Topic: BrickFilm Cinematic Universe proposal
With all these superhero movie franchises having their own Cinematic Universes (for which I mean series' of sort of related movies that cross over, as with the Avengers movies and X-Men having all of its spin-offs), could we make our own? I mean, could we come up with a world and then individually make brickfilms within that world that are all somehow connected, even if just through name-dropping and referencing?
Stage 1: Character Collection http://www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/to … ge-thread/
Stage 2: Story Planning has begun! http://www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/to … ry-thread/
If you want to be a part of it
So, anyone who's interested in being a part of Phase 1, message me and I will put your names on a list in this post. Please also express which theme or themes you want to include (you can give up to three up this point), which you would want to make a film of first, and at least the name and description of one original character. Here's an example:
Theme(s) wanted: Adventurers, Monster Fighters, Chima
First animation idea: Caden Hawke finds a moonstone in the Floridian Everglades, but must escape from the swamp men that guard it.
Original character: Caden Hawke, a modern-day adventurer with a penchant for supernatural artefacts and a sometimes-overwhelming identity crisis. (a picture might be nice if you have already built this character or used it in brickfilms)
That's just a thirty-second example. You can put as much thought or detail into it as you like, or keep it short and snappy. Please only propose ideas that you think are genuinely creative and will benefit from being part of a shared world. Please note that this isn't supposed to be a superhero universe! Though we may get into superheroes one day, I think it's best to leave them alone for now.
I highly suggest that people go and post some pictures of their personal favourite figures, especially the ones which might be easily built, and even the ones that aren't. Or perhaps build a character that you know another specific animator might be able to build from your knowledge of their collection.
Why would this be a good thing?
It encourages interconnectedness (new word alert!). It would keep members of the BFCU in contact about new stories or characters, and so be great for bumping ideas around to make them awesome or to inspire each other. The interconnectedness carries over to voice-overs too, as characters repeated in different brickfilmers' videos would presumably be voiced by the same people.
I think it would also be a great exercise in story-telling.
What would it contain?
For a start, I think we should leave licensed themes (Star Wars, Marvel, Lone Ranger etc) out of it. I mean, they're good, and I'm not saying we couldn't be all meta and leave intertextual references and stuff, but I think the focus should be on creating our own characters...
...or using ones from actual LEGO themes. I think this should be encouraged, since they're stories which haven't mostly been elaborated on and, having been created by LEGO, were designed in the true spirit of LEGO. This is something that I think would be particularly cool - allowing characters from themes to overlap (e.g. have the Monster Fighters meet the old Fright Nights theme, or see Johnny Thunder discover Chima) and expand on the stories that LEGO have created, and also integrate them with our own characters. I for one could easily picture a new line-up of Agents made up of various brickfilmers' sigfigs, or of AnnoyingNoises' Llor Kcir in the Castle theme, as a new rival of the Evil Wizard. You get the picture.
New themes
We can also make up new themes as we go along. LEGO Dragon Riders? Done. LEGO Future City? No problemo. LEGO Vampire Hunters? Sounds epic, man. Actual LEGO themes are only meant to be a springboard to get people started, although you can continue with them as far as you like, or not use them at all. What nobody seems to have got from my first post is that they aren't the be-all and end-all; they're just a way of getting started. Take Agents for a second: if someone wanted to do an Agents film, they could use completely different characters (secret agents and villains both), so that the dark blue vehicles and the logo were the only link back to the original theme. I'm not saying that they're all we do.
Here's a list of all of LEGO's themes.
I have some ideas:
Chima could really be hidden somewhere in the Fertile Crescent. The rest of the world doesn't know it exists...yet.
Ninjago could be a mountainous region in the north of Japan. It was originally uninhabitable for humans, until the First Spinjitzu Master forged the golden weapons and used them to make it possible to live there.
Places from old games, like LEGO Racers 2 and LEGO Island 2 could be real. For instance, Sandy Bay (LR2) could be somewhere in California, and there could actually be a real Racing Championship happening!
The Agency (from LEGO Agents) could be an international (as in UN sanctioned) organisation?
To allow steampunk and cyberpunk futures and pasts, maybe alternate universes could be possible.
Time-travel could exist, to allow for greater integration of the Wild West and Castle/Kingdom themes.
Spherus Magna, the BIONICLE planet, could be somewhere in a faraway galaxy...
The Serpentine (Ninjago) could perhaps be from an ancient Serpent Tribe that left Chima centuries ago...?
Maybe this universe is henotheistic - I mean, we don't need to address whether there's a God or not, but it'd let us integrate stories from various mythologies, which I personally think would be great, especially since Norse mythology could lead to elves and dwarves in this universe.
So there's a quadrillion things we could do with the BFCU.
How would we go about it?
Not sure. i mean, that's open to debate. Here's how I would, at least at the moment:
To start off, we'd make a list of fundamental rules (e.g. no bad language, no gore, etc).
Then we would make the basic rules about the universe, about where stuff is, when, what we think should be explored first, etc. Of the latter, we would make a list.
People would then choose which story they wanted to pursue first: someone might choose a future LEGO city, someone might choose Chima, another might choose vampires VS werewolves, etc.
As these first brickfilms are made, the creators bounce ideas both about story elements and about film-making technique back and forth, and we could start making a list of new characters or places or events for the future.
As more people join, this would keep going and going.
Some canon
In the BFCU, the universe is made of bricks, though not all made of plastic. For instance, the bricks used to make the side of a cliff-face are made of rock, while pieces of a car are metal bricks. Nobody really questions how or why the universe is made this way, but some scholars believe it was constructed by an ancient race known as the Celestial Builders.
A minifigure’s life-force is known as the Creation Spark, like in the LEGO Universe game.
Minifigures see themselves as all one piece, so in order to put on clothes, they are just seen to go on top of the minifigures body (even though when animating, you would exchange the plain yellow torso for the clothed torso). This avoids any weirdness of a minifigure disassembling him/herself. The same goes for headwear - the hair still exists underneath.
One thing which might also work is doing an interactive adventure, like many YouTubers already have - a story where lots of people each do one chapter in the story, upload to their account, and then in-video links take the viewer through the story. That would be a great way of promoting the BFCU and its members.
So that's my idea for the BrickFilm Cinematic Universe. I quite like it, but I understand that not everyone will feel the same way. If anyone's interested, please comment. Even if you're not, but have any thoughts, please comment. I'd love to hear what y'all think. I hope that this might go forward, and that we could create something really special!
-Jampot
Last edited by jampot (September 16, 2013 (06:08am))
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein
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I'd never do it... At least not since... the "cracking torso" incident.... 
