WEBVTT - How Brickfilm Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.240 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.360 w charas of you, Chuck Bryant and Jerry and is 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.840 this stuff you should know? How's it going? He's going great, sir? 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.520 How are you pretty good? Yeah? Do you remember our 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.040 Lego episode? I do. That is a great episode, classic 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.520 and I highly recommend people listen to. It's where the 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.400 name old Kirk Christiansen came us. Soon as I saw 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.520 that name, that just flashed me back. A great name, 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.280 old yep O, l E. I think we should go 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.479 buy old Josh Clark and all right, Chuck Bryant, that's 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.440 definitely how it goes. Well, I'll bet you something. Chucker's 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.160 back in nine two when old Kirk Christensen founded Lego 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.320 and Bill and Denmark Bill, when don't you say is 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:58.760 the name? Yeah? You mean when he founded Automatic Binding Bricks. Right, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.040 he didn't call him Lego at first? Um like it 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.240 was definitely more gratty. Yeah, well, he came up with 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.240 um Lego apparently, And I remember us debating this or not. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.640 But so I looked around and this is what I 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:14.600 see everywhere, including on the Lego site that lego is 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.600 two words leg goat, which means play well, g o dt. 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:26.200 But lego also means I put together in Latin. I believe. Yeah, yep. Well, anyway, 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:27.960 when he was coming up with this, I'll bet he 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:30.479 never thought these are going to be used to make 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.720 hundreds and thousands of short stop motion films are gonna 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.479 delight millions of people around the world one day. Probably 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:41.039 never thought about that, No, but they do. I wonder 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.880 what old Kirk thought when he stepped on one with 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:49.120 his bare feet. He thought, Yeah, he's man, this is 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:50.920 going to take off a lot of parents for the 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:56.160 next three thousand years. It's not fun, so chuck um. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.640 I don't know if you caught it or not. I 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.920 just made a reference to brick films. Did you catch 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:05.280 the reference I did? Stop motion? Well, I guess the 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.560 animation really is what it what it comes down to, 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.360 That's exactly what it is. One of the earliest forms 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:18.040 of animation because, um, all it involves is moving something, 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.360 taking a photo of it, moving it just a little 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.040 bit more, taking another picture, and doing that until you 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.960 want to kill yourself pretty much. And that stop motion 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.840 animation requires a lot of patients I've made a few 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.560 of them myself. And when I say a few of them, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.359 I mean one complete one with my brother with g 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:43.800 I Joe's with the Super eight. I made about probably 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.680 twelve seconds of one with Star Wars figures in my twenties, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.520 and then about thirty seconds of one with Clay. I 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.000 built a little theater box set and everything made a 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:59.560 guy look great out of sculpie, and um, I think 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:01.440 he got out of bed, went over to the dresser, 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.760 I got a shirt, and like went and exited the door. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.280 And then I was like, I'm done. It's took so long. 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.200 The rest of his day that you had the script 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.240 for is just no. Yeah. It looked good though, and 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.160 I was proud of it, but it's just not for me. Well, 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.240 you need to post those on YouTube. Man, They're on 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:23.440 VHS somewhere. I can dig these things up. You need 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.200 to get them on the YouTube. The world can access 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.320 your VHS tapes. So what do I Just get the 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.400 VHS tape and I just bang it on my laptop 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.359 and it gets on YouTube. Okay, as long as there's 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.160 a black monol with in the background behind you, Yeah, yeah, 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.119 it'll work all right. I'll have to try that. Uh 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.560 so you never use Legos though, never use Legos um. 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.560 But I do think Legos are made for this kind 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.440 of thing because not only do they click into place, 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.040 which is key because you don't want stuff moving around, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.280 but they these days they are all kinds of pre 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.000 packet Lego sets that are just little film sets waiting 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.400 to be made into movies. Like I mean that that's 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.680 probably the reason why it took off so much, because 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.040 Lego keeps building these sets that are like Harry Potter 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.440 sets or Star Wars sets or Marvel Superhero sets, um. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.120 And then there's Lego competitors like Mega Blocks that has 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.680 licenses for like the Halo video game series or Hello 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.800 Kitty or Barbie. Right. Yeah, so all you have to 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.760 do is get like a one of these packages, one 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.080 of these sets, and all of a sudden you have 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.640 a movie set. If you have a lot of patients, uh, 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.560 camera of any sort really is we'll see, um and 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.080 something that animated with basically a light source, not a 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.599 lot of stuff you can get. When I was doing it, 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.479 it was about as bare bones as it got. It 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.120 was working on a tabletop with a couple of you know, 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.120 the little clip on aluminum light you get at the 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.280 hardware store. You can use those. What are those worklights? 