Hasta La Motion!

The 2014 film was an animation feat — but it was built on the legacy of homemade fan movies.

Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO

When you watch installments of the Warner Bros. line of Lego movies, it’s hard not to be struck by how realistic the animation is. It isn’t quite traditional stop motion — but it sure looks as if it could be. That’s largely thanks to the work of the animators at Animal Logic, a Sydney-based visual effects studio that has worked on The Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie, and the upcoming The Lego Ninjago Movie. Powered by live action filming techniques and a close attention to detail, the studio has helped reinvent what Lego animations can look like. But they owe a lot of that aesthetic to the influence of fan films. Since the early 1970s, enthusiasts have made home movies with their own Lego sets. They’re called Brickfilms — and they’ve grown into a sizable community producing great movies and helping many young animators get their start. The Lego Movie animators learned from what made those home movies so good by embracing the limitations of the medium, and creating a world that anyone could could rebuild at home.

Check out some of the Brickfilms we showed in this video:

The Magic Portal: https://youtu.be/jde4qHbCtSg
Journey to the Moon: https://youtu.be/SW583kCiOWo
Matrix 2003: https://archive.org/details/Matrix2003
Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego: https://archive.org/details/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrailInLegoFlv
Tapporalli 2020: https://archive.org/details/tapporalli
Predator Montage: https://archive.org/details/PredatorMontageClip
ONE: A Space Odyssey: https://archive.org/details/oneaspaceodyssey
Krieg der Steine: https://archive.org/details/KriegDerSteine
Batman Begins Montage: https://archive.org/details/Batman_Begins_Montage_clip
Delivery: https://archive.org/details/DeliveryH264
Star Wars Brickfilm: https://archive.org/details/Danstarwarsbrickfilm-test
Victim: https://archive.org/details/Victim_h264

For a great explainer on how to make your own Brickfilm at home, check out this video: https://youtu.be/ukFWYe-ZeTw

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what’s really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.

Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H
Or on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o