Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
A place to discuss, share, and create stop motion films.
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Talk to God
I was commissioned to make this music video by independent rock musician Kaleb McKane to promote his debut single. I experimented with new techniques in an effort to make something memorable, with the general concept being "listening to powerful music feels like talking to God."
Also, this is the first brickfilm I've finished in nearly three years... Sorry for the absence!
I remember Hazzat. I'll have to check it out tonight.
Fantastic job
Killer work! I have a million questions. Ok first, the lighting hit me right away. AMAZING. How did you set up your lights. I think I spotted 3 or maybe 4 different lighting schemes, which looked like 3 point with colored gels? Did you use reference of actual footage, or did you just make up the lighting schemes? Also, did you shoot all of the liquid tank elements yourself, and did you light those the same way? The liquid gave it a very James Bond opener feel. The guitar solo with the sinking guitar went against the expectations of just showing the guy shredding, so it was very creative and totally believable as something from the height of MTV. Excellent work.
And now I just saw Megaphone. Subscribed!
So good! What a great atmosphere you've created, the colour palette is lovely and works really well with the smoke effects. I definitely get an ethereal and supernatural vibe from the video. Some of those shots are just beautiful, I love the all-smoke shot at 1:43. There's a lot to be proud of here.
I like what you did with the falling guitar and figure, but generally I felt like I had seen everything about halfway through. The visuals were beautiful but they didn't build to anything greater than what we already see at the beginning. More progression in some way would have helped retain interest - though I was happy to stick around for more crazy smoke tank effects and that wild voice. And man is that chorus awesome, it reminds me of another song but I can't put my finger on it; this will drive me mad.
I'm curious, did you try dropping the framerate of the live action footage to match the animation? Not necessarily for the slow-mo, rather it would be interesting to see if it creates a more cohesive composite.
I'm happy to see new work from you! Back when I started on BF.com, you were one of the first people to give feedback to my work. A little encouragement goes a long way. Hope to see more from you!
Thank you for the kind feedback, everyone! Time to spoil the movie magic...
As most of you have guessed, the cloud effects were created by dropping things into a tank of water. I used water-soluble paint, and injected it into the water with plastic syringes. The scene was lit using 3-4 programmable LED lights, which I could change into any colour I wanted - typically one purple, one green and one blue. I found that as the tank got cloudier as I added more paint, I was able to completely change the background colour using light, allowing me to make colour compositions.
When the tank got too cloudy, I had to empty it out and fill it up again. You can see one of the syringes on the floor on the left, and obscured behind the camera are cups of various colours of paint. As you can see, I did this whole thing in the garage...
I have to give a shout out to SlothPaladin's cloud tank test videos, as they were my original inspiration for the look of the project. When I was first approached by Kaleb and he asked me to make a 4m35s stop-motion music video, I searched for shortcuts that would help me get the job done in time, and this was the perfect way to cut down the amount of actual stop-motion I had to do while still creating something visually striking.
The stop-motion portions were filmed under the same set-up, on the same desk but with the tank removed.
Regarding frame rate, I filmed most of the cloudy sequences at 50fps, which meant I could slow them down to 24fps without sacrificing any quality. I never experimented with dropping them to anything lower, as I didn't want to lose the graceful smoothness. The disparity between the live action and stop-motion frame rates is something I considered, but I figured that thanks to a decade of LEGO animation on YouTube, and now The LEGO Movie(s), most people are conditioned into thinking that LEGO people just move in this slightly jerky fashion, no matter what world they're in. It's part of the charm.
It felt good to be brickfilming again! The reason for my long silence is that my time and energy have been swallowed up by studying for my 3D Animation degree at university, which I will finally be graduating from next month. After that, who knows what comes next?
Beautiful. I would like to try what you did someday.
most people are conditioned into thinking that LEGO people just move in this slightly jerky fashion
Charming. Yes. But I find it disappointing if the style became a habit because it somewhat lowers standards.
It felt good to be brickfilming again! The reason for my long silence is that my time and energy have been swallowed up by studying for my 3D Animation degree at university, which I will finally be graduating from next month. After that, who knows what comes next?
Do you have any 3D animation on YouTube right now? Where can we find them?
I'm very happy to encourage the use of new techniques!
Do you have any 3D animation on YouTube right now? Where can we find them?
Here's my second-year film, on which I was the lead animator. Our graduation film will be done by the end of May, and you can see updates for that on the university site.
It's funny how weirdly familiar 3D feels after doing stop-motion for so long. Animation in Maya has a steep learning curve, but there's a point where old instincts take over and it feels like bringing characters to life again.
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