At the end of our last arc Kaia, Coke, Evan and I finished a three week process of making a Lego stop motion movie for our project. Chane was our collaborator and helped us out a lot. Here are the phases we had to go through. (WATCH VIDEO FIRST: SPOILERS AHEAD)
STORY: at the begining we had a few ideas including one, that lego kids from ‘Lego Brightworks’ explore real Brightworks but we didn’t like it and didn’t think it would work because it would be hard to get every thing in the shot and it would be hard to focus while people are walking by so we didn’t do it . Coke wanted to do a zombie film but Chane didn’t want it to be really bloody or violent so I thought up having the zombies think that the apples were brains.
PRE-PRODUCTION: Now this is were Mark comes in. He’s Coke’s dad and he worked on “Nightmare Before Christmas” so remember to look at the credits, He’s also a music video director. So this is when we discuss and get all the stuff we need, for instance Lego guys, clay, camera, computer, background and Legos to build our set. Kaia, Coke and I all brought in Legos.
Before we started animating, we had to make a base to level the camera and the set. We also had to tape the bases down, and tape the set and the camera to the base. This was because we had to keep the camera at a good angle on the set. If the camera or the set wasn’t taped down, it would have looked like an earthquake!
PRODUCTION: This was the time when we would start animating and shooting. We would decide on who was going to be the cameraman and take the pictures, and who was going to move which characters. I was moving Casey and Joey most of the time.
It was the second or third day when we started to shoot. The set seemed darker, so we looked back at our last shot and it was way lighter than the set was, so we had to put a light up. This helped lighten up a but, but when we started shooting again it didn’t make a natural sort of light. Instead it made a spooky, dramatic light. But it was perfect, because it was during the scene that the zombie DJ came up. Kind of serendipity for us! By the way my dad is writing a book about serendipity.
This process was a long and tiring process. For some of you that don’t know this, to do stop motion you have to move them a tiny bit and film it. Over and over again. It gets tiring. Annoying. After a week we were really stressed out and ready to quit, but we kept going. And it was worth it.
POST-PRODUCTION: We’re finally done with moving, shooting, moving, shooting. This is the time when we first did voiceovers. Then we added the voiceovers to their spots, which Mark helped out a lot with. Mark brought a lot of voices and sound effects home and put them in the places on the editing program we were using. We recorded the voiceovers in our wood workshop, an old shipping container. We keep a bunch of drills and saws in there. It was nice and quiet so Mark could record our voices.
Once Mark put in the voices and sound effects, we decided on the special effects and the last details. And then we’re done.
MOVIE PREMIERE: Finally. We came up with a premiere and decided to do a live performance of the full-on zombie rap that me and Evan came up with to everybody at our open house day. Everybody loved our movie and our little speech at the end, and they loved our rap too. For our premiere, Coke talked about structure and having to tape everything down. Then Kaia talked about lighting. Then I talked about the actual animating and shooting. Then Evan talked about the editing, special effects, and voiceovers. Then, me and Evan sang different parts of the zombie rap for our performance. Coke and Kaia did different beats and background noises to it. Then I said a little thank you to Mark. Then Mark and Shane both had a little speech too. It was great. I love it and hope you loved our film too!
This week we start are new arc—the theme is Motion.