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.400 Work floods? Yeah, just a little worklights. They get hot, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:11.279 they sure do. Um, and I didn't have any, you know, 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.040 I had a tripod and a camera because you want 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.680 to keep things super still. Definitely need a tripod. Definitely 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.680 need a tripod. Or if you are fancy or have 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.320 friends that are fancy and have a slider, you know, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.360 it's it's basically like a little mini dolly that your 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.400 camera can sit on in there, you know, three to 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:29.919 four ft long, and then you can do little dolly 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.760 moves and camera moves on your slider and keep it 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.640 nice and straight. Or if you have some ingenuity, which 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.880 you probably do if you're making a brick film, you 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.920 can make your own little skateboard dolly out of skateboard 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.680 wheels and PBC pipe. Yeah, you just make a little 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.839 track and then um attached like you know, you basically 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:52.600 you can. There's a lot of ways can do it, 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.279 but like a baseboard to sit the camera on with 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:02.880 track wheels to guide along the PBC pretty neat. So um, 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.520 what we're talking about specifically our brick films and one 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:08.720 of the There aren't a lot of requirements to make 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.240 a brick film aside from what you're saying, but one 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.880 of them is that legos have to kind of feature prominently. 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:19.240 Most brick films are stop motion, and one of the things, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.839 in addition to having like Harry Potter sets or um 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.520 outer space sets, are all these different sets that are 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.080 like many movie sets right out right out of the box. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.320 Um are the mini figures. Um there, those are your 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.839 actors typically. Yeah, they didn't come along to the late seventies. Yeah, 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.400 and then now I think they're the largest population on 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.360 the planet. Oh really, Yeah, I remember there's like four 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.240 billion of them or something like that. You know, they 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.600 made more tires than anyone else. But yeah, that doesn't 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.919 surprise me. Yeah, I came along. My lego experience was 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.359 pre uh figure. So we had to we had to 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.560 make our own little men and women out of smaller 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:06.800 legos in the snowy ways. These make sense, they look cooler. Yeah. 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.760 So most brick films are stop motion. Some people actually 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:17.160 filmed the the um lego figures and characters moving, I 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:19.840 would guess, so I would think it's not quite as 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:24.160 time consuming though wire work and stuff. I bet it's frustrating. 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.080 But I mean, if you have like all of your 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.360 lego figures on roller skates or something, you just kind 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.600 of drag them along. Sure, you don't have to take 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.600 picture picture picture. You kind of film them moving with 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.880 stop motion. That's very it's much. It's the opposite. Basically. 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.560 It's like you said, you you set up your your 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.240 your shot, you take a photo of it, and then 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.800 you move the person a little bit, like if they're walking, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.840 you would move their arm, one of their arms down, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.160 another one up, and one leg out a little bit, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.200 and the other one back a little bit, and then 0:07:55.520 --> 0:08:00.280 take that picture and so on and so on and um. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:06.200 What you're ultimately doing is recreating motion, right right, um, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.160 using inanimate objects. And the way you recreate motion is 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.960 by the frames per second, which is a film speed, 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.080 and film shoots it or plays I should say, at 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.400 twenty four frames per second, which means that every second 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.360 of film you see, you're actually being shown twenty four 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.560 still photographs in secession. Yeah, that's for film. Video is 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.600 thirty frames per second. And there are there are variations 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.000 on all this to achieve different looks, you know. Um, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.440 but if you are just doing the math if you 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.400 want to do a stop motion film, a five minute 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.720 stop motion film at twenty four fps frames per second 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:50.240 would be seventy two individual photographs. Right, that's for five minutes. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.640 Five minute film. Means you have to take that many 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.560 photographs in order and in between photographs. You can't just 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.840 sit there and take shotographs. Rust just gonna have seventy 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.360 two hundred of the same pictures. There's seventy two hundred 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.480 slightly different pictures where one is slightly different from the last. Yes, 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.120 one way you can cheat that a little bit, um 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.040 is if you just double it up and you use 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:19.240 two frames um for each move. So you would take 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:25.480 twelve pictures for a second of um video, right, well, 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.160 and then just use them twice and that would make 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.400 it a four second, four frames per sent. Yeah, it's 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.040 gonna look a little more herky jerky, but um, the 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.199 nature of the brick film is a little herky jerky 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.360 anyway because of the way they move and the the 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.240 range of motion on the little figures. So it's not 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:47.840 like if you took completely bendable action figures. You know, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.199 you can get a lot more smooth, detailed moves. Yeah, 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.280 people aren't expecting your lego thing to move completely seamlessly. 