The LEGO Movie (1994 film): Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox film | {{Infobox film | ||
| name | | name = The LEGO Movie | ||
| image | | image = Animagica LEGO Movie - title card.jpg | ||
| alt | | alt = A red rectangle covered with Lego studs with the LEGO logo in the centre, and the words "The" and "Movie" in lights | ||
| caption | | caption = Title card | ||
| director = Dent-de-Lion du Midi | | director = Dent-de-Lion du Midi | ||
| story | | story = | ||
| producer = | | producer = | ||
| starring = | | starring = | ||
| animator = {{ubl|Claude Aebersold|Alex Furer}} | | animator = {{ubl|Claude Aebersold|Alex Furer}} | ||
| editing | | editing = | ||
| music | | music = Dent-de-Lion du Midi | ||
| studio | | studio = Animagica Productions | ||
| released = {{Film date|df=yes|1994|08|26|ref1=<ref name="Furer blog Animagica"/>}} | | released = {{Film date|df=yes|1994|08|26|ref1=<ref name="Furer blog Animagica"/>}} | ||
| runtime | | runtime = 4 minutes | ||
| country | | country = Switzerland | ||
| language = English | | language = English | ||
| budget | | budget = | ||
}} | }} | ||
| Line 38: | Line 37: | ||
=== Animation and rendering === | === Animation and rendering === | ||
The three artists produced ''The LEGO Movie'' under the company name Animagica Ltd, also referred to as Animagica Productions.<ref name="Furer website CV"/><ref name="Gomez Lego Movie"/> Aebersold and Furer each animated and composited about half of the film,<ref name="Furer vimeo desc"/> while du Midi focused on project management and composing music for the film. The team originally worked at du Midi's studio, located on the ground floor of a [[Wikipedia:Chalet|chalet]] halfway up the [[Wikipedia:Niederhorn|Niederhorn]].<ref name="Gomez Lego Movie"/>{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=11}} In spring 1994 the two animators moved their work into a two-room apartment in the village of {{interlanguage link|Lanzenhäusern|de|Lanzenhäusern}} in [[Wikipedia:Schwarzenburg|Schwarzenburg]], closer to Bern.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=13}} The film was created on [[Wikipedia:Macintosh Quadra 950|Macintosh Quadra 950]] computers with 64 [[Wikipedia:Megabyte|MB]] of memory. The artists used [[Wikipedia:StrataVision 3D|StrataVision 3D]] for modeling and StrataStudio Pro for animation.<ref name="Furer gallery Animagica"/> Special effects ( | [[File:LD Commando-XLS v1 b.jpg|thumb|The Space Police Commando]] | ||
The three artists produced ''The LEGO Movie'' under the company name Animagica Ltd, also referred to as Animagica Productions.<ref name="Furer website CV"/><ref name="Gomez Lego Movie"/> Aebersold and Furer each animated and composited about half of the film,<ref name="Furer vimeo desc"/> while du Midi focused on project management and composing music for the film. The team originally worked at du Midi's studio, located on the ground floor of a [[Wikipedia:Chalet|chalet]] halfway up the [[Wikipedia:Niederhorn|Niederhorn]].<ref name="Gomez Lego Movie"/>{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=11}} In spring 1994 the two animators moved their work into a two-room apartment in the village of {{interlanguage link|Lanzenhäusern|de|Lanzenhäusern}} in [[Wikipedia:Schwarzenburg|Schwarzenburg]], closer to Bern.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=13}} The film was created on [[Wikipedia:Macintosh Quadra 950|Macintosh Quadra 950]] computers with 64 [[Wikipedia:Megabyte|MB]] of memory. The artists used [[Wikipedia:StrataVision 3D|StrataVision 3D]] for modeling and StrataStudio Pro for animation.<ref name="Furer gallery Animagica"/> [[Wikipedia:Special effect|special effects]] (such as blurring, [[Wikipedia:Depth of field|depth of field]], and [[Wikipedia:Lens flare|lens flares]]) and retouching were done by hand for each frame in [[Wikipedia:Adobe Photoshop|Adobe Photoshop]].<ref name="Furer CV 2000"/><ref name="Gomez Lego Movie"/> | |||
The animators had no manuals for the software used and had to learn them through experience.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=11}} | The animators had no manuals for the software used and had to learn them through experience.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=11}} | ||
At one point Furer thought the project was over when the scene he had worked on the day before seemingly would not open; when it finally did after an hour and a half, it opened at the beginning of the scene, and it took another 45 minutes to move the animation to where it had been the night before.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=12}} | |||
