“Building Blocks for “The LEGO Movie”” by Gray, Coleman, Sarsfield and Heckenberg
Conference:
Type(s):
Title:
- Building Blocks for "The LEGO Movie"
Presenter(s)/Author(s):
Project Affiliation:
- Animal Logic
Abstract:
The LEGO Movie is a CG animated feature film set in a world made entirely of Lego bricks. It was critical to the filmmakers that this world maintain a highly realistic connection to the look and feel of real Lego.
What resulted was a unique, photo-realistic, stop motion aesthetic and animation style, with everything on screen including the characters, sets, oceans and explosions being built and realized with accurate CG Lego bricks.
Essential to the story was the dynamic construction (and destruction!) of any of these elements into component bricks. And with a desire to echo the creative possibilities of Lego itself, Animal Logic’s team of “masterbuilders” built a comprehensive Lego toolset that ensured artists could access and manipulate individual bricks, or the bricks within any asset, to create unique and spontaneous additions to the content of a shot. The results were often unscripted and highly entertaining.
Making a CG feature is complex at the best of times, but making a CG feature constructed entirely from bricks was a new and exciting challenge. It resulted in something quite different from conventional animation processes.
