LegoMation Movies

Oh Well (1989)

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TRT 12:16

PRODUCTION NOTES: Oh Well clearly vaulted Biff and Mario from the hum-drummery of the Lego Space industry into instant LegoMation stardom.  This short piece was the brainchild of both Andy and I, demonstrating the basics of what LegoMation was capable of.  It was with this movie that we realized the value of music to help fill the long, choppily-animated gaps between dialogue lines.  Andy also has some recollections he recently sent me.

For fun, I once re-edited this movie to smooth out the animation and eliminate some of the unnecessary pauses in the dialogue.  The length was cut down to about half of the original length.

TE (1990) 

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TRT 29:36

PRODUCTION NOTES: Biff and Mario star in TE, a reference to something from our college days long lost.  It's really two movies in one, and in hindsight we really should have split it in the obvious spot.  Andy animated this one by himself over a winter break.  The Garlians and Flower People make their debut appearances in this nearly 30-minute masterpiece.

The Making of LegoMation (1994)

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TRT 16:18

PRODUCTION NOTES: Somehow, we had the forethought to shoot some footage while we were actually meeting about and working on the various LegoMation movies we had done.  Of course, there's not much behind-the-scenes footage of us actually animating, because we only had one camera.  But it was enough to do an E! True Hollywood Story-style cheesy documentary on some of the group dynamics at play during the production of the movies.  The Making Of... was actually produced 4 years after the original footage was shot; all the Q&A segments hosted by Amy were shot in '94 and were written specifically to fit the footage that we already had.  At this point, Andy was attending UNLV and was not locally available to participate; we instead decided to just write him into the script as having being deceased for some time.

Heart Of Darkness (1995)

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TRT 28:08

PRODUCTION NOTES: Biff & Mario return in their last (so far) installment in the Biff & Mario adventures.  This movie was mostly animated by Andy in the summer of 1990, but the audio and editing were not completed until 1995.  It was animated mostly in-camera; when we added the audio and credits we did it with analog editing equipment at the station.  At over 28 minutes, it may not be the longest of our Lego movies, but it clearly makes the least sense.  Even when watching it with Andy and I for explanations, the plot is inexplicably complex.  There are seemingly hundreds of characters, many of whom pop up with no explanation as to who they are or what their role is.  Major influences include Apocalypse now and Dune, amongst many other references to famous films.  After completion, we vowed never to do anything that complicated ever again.  Although the movie is almost impossible to follow, some of Andy's best writing is showcased here: "All I want is the simple things in life... Peanut butter, nice weather, a girlfriend who's not related to me..." 

An interesting side note is that some of the people who did the voices for Heart never even met each other.  Because we were not able to get everyone together at the same time, I would bring a portable deck to their house or wherever and have them cut the lines we needed.  Sometimes I would read the other characters' lines as we recorded theirs so they could get a better feel for the scene.

Another technical note: Although 1995 was right about when computerized "non-linear" editing was starting to become popular, this piece was finished on an online tape-based system at WEEK.  We used a still store, switcher, and a CMX edit controller to assemble the whole thing.  We also used a special VTR able to roll video backwards cleanly to create the opening credits.

The Making Of... Outtakes (2000)

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TRT 5:42

PRODUCTION NOTES: One day last year, I happened upon the original raw tapes from the "studio" session where Amy, Myke and I taped all the Q&A for The Making Of Legomation (1994).  From those tapes I assembled this fun little ditty which mostly consists of Amy laughing, but stay tuned to the end when Myke regales us with a wonderful romantic melody from the 70's.

This was the last piece I did on a linear (tape-to-tape) editing system.  The cheesy graphics were created with a Chyron VP-2, a standalone graphics generator that had fonts you loaded on ROM chips in the front panel.  I learned how to use this exact model back in high school in the mid-80's and had an opportunity to pick one up for free around the time I edited this video; I just couldn't pass it up.