<ref name="Furer Gomez comment"/><ref name="Robertson"/> | One major issue was that StrataStudio had inaccurate [[Wikipedia:Z-buffering|z-buffering]]. This particularly affected the shot where the camera moves through the inside of the Space Police Commando ship. The initial render of this shot had severe flickering and [[Wikipedia:Noise (video)|noise]], resulting in it being unusable; du Midi was able to repurpose it as the in-film static on the Commando's computer monitor.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=12}} The shot continued to have flickering issues, however, and the animators were unable to eliminate the issue through altering the camera's near/far distance settings. They ended up painting over the entire sequence in Photoshop, giving the scene a [[Wikipedia:Fisheye lens|fisheye lens]] look to obscure any issues and adding humorous messages to the [[Wikipedia:Head-up display|HUD]].<ref name="Furer Gomez comment"/> | ||
They finished the film around September or October 1994, in time for Frodo's birthday.{{R|Bits N' Bricks 16|p=13}} | |||
<ref name="Robertson"/> | |||
== References == | == References == | ||
Revision as of 00:55, 20 December 2024
| The LEGO Movie | |
|---|---|
 Title card | |
| Directed by | Dent-de-Lion du Midi |
| Music by | Dent-de-Lion du Midi |
| Animation by |
|
Production company | Animagica Productions |
Release date |
|
Running time | 4 minutes |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Language | English |
The LEGO Movie is a 1994 Swiss animated short film produced by Animagica and directed by Dent-de-Lion du Midi. The film was developed by four artists over the course of over a year. It led to the creation of SPU-Darwin, and later LEGO video games as a whole.
Synopsis
The animation opens on a Blacktron base on Planet Lego IV. A Blacktron pilot lands his Star Rider spaceship and is given a device he uses to disassemble his spaceship and suck the pieces up. A danger alarm goes off, and an astronaut from a Radar Patrol gives the pilot a report on a Space Police Hunter ship. The pilot takes off with a jet-pack, followed by a swarm of Blacktron ships. The film cuts to the Space Police fleet, where an officer in one of the ships is being spied on by the Blacktron pilot. The officer switches his monitor between different scenes, of a Space Police Commando ship, a Blacktron Intruder Force ship, a news report by "Larry Lego" of the Spyrius base being attacked by a robot, and finally an asteroid field. The jet-pack pilot appears floating in the asteroid field before transforming into a Star Rider and flying away.
The short film is structured like a film trailer for a non-existent feature film. The film opens with cast run listing fictional LEGO actors supposedly in the film, such as "Arnold Lego" and "Tom Duplo", alongside the production company and director. At the end is a billing block, featuring the same fictional actors but also crediting its animators.
Production
Development
The LEGO Movie was conceived by artist and "renaissance man" Dent-de-Lion "Dandi" du Midi, the film's director, along with 3D artist Claude Aebersold. The two first had met in the fall of 1991 when Aebersold, at the time an 18-year-old photography student working at a computer shop in Bern, helped deliver hardware to du Midi's studio in Beatenberg. A year later du Midi visited a new Apple store in Bern, Computer Studio, which Aebersold had switched to. Aebersold showed du Midi his 3D modeling projects, and the two became friends over their shared interests in computer technology and 3D graphics. Aebersold travelled to Beatenberg every few weeks to work on 3D animation projects with du Midi, and the two discussed potential projects while walking in the mountains of the Emmental Alps.[2]: 1, 9–10 One day during July 1993,[3] du Midi and Aebersold discussed how 3D animation at the time looked like plastic, and what projects could be successful despite this limitation.[2]: 10 Later after putting his son Frodo to bed, du Midi noticed the LEGO bricks in his son's toy basket and had an idea to create a LEGO movie for Frodo’s birthday in November 1994.[4][2]: 10–12
Du Midi and Aebersold were initially joined by Olivier Honauer, one of Aebersold’s friends. The team purchased a LEGO spaceship set and measured the dimensions of every LEGO piece in the set, as well as the assembled set. They then recreated each LEGO element from the set as a 3D model and reassembled the spaceship virtually. They created a test animation of the spaceship moving around in 3D space, which they found exciting (though Aebersold later said it "looked crummy" in retrospect). Honauer, realising that the project was becoming a major time investment, left the team and was replaced by Alex Furer, a graphic designer and roadie who had also met Aebersold at Computer Studio.[2]: 11
