Why The Lego Movie Looks Different Than Other Lego Content

this is an official Lego short film from 2010. introducing the double decker couch be together and be buddies and this is the Lego movie that came out just four years later the differences in quality are immediately obvious no movie Lego or not had ever looked quite like this one it permanently redefined how other Lego media is created it helped bring the brand back to full Financial power while your first instinct might be to attribute this impact to the movie's humor or its heart The Lego Movi

e's True Legacy will always be the technological Feats it achieved through animation that's great you can't do anything better there's no reason why you should move paw you just moved and you've just wrecked it you wrecked it before we break down exactly why the Lego movie looks the way it does make sure you subscribe to nerd nostalgic so you don't miss out on our most recent video releases official Lego movies shorts and video game cinematics had a very distinct look before 2014. at a glance yo

u can see that these were clearly meant to evoke the idea of Lego bricks and toys you've got the iconic c-shape hands real Lego accessories and playsets being used as props and actual Lego pieces scattered around various scenes on closer inspection however things don't feel quite right the textures are smooth the facial expressions are uncanny and the animation is overly fluid it's as if these Lego figurines are made of flexible rubber instead of hard plastic in a way this makes sense why would

you constrict yourself to the rigid and limiting movements of a real Lego when the Limitless possibilities of Animation are at your fingertips this is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard please wow style let me handle this that idea is just the worst well Lego content is typically made for children after all and so it seems reasonable to copy the more popular 3D animation Styles found in other children's media this method of thinking permeated Lego animation projects beginning with the 2

001 jackstone short until the Lego Movie made its debut to the Batmobile dang it to the invisible jet dang it everyone who has seen even a single frame from The Lego Movie understands what kind of film it is directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller who are best known for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street at the time have said that their goal was to take a very homemade brick film and try and make that as cinematic as possible with lighting and camera angles and the type of things

that you would do on a big budget live-action movie with the help of an incredible team of animators at animal logic led by Chris McKay and Aiden sarsfield they definitely achieved that goal in that quote from Lord and Miller you might have noticed the use of the word brick film the term is used among Lego hobbyists to describe fan made movies that use Lego characters and sets to tell their stories traditionally these tend to be stop-motion animated and it's where the idea of Lego movies origina

lly began to take hold decades before Lego had even considered making their video content fans were creating their own if anybody has blackboards I need them okay I only work in black and sometimes very very very dark gray as is pointed out in this box documentary brick films were a definite inspiration for the official Lego Movie there are a number of direct nods to these early fan works in the film The choppy animation style is meant to replicate traditional stop-motion even though it's almost

entirely computer generated the magic portal Finn plays with is named after one of the most well-known brick films ever created and as seen in the movie even plays Snippets of fans submitted shorts but there's another major influence that amateur brick films had over the Lego movie and it can be distilled down to its most basic elements creativity and imaginative play that's what truly fueled The Lego Movie that's the driving force behind the toy it's based on the theme of its story and the rea

son it looks so awesome you're the most important and most extraordinary person that's you right uh yes that's me essentially everything you see on screen is constructed by digital representations of real Lego bricks actual Lego models were often built during production so that Lord and Miller could see them up close and give feedback the animators used a free brick building software Lego Digital Designer to create assets and then recreated them in Maya a 3D Graphics program in order to animate

them we built a system that really utilizes real Lego bricks all of the things that you see on screen are 100 lego blocks that means that practically everything you see in every frame of The Lego Movie can actually be built by someone in the real world the movie also follows the laws of stop-motion animation what did he just say it was animated on twos and threes meaning instead of having fluid motion for 24 frames per second they only animated 12 or as few as 8 frames a technique that would be

used by other Studios to grade success in later years animal logic also decided to Omit any kind of motion blur lending an even greater sense of realism to the effect and of course every movement is one that could realistically be made by Lego pieces jumping jacks Hit Em one two three I am so pumped up however since this was all done through CG animation the details could be pushed even further some pieces particularly the figurines of the main characters have visible scratches fingerprints and

cracks there are creases where you would see them on pieces made with real life molds little imperfections in the plastic and differences in texture look no further than the well-loved 1980s era Spaceman Benny who is based off of Miller's childhood toy this level of real detail had never really been considered in previous Lego projects with their almost unnervingly smooth 3D models when combined with everything else it all made for a highly stylized and incredibly beautiful film what I see are p

eople inspired by each other people taking what you made and making something new out of it even just the intro when Emmett is getting ready for his day is almost overwhelming in its detail when image showers one by one round bricks come out of the shower head and froth up to actual Lego bubbles stunning effects like the interior of the magical portal smoke and steam explosions and even massive ocean waves are all made from thousands of individually rendered bits of Lego and they're all animated

to look like they're moving in stop motion it's a stunning technological achievement that had never been done before even nine years later it still holds up it holds up so well that several more Lego movies and shorts have been made since then which emulate the iconic style and in that time it's become synonymous with the LEGO brand I think I got it but just in case tell me the whole thing again I wasn't listening none of this would have been possible without those basic elements of creativity

and imaginative play on the part of the movie's creators it took a lot to make believe in forging new creative paths to make The Lego Movie look the way it does and it was done to stay as true to the core of Lego as possible the Lego movie is about as close as you can get to playing with Lego without actually pulling out the pieces nobody said it better than the directors our dream was that you would turn the movie off and then run home and then build the most silly ridiculous like a thing you c

ould Lord and Miller and the animators at animal logic pushed creative boundaries with the Lego movie they let their imaginations run wild and created something that inspired play through sheer Aesthetics everything from the stop-motion like animation style that pays tributes to its early Inspirations to the individual bricks that make up every frame of the movie to the fingerprints on Emmett's helmet hair were done with purpose and well that's all we have for you today if you made it all the wa

y to the end we'd like to thank you and we also ask that you like this video and subscribe to the nerdstogic channel for more videos just like this one see you next time [Music]