0:09:55.360 --> 0:10:00.520 That's not how legos move. They've got I think four 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:06.400 four points of movement. Yeah, their shoulders and their hips. Okay, 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.120 so they don't have like elbows or knees, and then 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.440 technically you can say their head has a range of motion. Five. 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.120 You just acted out a lego movement. It's very adorable. 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.440 Which people could see the stuff? Josh, thanks man. All right, 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.400 well let's take a little break here in um, get 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:49.080 back to some lighting techniques right after this. All right, Josh, 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:54.120 you've you've built your You've got your Ghostbusters lego kit, 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.520 Lego brand kit. Right. Um, you want to make a 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:04.800 seque old to Ghostbusters because Ghostbusters too was horrible? Not true? 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.960 Did you like it? Sure? It was a Ghostbusters movie. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:13.000 It was great, boy, So you want to make Ghostbusters 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.760 three because you thought two was so good it deserved 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.000 its own sequel. All right, Um, and you want to 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.240 get some lights already said you can. You can go 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.560 cheap and just get those little aluminum lights if you have, 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.920 if you really want to get serious, you can rent 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.839 lights from a camera house. You can go to your 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.200 friend Scott's sure be like, I know you have some lights. Yeah, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.160 or here at how stuff works. We have the use 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.440 of lights. Yeah, if you're making a brick film, drop 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.880 Bible'll lend you some lights. No, don't do that. Um. Basically, 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.120 lighting is gonna do a few things. It's gonna light 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.920 up your set so people can see it a uh 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.559 and be. It can help you set a mood for sure, 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.160 like whether it's day or night, or noir or sunny, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.480 like a bright sunny day. Uh. And what you're really 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.680 looking to do, though, is have complete control of your 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.200 your lighting, because one thing that can really thwart your 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:11.560 brick film is any change in lighting. You won't notice it. 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.320 You'll just take your little picture and then you'll see 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.360 flickering going on when you play it back. And that's 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:19.840 because someone turned on a light in the other room 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.079 next to you and you didn't notice it. So you 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.440 want to black out all the curtains. Just get in 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.840 a room where you have complete control over the lighting. Yeah. 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.040 That's the same reason why you don't want to shoot 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.559 a brick film or any kind of stop motion outdoors, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.320 because the sun changes its lighting to be impossible fairly 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:39.960 regular rate yea faster than you can shoot and move. Um. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.640 So yeah, you want to totally be able to control lighting. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.720 So once you have your lighting under total control, you 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.679 want to use usually about three lights at least. Put 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.320 on your black turtleneck, yeah, or like your black roots 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.400 suit or something like that. Ye even better, uh huh. 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.560 And and don't let anybody see like that, because they're 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.120 gonna be like, you're a total weirdo locked away in 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.679 this room with no windows, wearing a black roots who 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.320 playing with your light lego mini things And you'd say, no, 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.560 I'm a filmmaker, right, brigg filmmaker and they would just 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.319 back out of the room slowly. Yeah, exactly. So, Um, 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.040 you you use one light for backlighting, use that behind 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.880 the thing behind your shot. You um have a key 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.600 lighting which is the front. And then you also want 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.880 to have some sort of bounce and um you can 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.520 basically replace that third light source with even just like 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.520 a white sheet of paper something to reflect light off 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.840 that that's very mobile, so you can director wherever you 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:40.199 need it. And the whole point of this is to 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.920 light normally, but also to chase off shadows. Yeah, if 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.480 you've never let anything, you're going to be frustrated at 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.880 first because you're lego characters are gonna have like two 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.280 different shadows going in two different directions, and the first 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.200 thing you're gonna think is, well, that doesn't look like 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.800 real life. So you can do two things. You can 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.920 experiment around with your phil lights until you get rid 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.640 of your shadows, or you can get a book or 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:08.320 look on the internet. Just some very basic lighting techniques. Um, 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.760 it's not super complicated. It's nobody tough to get like, 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.000 really good at it. It's not necessarily intuitive where you're like, oh, 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.040 this guy looks like a soccer player in a night game. 