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Brickfilming has a suprisingly eventful history. Since the 1980s thousands of people have had a go at animating their LEGO bricks.

The First Brickfilm(s)[]

Eward And Friends

A frame from the theme song of "Edward and Friends."

It is widely believed that The Magic Portal  made by Lindsay Fleay between 1985-1989 was the first ever brickfilm. However a number of other brickfilms were made before this, the earliest known brickfilm is actually one called En rejse til månen (Journey to the Moon), created by Lars and Henrik Hassing in 1973, although the film was only shared publicly via YouTube in 2013. 

Other early brickfilms include:

  • In 1985, WDLN TV made a brickfilm short called The Original Movie[1]. This was the same year that The Magic Portal went into pre-production.
  • In 1987, LEGO made a series of stop-motion videos called Edward and Friends. The show was based on LEGO's Fabuland theme.[2]
  • Also in 1987, Filmwest Associates made a series of Lego sport films, all around 5 minutes each. They called them Lego Sport Champions.[3][4]

Increase in brickfilming popularity[]

StevenSpielbergMovieMakerSetLego

The "Steven Spielberg MovieMaker Set."

In 2000, LEGO released a set called the Steven Spielberg Moviemaker Set, which came with a LEGO camera, filming set, and animation software.

This set significantly boasted the popularity of Brickfilming with its main appeal being the ability to create stop motions with it and led many budding animators to join the first Brickfilming website Brickfilms.com.

First Brickfilming Site[]

Main article on Brickfilms.com

In 2000 Jason Rowoldt created Brickfilms.com, to display a few of the brickfilms he had found around the internet.[1] The site opened just a month before the release of the Steven Spielberg Moviemaker Set which helped it grow to hundreds of animators and films. The site featured an active forum, a resources section and a store that sold T-shirts. Until 2007 it was the most popular Brickfilming website with hundreds of regular visitors and thousands of films in its directory.

A New Site Arises[]

Main article on BricksInMotion.com

RevMen, the owner of Brickfilms.com, decided to sell Brickfilms.com in the Fall of 2007. After intial difficulty in finding a buyer it was eventually sold, but while the change in ownership went smoothly, the community's response to the new owners didn't go so well. One of the main reasons was lack of communication. The site started to die after unpopular changes, and the site's administrator Schlaeps after seeing this (and changes to the site in the works) decided to create a new forum called ILoveBrickfilming.com. He eventually changed the name to Brickfilmers.com, and then later on BricksInMotion.com after copyright disputes with Brickfilms LLC. Bricks In Motion has since become the prime Brickfilming website and continues to grow strong.

Sources[]

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brickfilm

http://www.bricksinmotion.com

http://www.rakrent.com/mp/mp.htm


References[]

  1. http://wdln.tv/legoshorts.htm The Original Movie
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_and_Friends In 1987, LEGO made a series of stop-motion videos called Edward and Friends. based on LEGO's Fabuland theme
  3. http://www.filmwest.com/Catalogue/itemdetail/2395/ Lego Sport Champions
  4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET9r4oF9_rg&feature=relmfu Lego Sports Champions on YouTube
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