For today, I thought it would be fitting to create a feature to tie in with the solar eclipse. However, there really aren't many brickfilms that deal with eclipses (or blindness), so instead I have mostly selected films about the sun & the moon in some way.

Total Eclipse of the Heart by golego (2009)

I'm sure Americans are sick of hearing this song by now, but this is really the only eclipse-related brickfilm that came to mind. Luckily, it is a good one, as it comes from one of the all-time great brickfilmers, golego. This is a music video for a recording of the song by a Welsh choir, and was commissioned by Decca Music Group to promote the album it is taken from. Unfortunately, golego's own upload of the film was eventually struck down due to copyright detection, despite being authorised. This film makes great use of camera movement and especially lighting, with one of the standout elements being the under-lit stage. By being made with LEGO, it uses the lines about falling apart to comedic effect. Impressively, this film was produced in only two weeks.

Deadalus and Icarus by Stefan van Zwam (2004)

This adaptation of the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus is one of a number of classic brickfilms by Stefan van Zwam. This is a great looking film with some large sets, nice Greek architecture, and implementation of model grass. The tale of course deals with the sun explicitly, but this film also includes a nice bright moon backdrop in set. The film required extensive rig removal for the flying sequence, which Stefan achieved with a masking program he developed himself, Blue Screen of Life. I find this sequence to still hold up very well today; it's just unfortunate that time constraints led to two of the last shots being fully bluescreended, less convincingly. Daedalus and Icarus was the second place winner of the High Adventure Theatre Contest.

Day of the Sun by nichtgedreht (2013)

A film that seems to become relevant again every couple of months, Day of the Sun is a send-up of the North Korean regime and its threats of nuclear attack, by German brickfilming group nichtgedreht. This film uses sound to great effect, with its use of music and loudspeaker-sounding Korean voiceover creating an atmosphere that really adds to the comedy. It also includes a wonderful microscale representation of New York. Day of the Sun won the jury prize at Steinerei 2013.

One Giant Leap For Mankind? by Jarrah White (2006)

I was drawing a blank on the perfect moon brickfilm to feature, thinking films such as Journey to the Moon and Sola Luna would be a bit too obvious, when the perfect choice finally hit me. A classic in the category of "I can't believe this exists", One Giant Leap For Mankind? is the magnum opus (and only brickfilm) by one of the internet's most well known moon landing conspiracy theorists, Jarrah White. Jarrah had been promising a brickfilm exposing the moon landing since 2003, and after arguing about the subject on the forums for years, he finally delivered a film in 2006. The film explores many theories surrounding the moon landing (though not necessarily trying to push all of them as definitely being true), including the theory that it was directed in a studio by Stanley Kubrick, and the "coke bottle conspiracy".

As far as film making goes, the film does use a clever trick in that by being set in a studio, it can show the edges of the backdrops and the actual lights being used to light the film as scenery. I would say that after the beginning the film becomes far too verbose, cramming in way too much information in an unnatural way, but the oddity factor absolutely makes this one worth seeing.

Do you know of any eclipse-related films I am missing? Did you see the eclipse? If you got any photographs, I invite you to share them in the Photography thread.