Brickfilm Sex?

One major thing that seems to be frowned upon by brickfilmers (Lego/brick animators) seems to be sexual content of any kind in peoples brickfilms, I mean, you can see why, LEGO is generally a childrens toy and it should not be exploited in this way, but if your film needs it, and it is relevant to the story, what is their problem?

An example of irrelevant use of sex in brickfilming, or as some people call it, "Lego Porn" on youtube is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ4bqsMeSNc

This video seems to include two minifigs, in complete yellow (to show they are naked, however you are incapable of seeing much detailed anatomy on lego hehe), performing many crude movements in the need to simulate sex, however I personally find this kind of scene rather funny, as the sounds are usually really cheesy like they have been ripped off some crap porno, and as one of the comments said "Those step sounds are from counter strike". This film was blatantly made in order to rack in the views, as it has achieved 400000 views almost, so the maker has successfully done this.

My new film seems to have got alot of bad feedback because of the content, but I thought it was relevant, but maybe it should have been more subtle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syTqCJoxnI

If sex scenes are incorporated into brickfilms accordingly, they can be higly effective and establish a deep bond between the characters, to make it seem more realistic, which is something that brickfilms lack these days, realism.

So think next time, don't go adding some random sex scene into your film, as it often gets lots of bad comments from critics and you aren't doing yourself much justice. If you are going to add a sex scene, make it relevant and worthwhile to help the plot move forward. I have made this mistake in one of my recent films, "Life's Interventions" where I included a very basic sex scene, this was not taken well by some people even though I did have a content warning.

Thanks for reading, check out my website at http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk


COMMENT PLEASE, POST YOUR OPINION ON THIS, WHATEVER IT MAY BE.

Top Gear - JK Beats Cowell

JK from season one seems to have pulled it off in the last episode of top gear this series. Returning from season 1, JK beats Simon cowell by 0.09 of a second, with a 1:45.81 in a Chevrolet Lacetti around the top gear track.

JK held his record in season 1 staying at the top of the leaderboard, and completes this series with another victory.

I'm glad this happened, because simon cowell is a bit of a prat, thinks is a complete god, when hes done nothing in life other than judge some crappy music contests in which few of the winners of them actually amount to anything.

In relation to animation, I found an attempt to recreate top gear in lego on youtube, Its not that bad technically, but it acomplishes what it set out to do and you should check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pnd7szZieQ

Thanks, sorry I missed the scheduled sex in brickfilms rant, I'll do that next, read up again.

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Gordon Brown set straight by Harman?

Now I don't really understand all this politics stuff, but what I do know is that "Gordon Brown" seems to think that the labour party are plotting against him...... He leads the labour party, yet he thinks everyone is out to get him? Deputy leader Harman seems to have set him straight, kindly pointing out that the labout party is focused on running the country, I have no idea where gordon brown gets his ideas, I'm guessing he's had a bad day at the home, maybe the dog urinated on his leg? Who knows.

Seems all this labour nonsense could be a good thing to animate, I was thinking about maybe doing a parody of one of the labour speeches, just to see how many "Labour Lovers" complain at me, should be rather interesting. This animation would involve commentary of the speech, pointing out obvious points, but over exaggerating them.

I never really have been interested in politics, but it seems I could become more interested, by making fun of it in the form of a brickfilm.

Next? Rant on sex in brickfilms (Lego animation)

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

How to make a stop motion animation film.

Stop motion is the art of moving the subject, taking a picture, moving it again, taking another picture, in order to perceive the look like it is moving.


The main things you need to make a stop motion animation film are:

1. A camera
2. A computer
3. Something to animate

Once you have these 3 things, you're ready to go.

The camera is the most essential part as it is required so that you can actually film something, otherwise your'e just playing with the puppet. A webcam is a good camera to get to start off with.

The camera should have most of the following criteria:

1. Manual focus in order to focus on the subject clearly.
2. Manual settings (Exposure, white balance etc, otherwise you will get light flicker)
3. A CCD sensor.

In order to use the webcam, you simply need to install the camera drivers, and plug your camera into your computer.

The 2nd main thing you need to make a stop motion animation was a computer, this is essential for many reasons:

1. Capturing the frames from the webcam
2 Editing the frames together to make a film

A popular software to capture frames is MONKEYJAM, this is designed for pencil animations, but is perfect for any form of stop motion animation, as it enables you to capture frames, and then assemble them into a raw AVI, ready for editing, this is key, when it comes to animating.

Editing software is used to assemble all the AVI's made in monkeyjam, and is used to add sounds and titles. I'd reccomend Sony Vegas or adobe premiere as after a while, everyone gets bored of them rubbish Windows Movie Maker titles, and its nice to see something new and swanky.

Finally, the last piece to the puzzle is finding something to animate. There are many things that you can animate with, as all it involves is moving them about, the following is what most people animate:

1. Themselves, or friends.
2. Lego, or something similar
3. Clay is a popular one
4. Household objects
5. Drawings.

You can basically animate anything.

So yeah give it a go, it's rather easy when you get used to it.

If you have any questions, just leave a comment, or visit my website at http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk , and email me.

Brickfilming (Lego animation) community at bricksinmotion.com, if you are interested in the hobby even more and need to ask more detailed questions.

Blog Opened

I decided to open a blog to write about what I'm doing over the summer, in terms of animating and stuff like that. Likely to be updated every other day, I'll just recap what I've done so far on my films.

I'm currently working on a film involving a conflict between two villages, and this escalates into something bad, so yeah, thats about it.

Read up next time :p

Visit my website @ http://www.rvidproductions.co.nr