Behind the scenes of a stop-motion LEGO film

Intro videos are usually seen and then forgotten. But most videos don’t use stop-motion LEGO like the Faculty Library of Social Sciences at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH).

Christian Lauersen, director at the Faculty Library of Social Sciences, collaborated to create the film in an effort to reach out to new students. It took the staff approximately 60 hours to create the entire three minute film using bricks from the LEGO universe.

“The hardest part was cracking the story. We wanted to make it short. No more than three minutes. The technical part was not that hard. It only involved a free app, an iPhone, the small LEGO universe and a lot of fun.”

See The Faculty Library of Social Sciences stop-motion LEGO-movie below:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1NbJOaqdLA width:432 height:324 align:center]

Inspired by LEGO

Despite the time investment, the filmmaking process was simple. It is created via a stop-motion app called iMotion. As LEGO pieces are small, the “LEGO” lab only took up a small corner of the library.

The movie itself was made by Faculty library information specialists Hazel Engelsmann and Marc Sales, actor and library friend Lærke Winther did the voice and information specialist and musician Mads Korsgaard edited the sound.

The video was inspired by the need to reach out to students during semester start with information about the faculty libraries. “Over some time we have been thinking about what we could do to reach out to them and make the library stand out,” said Lauersen.

New plans

“We decided to make a LEGO movie to reach all the new students in a very brief way, just to tell them what is important when they start: course literature, study and printing facilities, opening hours, guidance etc. The film is not a stand-alone source of information, but it seems to be a good ice-breaker.”

“LEGO is just really cool and fun and it signals creativity along with playfulness” said Lauersen.

The team have more filmmaking plans. “We are currently working on a new LEGO film as an introduction to the Copenhagen University Library Service based on this idea and I guess it would be faster to make it this time” said Lauersen.

RT @clauersen: @EmmaFlokstra from @UniversityPost at #ucph Library of Social Sciences to talk about LEGO. Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/TqCZRbBkmC

— University Post (@UniversityPost) February 3, 2015

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