Brickfilming

Brickfilming is the name given to a fan practice which involves making stop motion animated films out of Lego bricks. It is often carried out by AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego), although not all brickfilms are necessarily Lego fan films. 
As Lego has licensed and created sets for a number of other franchises, brickfilms are often fan films from other fandoms such as Marvel, DC Comics, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings.
Brickfilms cover a wide range of genres and forms, from original short films to music videos and animated renditions of comedic sketches. In recent years, brickfilmers have increasingly begun to incorporate CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) into their films, though stop motion remains the primary medium for creating brickfilms.
Brickfilming experienced a surge of mainstream interest with the release of The LEGO Movie and its sequel The LEGO Batman Movie, whose creators deliberately paid homage to the art and techniques of brickfilming in their making of the films. (See: The LEGO Movie and Brickfilming)
In their paper 'How digital remix and fan culture helped the Lego comeback' for Transformative Works & Cultures no. 25, Sophie Gwendolyn Einwächter and Felix M. Simon describe the practice of brickfilming and how it interacts with the wider culture of Lego fandom:
==Notable Examples==
*Eddie Izzard-Cake or Death: A brickfilm rendition of the popular Eddie Izzard sketch, 'Cake or Death?'
*Eddie Izzard- Death Star Canteen
*Ween - Where'd the cheese go?: A brickfilm music video set to the short song by Ween, 'Where'd the cheese go?' and created using miniatures from the LEGO Orient Adventures set. It was created in 2006, and many commenters nostalgically remember it as one of the first YouTube videos they ever watched.
*LEGO The Age of Ultron in 2 Minutes: A brickfilm parody of Avengers: Age of Ultron, a collaboration between BrotherhoodWorkshop and How It Should Have Ended
*Lego Ninja - The Underground Fortress: The first film published on YouTube by Michael Hickox (MICHAELHICKOXFilms), and a classic YouTube brickfilm
==Notable Brickfilmers==
*Oblong Pictures
*BrotherhoodWorkshop
*Paganomation (Official Website)
*forrestfire101
*MlCHAELHlCKOXFilms
==Official Associations with LEGO==
The LEGO Group has worked with a number of brickfilmers to create official brickfilm projects to be used for commercial purposes. It has also encouraged the spread and popularisation of brickfilming with the 2016 release of The LEGO Animation Book, a guide to creating your own stop motion animation out of Lego, which was created with brickfilmer David Pagano, founder of the animation studio Paganomation.
There have also been officially sponsored brickfilm contests for fans to enter, such as the Tiny Film Festival, a kids' competition to write a brickfilm to be created with Duplo,Lego and Disney initiate the Tiny Film Festival to turn kids’ stories into film, The Drum. Published 13 April, 2016 (Accessed October 1, 2017). and a contest to create a clip that would be featured in The LEGO Movie.LEGO Movie Launches A Competition, Empire. Published March 21, 2013 (Accessed October 1, 2017). The LEGO Group also frequently runs brickfilming competitions on its competition site, ReBrick.com.LEGO Rebrick Contest Page (Accessed October 1, 2017).
For this reason, brickfilming can be considered an officially-sanctioned fan activity. However, there is a growing tension in the brickfilm community over the perceived "mainstreamisation" of brickfilming and the making of brickfilms for commercial purposes, as Einwächter and Simon explain in their paper:
===The LEGO Movie and Brickfilming===
==Communities==
*Bricks in Motion, a brickfilming community founded in 2001
*Brickworld, a Chicago-based convention for Adult Fans of Lego
==Resources & Guides==
A number of resources and guides exist to help fans get started with creating brickfilms, particularly following the surge of popular interest in brickfilming that was prompted by the release of The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie.
*The Director of Lego Batman on How to Make a Stop-Motion Brick Flick of Your Very Own, Wired
*Make a LEGO® Stop Motion, DIY.org
*Guide to Lego Stop Motion, BrickBrosProductions
*How to Make a LEGO Animation (Brickfilm), Jett Williams
*The LEGO Animation Book by David Pagano and David Pickett
==References==
Category:Video
Category:Fan Communities
Category:Lego