"Ten": The Lesson Plan

Though I came up with most of the film making techniques and tricks on my own the first three times out, I realized with this new one I would need help. Fortunately, as with every other endeavor, there is support to be found on the Internet.

I started by studying those YouTube stop motion films I had come across over the years that I admired. Fancy Pants Productions produces some quality work, including their most famous short, The Force Unleashed. Although I don't plan of having any light sabers in my film, the fight choreography is of great interest to me for my own big fight scene. They also have some lovely tutorials on lighting, camera movement, recording voices and other animation techniques.

Custard Productions is another one of the YouTube LEGO powerhouses. They reached fame very early on when they recreated the Dark Knight trailer in LEGO mere days after the trailer debuted (That's some fast work there, boys). That video went viral and they've been at it ever since showcasing their adherence to violence through a prodigious use of Brickarms.

Then there are the websites devoted to LEGO stop motion. Brickfilms is one I've consulted now and again since I started doing these years ago. Bricks in Motion is another that I discovered only recently and looks very promising. And a special note should be made for LegoMatrix, which is an entire site devoted to one short film that recreates a scene from The Matrix in LEGO. The creators have the entire process broken down by shot-by-shot, which makes for a fascinating study in the stop-motion art.

The lessons don't stop with LEGO, either, as I endeavored to learn the ins and outs of Power Director through their own YouTube channel. Then there are lessons to be learned in regards to Audacity and ZynAddSubFX, which are the excellent (and free) audio editing and production softwares (respectively). Unfortunately, they do not have their own YouTube channels, but plenty of users have posted their own tutorials so I won't have any problems there. (Correction: Someone in the comments corrected me and pointed out there is, indeed a YouTube channel for ZynAddSubFX. Thank you, Paul! I don't know how I missed that.)

The time is now approaching for me to study all this because I will be shooting actual footage very soon.

Next Week: The Camera Equipment