Ninjago x Evangelion Parody Collab (Behind the Scenes)

This summer, a few Bricks in Motion members got together to create what I like to call "high effort cringe." Mark Nelson, Spudson, Undershadow, and I got together to create a combination of the popular LEGO theme, NINJAGO, and the extremely popular 1980s anime series Neon Genesis: EVANGELION.

The theme song has resonated in popular culture for decades, and now it's time for us to throw our hats in the ring. With Ninjago being such a diverse theme, it seemed only logical to make it into an anime parody.

Check out the full video here, and scroll below for some juicy behind the scenes content:

For the music and development stage, I mentioned the idea to MarkNelsonMovies, and he volunteered to write lyrics for the video. Before I knew it, he was spitting straight bars, and recorded them for me.

Next, I ordered some sets from LEGO. The LEGO Ambassador Network,provided many of the sets featured in this video, which was a huge help. A video of this grand scale could only be made with help from others.

Next up, actually making the video. This was tricky, since I haven't done much chroma key work in the past. But I set up a blue screen and got to work. Here's a gallery of some of the stuff I did:

Some of the scenes required some "special effects," which I prefer to add in production, instead of in post-production when possible. Obviously, this film was filled to the brim with stuff made "in-post," but at the very least I added "blood" in production.

The "blood" turned out a little orange, as it was a combination of ketchup and strawberry jam, so I made it a bit redder in photoshop.

I also used a bit of forced-perspective to sell this particular shot.

Of course, not everything was done in front of a chroma key wall. I had a few shots on physical sets.

In the end, this was a fun experience, and I learned a lot... like, don't put green stuff in front of a green screen if you want to chroma key...... yeah you'd think that'd be obvious, but apparently I'm not always the most smart lol. I spent a few hours in photoshop manually removing backgrounds for that mistake.

If you liked the video, feel free to give a comment on the video on YouTube!

And be sure to check out Spudson and Undershadow, who contributed to some of the shots in this video!