LegoMe TheOG

Preston Mutanga (born: , better known online as LegoMe_TheOG, is a Canadian YouTuber and animator who's known for making LEGO 3D animations of recreated movie scenes and memes. In 2023, he got the chance to animate a short scene in the animated film, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
==History==
As a child, Mutanga liked playing with LEGO sets and was even able to build sets without any instructions. He also created his own comic books.https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/movies/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-lego.html He eventually watched in 2014 where he became hugely inspired by the film's directors and writers, . His father, who worked as a physicist, showed him the 3D program, Blender who he originally used for modeling. He would begin to do research on the program and found out that it was used in several movies. He began to watch YouTube videos online to teach himself how to animate in the program around 2017 to 2018.https://torontolife.com/city/my-friends-keep-telling-me-im-famous-meet-the-14-year-old-who-animated-a-scene-in-across-the-spider-verse/
On January 2, 2023, Mutanga uploaded a video on YouTube and X (Twitter) where he recreated the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse trailer with LEGO.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc4jx4PugHI He said that he saw LEGO trailer recreations on YouTube, so he decided to give it a try. This video would eventually catch the attention of Phil Lord and Chris Miller who were incredibly impressed with his skills at such a young age.https://variety.com/2023/film/news/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-hired-14-year-old-animator-preston-mutanga-toronto-1235637160/ They reached out to Mutanga on Twitter to animate a short scene of a LEGO themed universe.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJrCRzpfdQ0 Initially, both Sony Pictures Animation and Mutanga's parents were skeptical of hiring someone at such a young age to make a scene. Once they eventually contacted each other and communicated, he was allowed to animate the scene at home where he could go on Zoom rooms with the producers to show any progress.
Mutanga bought a more powerful computer in order to make the rendering time faster and he eventually finished the scene in about three months. He attended the premiere of the film in Los Angeles on May 30, 2023 where he said it was heartwarming to see everyone's positive reaction to the scene he made.https://torontolife.com/city/my-friends-keep-telling-me-im-famous-meet-the-14-year-old-who-animated-a-scene-in-across-the-spider-verse/
==Content==
Mutanga created his own YouTube channel on October 10, 2021 when he was 13 years old. Much of his content consisted of recreated scenes from several forms of media, such as Spider-Man 2 (PS5), Shrek, Breaking Bad, etc. He also made several meme videos on the channel, sometimes using his LEGO avatar, several movies, or using other YouTubers, such as MrBeast and MoistCr1tikal. Beginning on October 2, 2022, he began making recreated trailers and scenes from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which became hugely popular online, gaining millions of views. He also occasionally does live streams where he animates in Blender of animations he's working on.
==Trivia==
*Many of his inspirations are Toy Story, Brave, Monsters University, The Lego Movie, and The Angry Birds Movie.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um6Hc3We340&t
*When animating his scenes, he wants it to make it look as realistic as possible by using lighting, much like how it was done in The Lego Movie.
*Mutanga is planning to attend Sheridan College or the California Institute of the Arts in order to study animation and eventually direct and animate his own movies.https://torontolife.com/city/my-friends-keep-telling-me-im-famous-meet-the-14-year-old-who-animated-a-scene-in-across-the-spider-verse/
*His current hardware is a 4070 Ti, Nividia.
*He also occasionally does 2D Animation.https://twitter.com/FG_Artist/status/1715867890488848608
==References==
Category:Animation YouTubers
Category:Art YouTubers
Category:Meme YouTubers
Category:Canadian YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2021