Really well done, the opening scene was very skillfully animated. Replay enjoyed the incorporation of the real world, and the fact that you were able to pull off animating on normal surfaces so smoothly, and with virtually no light-flicker, was great. Also, the joke about there being way too many videos called 'The Duel', was funny. Please, keep up the good work. This should definitely place highly, if not win altogether.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and loved scoring for it. Visually, I liked the references to The Magic Portal, Doug Vandegrift's signature focus pulls (rarely used elsewhere in brickfilming), and the creative use of traditional film cliches. (duels, car chases, toys-to-life a la Toy Story... etc)

Musically, I added a few nods of my own (Western music, synth & jazz influences, plus some nods to James Horner's infamous danger theme and the wonderful score created for the Bricks in Motion Documentary). All in all, it was a very fun experience - and certainly a challenge to score the entire picture in under 1 day!

I'll be sure to rewatch this one again and again.

I'd say it has a good chance at placing high, too!

Excellent. You have come so far William. I hope you place incredibly high in the contest. As everyone has said, this illustrates the theme perfectly. The animation was great, the timing was there, the score (as everyone has also mentioned) is great, and it was a joy to view. This is now one of my new favorite brickfilms.

Thank you, everyone for your kind words.

I didn't really intend for that to be a joke, but I guess it does play out as pretty funny, and my expression, when I am searching for it is somewhat puzzled haha.

A funny thing about the shots of the computer screen - Originally, I was searching for The Duel on YouTube, but suddenly realized, the night before the deadline, that due to the contest rules, I had to make some changes, as there were far too many brand logos. For some of the shots, like when I was turning off the computer, there were ads in the corner for things like Netflix and Minecraft, but for that I was able just to crop it out, but for the clips on YouTube, I had to replace them entirely with shots of me on BiM, which actually worked better in the end.

I may have said this before, but I think it bares repeating that you made an exceptional score, and it really sounds like you spent months working on it and not 24 hours. I could definitely hear the nods to James Horner, with the prominent use of brass instruments.

Thank you. Doug Vandegrift is just someone I'm always inspired by. That look of focus pulling is something I love to do, along with all the camera movements. I love to try and replicate the look of live action filmmaking, like panning, and moving the camera along to follow the movement of running and the car chase. It's one of the main reasons why I loved making this film, because it gave me the freedom to move the camera around however I wanted, without the limitations of having to build the set around it.

I was hoping to shoot the letterbox scene in the afternoon, after wrapping up the bedroom scenes, but it was far too sunny, and the sun sets over the front of the house. I got up extra early the following morning, to shoot the animation, and I was really pleased with the results. That whole scene took about 3 hours to shoot, before the sun started to head over the front of the house.

I'm going to release a bts video soon, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, which I am really looking forward to putting together.

Third place! Congratulations! This was a fun film, and it really hearkened back to the roots of brickfilming for me. We've seen the "toys come to life when you're not looking" idea before, but by adding the context of the duel you put a cool little twist on it that really helped make it something special. Your animation was solid throughout the film (you're quickly improving on that front) and I'm sure some of those camera movements during the chase scene were not easy to pull off, so kudos for that. Dyland's score complimented the action nicely.

I think some of the floor shots could have been lit a little bit brighter- but I understand the limitations of filming in an actual room, that some level of darkness is going to happen no matter what if you don't have large high-power lights. My only other nitpick with this film is that I would have liked to have seen more "movie magic" elements: more experimental technical aspects, camera trickery, etc... I did notice a marked improvement in the quality of virtually all of your basic technical aspects since your last long film, so that's great.

Everything said, you've got a great film here and I really enjoyed watching it. Thanks for entering the contest!