Bricks in Motion: The Documentary Update

The fundraising campaign for Bricks in Motion: the Documentary has crossed our initial goal of $10,000 USD! We're excited to see the film achieve the minimum funding necessary, and grateful to the BiM community for making this happen. In order to make the film the most ambitious and successful project it can be, however, we'd like to aim higher.

Bricks in Motion: The Documentary is a feature length film about the world of stop motion LEGO® animators. We'll explore the personalities and lives of various filmmakers around North America -- or the world, if we raise enough funding.

In return for your support, we're offering a number of exclusive rewards, including the Bricks in Motion Collection, a DVD and Blu-ray of classic films from the Bricks in Motion community, with new director commentaries! It will also showcase all the entries to the recent BiM Celebration contest. Check out the Kickstarter page for more information on the BiM Collection and other rewards.

$10,000 - Base funding met

We get to make the documentary and you get your backer rewards!

Goal 2: $11,000 - Additional Film Equipment

Currently we already have almost all of the equipment we need, and we've already budgeted for renting the rest of the required essential equipment for the interview shoots. With $1000 more, we will be able to rent a second camera, the new Sony A7S. This full-frame camera shoots in 4k and is the best performing camera for low light conditions ever made. We'll also be able to rent an external recording unit that will allow us to shoot the film in 10-bit color, capturing richer and more cinematic colors. Finally, we'll rent a GoPro for additional shots, such as point-of view shots and even maybe some crane shots with a monopod.

If we get a little extra money, we'll be able to rent a car at some of our locations, which will allow us to travel to more areas for additional land and cityscape footage.

Goal 3: $13,500 - European Tour

Brickfilming is an international interest, and is just as popular in Europe as it is in North America. We absolutely want to include European animators in our documentary, but unfortunately international travel is not cheap, so we couldn't include it in our original budget.

If we meet this stretch goal, we will be able to interview Chris Salt, creator of such films as Out of Time and Bowling for Sandercoe. He also created an animated Exo Suit video for LEGO. Chris Salt has also made an animated music video for Darren Hayman and his work has been featured on the BBC Technology website. Chris Salt's work inspired some of the other people featured in our documentary to get into brickfilming, so he would be a great additional perspective to include.

We're also delighted to announce that we would also be able to interview Tim Drage of Spite Your Face Productions. Tim Drage is the co-creator of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in LEGO, One: A Space Odyssey, and The Peril of Doc Ock, which was made as a promotional video for The LEGO Group and Sony.

We're looking into other potential interview candidates in Europe, and we'll let you know when we have additional news.

Goal 4: $14,000 and Beyond - Building Bigger and Higher

The previous stretch goals are almost entirely about improving the quality of the interviews part of the documentary. This final stretch goal is dedicated to the short LEGO® film that will be interwoven into the documentary. This film will be a collaboration between director Philip Heinrich, and producers Nathan Wells and Zach Macias.

The animated segments of the film will help provide structure to the documentary through visual, thematically parallel storytelling. We really want to make these animated segments push the boundary of what has been accomplished with LEGO® stop-motion. Any additional funds we earn beyond the European Tour will go toward improving and enhancing the animated segments of the documentary.

Some of the animated scenes we are planning will require extensive and elaborately-built sets, all of which require lots of LEGO, in vary particular shapes and colors. Every bit of money that helps offset the cost of more LEGO is appreciated.
If you have questions or would like to join the discussion, check out the forum topic about the documentary.