These two stop motion animations were commissioned by The LEGO Group to showcase the LEGO Botanicals range in new and inspiring ways.
Mixed Connection
For the first of the two videos, Mixed Connection, the brief was to construct a LEGO object that represents something meaningful to us that we would then explain in the voiceover throughout the video.
This is Buttercup, our 80s campervan, which we see assembling as if by magic before 'hitting the road' and collecting a few special passengers along the way.
Following its construction, the object would be surrounded by blooming LEGO wildflowers. The variety of the flowers, in their intricate designs and bold colours, gave us the perfect starting point to imagine different ways of animating.
The story we tell in the VO is personal to us, and we wanted to have visual nods to it throughout the video; such as our entire LEGO family, including dog and baby, hopping into the campervan.
These unexpected details throughout the video keep the audience watching to catch all the cues and surprises. There is so much to see - different methods of building flowers, LEGO pieces appearing - that the video feels rich and full of life.
We had little adjustment from our initial storyboards which show in detail the flow of the video.
From the challenging initial build of the campervan, through the driving cycle, and finally the flowers blooming all around it, we keep things varied and pack a whole story into a short video piece.
Blooming Beginnings
This video had a very different starting point; our aim was to mix real world and LEGO pieces in fun and unexpected ways; for example, a real watering can 'pours' transparent blue LEGO bricks, a real shovel 'digs' a hole into brown LEGO bricks.
A key aim was to keep the animation playful and interesting. The initial tests we created below show the graphicality we aimed to bring to the later-refined stop motion.
The final shots of the flowers blooming are really a showcase for the creative and distinctive objects from this LEGO set. We wanted to have a sense of grandeur about them, reflected in the close-ups, camera angles, and the dramatic lighting.
These storyboards are similarly largely unchanged in the final video.
As we wanted to keep the feeling of nature and the outdoors throughout the video, there was the added challenge of stop motion in the natural elements with ever-changing lighting and backgrounds.
As this video was to have several different shots, we wanted to keep the locations varied yet consistent, while above all creating a space where the animation would shine.
