I’ve been considering a similar project myself, although I had intended it only as a website and with a serious Mac slant – particularly because there’s much more support available in the forums for PC users already.

I can see how you could make a book out of it but (and maybe it’s because I’m so close to the subject) I can’t imagine who would buy it. In my experience, kids never have money and are rarely permitted to spend what they do get via the web. Those old enough to buy the book and the equipment could probably figure it out on their own like the rest of us.

Then again, reviewing the posts in the forums suggests that a lot of them can’t figure it out, or that they are missing that one last piece to pull it all together. They would also suggest that kids can get their parents to buy them just about anything. So maybe a book could work.

Maybe something that covers equipment basics (with some purchase suggestions), rudimentary moviemaking techniques, discussions on copyrights, originality and getting your work available to the world and lastly a section on the pros/cons (with tips) of using Lego bricks to make animated movies. It could really round out a decent-sized pocket guide!

Funny that you should mention the Reverend. I wrote him a week or so ago myself, regarding his dealings with TLC and trademark issues – I was curious how it might apply to my pirate movie. His response was that aside from a matter-of-course (and never repeated) cease and desist letter, he hasn’t had any contact from TLC. His book needed to have a disclaimer on both the inside front and back covers which was determined by the publisher, but that was it.

So I think the idea has merit but I don’t know if a book is the way to go. Out of necessity, the team would have to be pared down to one or two people. It would need to be physically produced at and distributed from a singular somewhere in the world. There would be money involved. Hosting an in-depth website would allow for more flexibility on all these fronts but you can’t really beat a book for catching the eye of “the man on the street” or for sheer coolness.

My initial thoughts.

-j

I think one possible target audience is teachers. I have had several requests for BSOL coming from teachers who had animation (or filmmaking in general) as part of the lesson program.

However, the books on Lego that have been published up to now are
1) Books with building ideas. When I was young, there was this book explaining conjuring tricks built with Lego, and ideas for a post office made out of Lego (think stamps, a cash register, all in a size to make them work for real people) and I’ve seen this book full of creations, likely by Lego’s own master builders.
2) Books on Mindstorms. There’s plenty of these.
3) Books on Ldraw. There’s two of these.
4) Books on Lego trains. One by Jake McKee is being written as we speak.

Most animation books either focus on cell animation, on the construction of armatures or give a historical account. See for example the e-book at animateclay.com.

To summarise: there’s no such book available, but very few people are waiting for it.

Stefan.

P.S. I once bought a book on animation: “The animator’s survival kit” by Richard Williams. While it does have some useful stuff, it is written from the viewpoint of a cell animator. Consequently, most of it is not applicable to our hobby.

I agree on that, and that’s exactly what Animation Class should do, in my opinion. But we SHOULD include a CD-rom with some films and a basic set of software, like

1) SMA and MonkeyJam
2) VirtualDub
3) WavTRACKER
4) MrGraff’s FPS calculator
5) VideoMach

These are all freeware or shareware, so there won’t be any big problems to get them, I guess.

Hey, what about trials of programs like MainVision Composer (formerly Axogon), AlamDV and StopMotionPro? They might even help financing this

Yours,

Stefan.

At first I thought this was an awful idea, but after reading everyone’s responses and mulling it over myself, it’s starting to sound like it really could work.

The royalty-free clips thing might not be a bad idea. I kinda like it. Perhaps we could include a set of royalty-free sound effects and music and any “stock footage” that might be useful.

I think a book could work if it made no mention of any particular hardware or software and only focused on technique. Chapters could be on set design, movement techniques (like hali’s walking tutorial), lighting (a most important chapter), creating scripts, voice acting, perhaps even music creation. There’s certainly enough to fill a book, especially with a lot of pictures.

Concerning possible legal action from Lego: After reading some strips from The Brick Testament, it occurs to me that it’s not the kind of book TLC would like to have associated with their products, as it does not take a “traditional” Christian approach to telling stories from the Bible. Lego’s very limited action in preventing the book’s publishing strongly suggests to me that publishing a book that was simply about animating Lego or similar figures would receive little to no resistance from them. While such a book does cash in on Lego’s hard-earned image, the boundaries of their trademark may be too fuzzy in this area for them to really do much about it, especially with the precedent of The Brick Testament being published and sold.

It’s starting to sound like a feasible project after all. I guess it would be in our best interest to address the business aspect of such a project sooner rather than later. There are some very important concepts we should address:

1) Who should be involved? Should we limit the project to just the people who have responded so far? Should we bring in others? Should I trim it down to 2 or 3, or just myself?

2) Where should any profits generated go? Should we keep some for Brickfilms operations and divvy up the rest amongst contributors? Should it all go to Brickfilms? Personally I’d love to see enough money generated that we could get a dedicated server for the site in a nice, fast data center somewhere and be able to host people’s films for little to no cost.

These are difficult questions and should probably be addressed before we go any further.

I guess no one wants to address any of my questions. Understandable!

OK, anyone who’s interested in going further on this project send me an e-mail or PM.

As far as trademark issues go, like I said before I’m beginning to think the trademark of Lego’s minifigs isn’t as strong as their silence on the issue would have us believe. I have to think that with the Brick Testament still in publication and circulation, a book about animating Legos, which puts their toys in a positive light, would have no problem existing. Of course my speculation is no substitute for proper legal advise, but we gotta start somewhere.

but the idea of financing the site is an appealing one. Do you think we could generate that much money?

I really don’t know how much revenue could be generated by such a project (if any). I do know that with a yearly budget of $3000 we could do some very cool things with the site. For starters, we could be located on an unmetered 10 mbps server somewhere, giving us the ability to have all films available for download at all times without fear of exceeding our transfer limits. We could use bittorrent, run the chat program directly off the server… OK, now I’m just daydreaming, back on task…

Finally an issue: do we have enough expertise around to justify the writing of such a book? Personally I feel I have lots to learn still, especially when it comes to timing.

A very valid point, but consider this: Who else has more expertise on Brickfilming than the people who frequent this site? Outside of the Spite Your Face boys or Thomas Foote, I can’t really think of anyone. Darwin wrote a book about evolution and he had a lot to learn about that subject.

Like Bluntman, I’m having a good old think. In answer to question 2, though, I have no problem with Brickfilms getting the proceeds and putting the money towards site improvements. I wouldn’t go putting a down payment on that 10mbps server just yet though – I don’t think the book market is especially buoyant at the moment.