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.880 He's got four shadows everywhere exactly, So how do I 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.400 get rid of that? Oh, it's this bounce. I would 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.320 say this would be one of those times when it's 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.600 best to just rely on the wisdom of others who 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.440 have come before. Yeah, and that wisdom on the internet. 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:34.040 The yeah, exactly. Um, the the lights too, you're gonna 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.280 want to diffuse it. It's it's probably gonna be way 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.920 too harsh coming directly off the bulb. So um, you 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.280 can use like wax paper or a handkerchief or in 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:49.800 anything that doesn't catch on fire. Uh ideally, Yeah, and 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.479 you do in your grandfather's room and get a handkerchief 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:57.440 out of his gesture drawer exactly with the initials H monogrammed. 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.000 It's old krusty brown snot Yeah. I used to think 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:02.800 that was so gross when I was a little it is. 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.360 It's like, oh man, they're blowing their nose and they're 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.920 putting it in, they're puttying it away for safekeeping. Gross. 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.960 It was a less wasteful generation, though they didn't fill 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.360 a plan fills with clinics. That is true, you know, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:17.920 so it took I pretty much feel like we just 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.480 gave a great clinic on lighting. Yeah, shoots some test footage. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.160 Don't dive right in there, you know, monkey around with it. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.600 Oh yeah, you're gonna be really mad or your thing's 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.400 gonna look terrible at first, and then get progressively better 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.680 as the final final thing goes on. Say yeah, you 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.440 want to learn by doing yeah, and yeah, just do 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.800 some exercises, all right. We talked a little bit about equipment. Uh, 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.400 they are all kinds of cameras you can use. Um. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.920 What I used on the last one, which was super handy, 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.160 was a camera that had a remote control so you 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.560 could just click off the photos without having to touch 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.840 the camera. That is very advisable. Yea. Once you have 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.400 the camera set, it's really nice to not touch it 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.920 again if you don't have to. Yeah, because again you're 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.800 moving the stuff within this world, not the camera, at 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.240 least for the shot you're taking. And again, if you 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:12.720 if you have a three second shot, that's what seventy 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.480 two photos you need to take from that exact same position. Yeah, right, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:18.480 So yeah, you don't want that camera to move at 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.560 all or else is gonna be some weird jarring and 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:21.960 stuff like that. And the best way to do that 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.640 is a remote capture camera. That really helps. Um, if 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.400 you have an auto focus slash manual focus, you want 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.440 to turn it off the auto focus, make it fixed focus, 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.200 manual focus you can. Again, you're just looking for complete control, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.880 uh auto focus little you know, you don't want to 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.800 focus on the wrong thing, especially if, like um, your 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.440 your many figures coming closer to the camera every time. 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:51.560 That's gonna change that auto focus and you're every every 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.960 photo in the frame is gonna look slightly different or 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.760 fuzzy or just completely changed from time to time. Not good. Yeah, 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:03.880 you're after consistency, uh, consistency through control pretty much if 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.399 you have a digital zoom camera you want to you 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.160 want an optical zoom? What is that? Uh? It's basically 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.640 I think a digital zoom simulates the image rather than 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.879 it being actually so it digitizes the zoom at a 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.800 certain point and it's not as high quality now it 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.320 looks it always looks crutty in my opinion. So, yeah, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.439 you want to control, so a true zoom basically you 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:35.240 remember the camera, yes you know, yeah, creep that little 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.240 thing in like a dolly right, or if you have 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.560 your slider you're all set there, so where you can 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.760 say it's like a what you basically want to be 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.800 like Nikolai cho Chesk or eat a mean of of 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.760 your mini films set here? You want like total control 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.560 over everything. I thought you were gonna say, like Orson Welles, 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:57.000 like he's to even worse. Okay, Uh so we talked 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.120 about bumping the camera. You also don't want to bump 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:03.040 your film set. Yeah, I mean that can really ruin 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.520 your day at the end of a long day if 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.080 you bump it and all your stuff falls over. So 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.960 clamp that stuff down, clamp your set down, glue it down, 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.040 do whatever you have to do to keep it as 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.440 ruded as possible. Yeah, and don't let anyone anywhere near 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:21.360 it now because it's my lego set and I'm the outdoor. 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.400 So we've got some more stuff, some more awesome UM recommendations, 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:49.880 and we're gonna get to it right after this, Chuck, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.120 I really feel like we're helping a lot of people here. