with Steffen in this music video), and has since started a puppet-based stop-motion project, following a successful crowd-funding campaign.

Watch Rübermachen on YouTube (or in HD on Vimeo)

What are your thoughts on Rübermachen? What did you like about it? Did you have a favourite moment?

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Re: Brickfilm of the Week: Rübermachen (November 21, 2015)

In my opinion, Rübermachen's story is told in too short a time to make the ending quite as enjoyable as I would have liked.

Spoiler (click to read)

For only being about 2 minutes into the brickfilm, the ending was almost borderline comical, as, there wasn't yet enough time for myself, or, presumably, the audience, to get emotionally attached to the characters... at least, not just yet.

Similar with my gripes with the opening to Guardians of the Galaxy... it wasn't strong enough to actually make me care at that point in...

However, the sets and heavy use of almost noir-esque shadows really do give the brickfilm a gritty look. I've certainly been inspired to try out some non-Lego elements for fences, trees, and the like now, as, it really fits in well! I would have really liked Becker and Koch's brickfilm, had it been longer and put more focus upon the characters and their personalities.

https://i.imgur.com/Z8VtGae.png