The LEGO Movie was originally supposed to be only a one-minute-long animation, but soon became more ambitious. The film was planned to follow a character named Johnny Lego going through the different LEGO themes at the time, including Space, Pirates, and Castle, as well as other environments that did not have official themes at the time, including desert and arctic. Only Space sets were ultimately used, and the animation ended up at nearly four minutes long.[2]: 11–12
Animation and rendering
The three artists produced The LEGO Movie under the company name Animagica Ltd, also referred to as Animagica Productions.[3][4] Aebersold and Furer each animated and composited about half of the film,[5] while du Midi focused on project management and composing music for the film. The team originally worked at du Midi's studio, located on the ground floor of a chalet halfway up the Niederhorn.[4][2]: 11 In spring 1994 the two animators moved their work into a two-room apartment in the village of Lanzenhäusern in Schwarzenburg, closer to Bern.[2]: 13 The film was created on Macintosh Quadra 950 computers with 64 MB of memory. The artists used StrataVision 3D for modeling and StrataStudio Pro for animation.[6] special effects (such as blurring, depth of field, and lens flares) and retouching were done by hand for each frame in Adobe Photoshop.[7][4]
The animators had no manuals for the software used and had to learn them through experience.[2]: 11
At one point Furer thought the project was over when the scene he had worked on the day before seemingly would not open; when it finally did after an hour and a half, it opened at the beginning of the scene, and it took another 45 minutes to move the animation to where it had been the night before.[2]: 12
One major issue was that StrataStudio had inaccurate z-buffering. This particularly affected the shot where the camera moves through the inside of the Space Police Commando ship. The initial render of this shot had severe flickering and noise, resulting in it being unusable; du Midi was able to repurpose it as the in-film static on the Commando's computer monitor.[2]: 12 The shot continued to have flickering issues, however, and the animators were unable to eliminate the issue through altering the camera's near/far distance settings. They ended up painting over the entire sequence in Photoshop, giving the scene a fisheye lens look to obscure any issues and adding humorous messages to the HUD.[8]
They finished the film around September or October 1994, in time for Frodo's birthday.[2]: 13
References
- ↑ Furer, Alex (2009). "Animagica – The LEGO Movie". Full Frame Studios. Archived from the original on 14 December 2024. Retrieved 14 December 2024. The given date of 26 August 1994 is assumed to be the date the film was completed rather than the date the article was published.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Crecente, Brian; Vincent, Ethan (March 24, 2021). "Episode 16 – Darwin" (PDF). Bits N' Bricks (Podcast). Participants: Claude Aebersold, Alex Furer, Julian Gómez, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, and Bjarne Tveskov. The LEGO Group. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 11, 2024. Retrieved December 11, 2024. Audio version via YouTube.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Furer, Alex. "Alex Furer - CV". Full Frame Studios. Archived from the original on 13 December 2024. Retrieved 15 December 2024.
July 1993 – Nov. 1994 Animagica Ltd., Switzerland, 3D Animator, Producer 'The LEGO Movie'
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Gómez, Julian (February 7, 2014). "The LEGO Movie (1994)". LEGO Darwin. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022.
- ↑ Furer, Alex (October 31, 2011). "LEGO - The Movie". Vimeo (Video description). Archived from the original on February 27, 2016. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
- ↑ Furer, Alex (2005). "1994 / 1995 - ANIMAGICA, Switzerland". Full Frame Studios. Archived from the original on 14 December 2024. Retrieved 15 December 2024.
- ↑ Furer, Alex (2001). "Curriculum Vitæ". Full Frame Studios. Archived from the original on 27 October 2001.
- ↑ Furer, Alex (February 5, 2014). "Very nice article Julian!". LEGO Darwin (Comment on post "The LEGO Movie (1994)"). Archived from the original on September 28, 2022.
- ↑ Robertson, David C.; Breen, Bill (2013). "Boosting Innovation". Brick by Brick: How LEGO rewrote the rules of innovation (First ed.). New York: Crown Publishing Group. pp. 53–55. ISBN 978-0-307-95160-1.
External links
- The LEGO Movie on Vimeo