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.480 I think so too. So we talked about lighting, we've 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.879 talked about the kind of camera equipment you watch or 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.640 UM and a lot of well, especially the Brick film 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.560 which we'll talk about later, UM, are silent. They're silent films, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.000 which means you don't have to worry about sound. But 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.520 there's a lot of them that do have sound, dialogue 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.040 all that stuff, UM, and you don't have to worry 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.320 about recording that as you go along. Most of the 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.080 sound can be recorded in post production, but you want 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:22.439 to have an idea of what is going to be 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.080 said where or what what your soundtrack is going to 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.320 be like, because you have to figure out how long 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.000 each shot needs to be and how many ultimately how 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.800 many photos you need to take within a given scene 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.520 or else, like the voiceover is still going when you 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:42.240 just change scenes and your your entire family and friends 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.600 will laugh at you. When you show them your brick film. 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:46.640 You don't want to be the Edwood of brick films. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.840 He just did not care. He didn't care. It was great. 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.040 That movie was great. My favorite or one of my 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.680 favorite parts, aside from everything Bill Murray did, was when 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.320 tour like bumps the wall in the way in and 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:02.119 they're like, don't you want to shoot that to or 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.000 just walked in the wall, He's like, no, I like it. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:11.680 It's real. Let's use it. Um so expressions and drama. 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.119 These little lego folks aren't super expressive in the face, 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:18.720 but they suggested in this article, and it kind of 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.560 makes sense. Pop that head off and put on something else, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.680 you know, could be a pink pong ball that you 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.000 draw faces on. Well, there there are different many figs 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:33.240 that have um different expressions yea, and so you can 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.359 just interchange their heads. Okay, So if someone needs to 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.359 look up horrors, put on the horror face. Um. And 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.760 then apparently there's companies that will customize facial expressions on 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.760 your mini figures. Yeah. And I imagine if you have 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.639 some money and you can get that done. That's right. Uh, 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.480 And now I want to go not off topic, but 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.560 off article and say story, story, story. If you are 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.960 going to make a brick film or any film, have 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.560 a good story. Just just because it's a two minute 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.639 lego brick film, it's gonna stink if it's just you know, 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.399 no matter how good it looks, it's not gonna be 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:15.600 fun to watch unless you have a good little story. 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.720 So like, write something out that's good and engaging or funny, 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:21.720 and it doesn't have to be super long to have 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.680 a little character arc or story arc. Have your guy 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.399 chased by something else. Yeah, Like I watched one the 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:29.760 other day and it was it was fun, It was silly. 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.520 It was a one lego guy helping the guy next 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:37.480 door do all his chores. Is that the the dandelion? Oh, 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:39.919 I don't know the name of it. But he was, 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.159 you know, helping him mo and helping him put on 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.080 shutters and doing all this stuff and all the while 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.199 like his home was getting beaten up, and it was 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:50.040 just you know, that's all they needed was that one 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.800 little joke at the end that they showed the nice 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:56.000 house and then the house in tatters. It's a very 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.959 in Randy and brick film. Was it don't help your name, 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.000 your own house will fall the pieces if you help 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.679 your neighbor well to take care of yourself. The character 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.400 was John Galt, so there may be something there. Um 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.240 So anyway, yeah, story just uh, I would encourage you 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:16.000 to make something engaging, uh, and then make it look good. Yeah, 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.760 all right, that's my soapbox moment. That was great. Thanks, 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.600 that was good stuff. All right. So we're onto software, Yeah, 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:25.840 I think so, because, um, you're going to find very 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.840 quickly when you have shotos, you need a way to 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.520 turn them into a video. They don't just automatically turn 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.600 into a video like that. And you can't just do 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.320 a flipbook on the internet because you'd have to shoot 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.359 that anyway and run it through software eventually. So you 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:43.720 might as well not go to that extra step. Just 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:49.000 get yourself some stop stop motion um animating software, and 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:50.800 there's plenty of them out there. There's some that cost 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.760 tons of money, some that are free. Lego has one, yeah, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.520 called Lego movie Maker. Yeah, it's a little app you 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:59.760 can make your own little big encourage the making a 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:02.880 brick films of course, right, So depending on the kind 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:05.520 of software you have there there's some that will automatically 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:10.600 import from your camera. There's some that will. Um, that 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:14.600 has something called onion skinning, which shows like a transparency 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.520 of the last shot over the current shot, so you 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.359 can make sure everything's going the way you need to say, 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:23.600