The LEGO Animation Book: Make Your Own LEGO Movies!
Born 1985 Middle name Michael Wears glasses Yes Has facial hair Often First LEGO animation 1995 Prefers brick-built special effects to CGI Always Place in the 2008 Nicktoons Built by Me LEGO animation contest 2nd tie Hi there I’m David Pagano one half of The LEGO Animation Book duo I run a studio called Paganomation where my team and I create stop-motion shorts ads and music videos Since 2007 we’ve made dozens of LEGO animations that have appeared on LEGO com YouTube Disney XD and Nickelodeon and for approximately two seconds in the climax of The LEGO Movie You might also be familiar with some of my original films like Little Guys or Playback where I introduced the large-scale characters seen in Chapter 5 Born 1985 Middle name Michael Wears glasses Yes Has facial hair Rarely First LEGO animation 1998 Prefers brick-built special effects to CGI Always Place in the 2008 Nicktoons Built by Me LEGO animation contest 2nd tie Hello I’m David Pickett and I’m excited to teach you about animation I’m a self taught animator with no formal training but that hasn’t stopped me from making award-winning LEGO animations like Nightly News at Nine Metamorphosis and Choose Your Own Storyline The Fight for Paradise Hills I’m best known for my YouTube channel BRICK 101 where I share my animations custom creations and LEGO set reviews DaviD Pagano DaviD Pickett viii INTRODUCTION
Meet the stars of The Magic Picnic Anna Matt and Shaun the picnic basket About the Companion Film There’s another important duo you need to meet Anna and Matt They’re here to illustrate LEGO animation techniques But they’re more than just pretty faces they’re also the main characters of a short film we’ve produced as a companion to this book The Magic Picnic Nearly every shot in The Magic Picnic showcases an important LEGO animation concept or idea though some are there simply because we thought they looked cool You might want to watch the film before reading the book just to enjoy the story and to see what’s possible possible with LEGO animation Later you can come back to the movie with newfound knowledge and see how the approaches we discuss in the book look onscreen You can find The Magic Picnic on the book’s web site https www nostarch com legoanimation INTRODUCTION ix
A Word About LEGO Animation When we talk about LEGO animation or brickfilms we’re talking about something specific stop-motion animated films created with LEGO bricks and elements Stop-motion is an animation technique almost as old as motion pictures themselves It involves taking taking many still photographs of an object An animator moves the object a tiny amount after each photo is taken Then the pictures are viewed in sequence like a flipbook and the illusion of movement is achieved LEGO animation is a medium like live-action film photography painting or writing not a genre like comedy drama action or romance You’ll come across all kinds of brickfilms stories music videos advertisements tutorials and more That said there are a couple of things we aren’t talking about when we say LEGO animation computer-generated animations of LEGO bricks and characters and live-action footage of LEGO models being manipulated by a human We use the terms animator and brickfilmer to refer to anyone who creates LEGO animation Today’s LEGO filmmakers are kids adults girls boys parents teachers students and everything in between You may not consider yourself an animator or filmmaker yet but our goal is to change that Let’s get to it x INTRODUCTION A stop-motion photo sequence Notice that tiny movements have been made between each image Anyone can be a LEGO animator
1 The Basics The world of LEGO animation where inanimate inanimate plastic objects to come life If this is your first foray into brickfilming welcome This chapter will teach you the basic skills you need to make your first animation Later chapters will build on this base to help you become an expert animator
