Bill Ward's Brickpile » Video

Le Père-Lego / A Lego Christmas Special

Bill — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:42:07 +0000

MonsieurCaron, of Québec, Canada, has made an awesome little Christmas LEGO video, partially using parts from the LEGO City advent calendar set.

He posted about it as a comment under yesterday’s Advent Calendar posting but this is so awesome I needed to share it even if you don’t read the comments…

Why Does LEGO Ignore Girls?

Bill — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:46:37 +0000

Blogger and podcaster CC Chapman has set up a great video series where his daughter Emily pontificates on the issues that matter to her. The latest one is “Why Does LEGO Ignore Girls?” where she makes the case for LEGO to make more products that are accessible to girls.

I’ve always been bothered by this. They say time and again that their target market is boys ages 8-11 and that’s what they target all their products toward, and they offer token girl sets such as the lame Belleville line and pink brick buckets, which don’t sell well because they are lame!

Like Emily says, girls like the town sets a lot. She suggests a shopping mall. I’ve heard this from other girl LEGO fans as well: build sets that model everyday life, and girls will love them. The town sets always seem to be about police and firefighters historically. Lately the farm line has some promise, as do the Cafe Corner type buildings (though these tend to be for an older age group, and you’d lose the girls before they got to be old enough to be able to build them without frustration).

Another suggestion I’ve heard many times is to make LEGO babies. The new 1×1 stud footprint figures used in the LEGO games might be a good starting point for this.

Anyway, watch the video for yourself, and share it with anyone you know who has girls that might feel the same way. And more than anything, keep pestering LEGO about this issue. They won’t do anything about it until there’s a large groundswell of support for LEGO sets aimed toward girls.

Ignite: Hillel Cooperman – “The Secret Underground World of Lego”

Bill — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:25:30 +0000

Hillel Cooperman gave an “Ignite” presentation on the adult LEGO community recently. You can see it here on Youtube:

I found this through a post on Facebook by Felix Greco (I don’t think I can link to that because of the way Facebook works). The comments were not entirely positive, mostly around the way he talks about the adult LEGO fans, implying that they are so nerdy that they don’t date. It does sound to me like Hillel is not entirely comfortable with his AFOLishness. If he hadn’t had a kid and a wife who was enthusaistic about Harry Potter LEGO, do you think he would’ve rediscovered LEGO? Somehow I doubt it. However, most of the presentation was pretty positive. I do think he needs to take more pride in LEGO as a hobby and not denigrate his fellow AFOLs. But all in all, it’s a pretty good overview of the LEGO scene, told in an engaging and lively manner.

Emerald Night Video

Bill — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:34:35 +0000

Last night at BrickFest, the new 10194 Emerald Night train set was officially announced. For the announcement, they played this video on the big screen…

I shot video of the rest of the announcement and will try to get that edited soon!

My Coast Guard helicopter featured in YouTube video

Bill — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:05:44 +0000

A photo of one of my creations was (very) briefly featured in this video:

At the very end, when he does the “you can build anything out of bricks” bit, there’s a brief shot of my Coast Guard helicopter. No, I’m not annoyed that they didn’t give credit, I think it’s cool that it was chosen to represent the helicopter genre.

I guess I need to repost the Coast Guard base pictures on Brickpile — it’s currently only posted on my old site (and occasionally appears on BayLUG‘s layouts).

Seen at Bricley’s Words.

Winners of the Go Miniman Go video contest

Bill — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:31:57 +0000

The technogeek blog Gizmodo has announced the winners of the Go Miniman Go video contest. There are some really incredible videos in the winners list, and I don’t know if I could pick a favorite. They all show a lot of creativity not just with the LEGO but also the filmmaking. Check it out.

BayLUG on TV?

Bill — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:18:07 +0000

Yesterday, a crew from KTVU channel 2 television came to see the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group exhibit. Watch this Video on KTVU.com about our exhibit at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. Russell (the club president) and I weren’t there, but Loren did a great job explaining the exhibit for the camera. I’m sure that must have been nerve-wracking but I think he’s got a great voice for that kind of thing so I’m glad he was willing and available to do it.

I heard that it was going to be on the TV today, but I haven’t heard any details about exactly when. Probably on the news or something. But the way that video clip was put together doesn’t really feel like a news segment to me, so maybe not.

I’m not there right now because I’m home sick with a cold, but hopefully I can be there next weekend – which is our final weekend, by the way! So come on out and see it while there’s still time!

Amazing Great Ball Contraption video

Bill — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:03:01 +0000

This is really a work of art – not just for the clever LEGO creations, but maybe even more so for the filmmaking. The modern classical music accompanies the images very well. By taking a series of close-up video shots of various parts of the contraption, each one well composed and from an interesting angle, our interest is maintained throughout. Exceedingly well-done!

Via TechnicBRICKs blog.

Another LEGO Video of the “Numa Numa” song

Bill — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:25:48 +0000

Properly titled “Dragostea din Tei,” this song became an Internet fad a couple of years ago when Gary Brolsma posted his “Numa Numa Dance” video on YouTube. A couple of years ago, I posted on Brickpile about a LEGO animation based on Gary’s video that I had seen on The Brothers Brick. I was going over some old posts on Brickpile and saw that video was not available any longer, but did a quick search for “numa numa lego” on YouTube and found that the video had been reposted, so updated that old blog post.

But in the process of doing that search I also found this:

It was made with the English translation of the song, which I’d never heard before. Sounds strange to my ears, having heard the Romanian version so many times…

Tilted Twister – Mindstorms NXT Robot Solves Rubik’s Cube

Bill — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:36:48 +0000

I just came across Tilted Twister while reading Mike Walsh’s LEGO Blog. It’s a Mindstorms NXT robot that can solve the Rubik’s Cube!

The really amazing part is that it’s built using only the parts in the stock NXT kit. Instructions are provided – I’m tempted to make one myself. (Note however that you either need to buy a special color sensor, or modify the colors of your Rubik’s Cube so that white and yellow can be distinguished by the stock light sensor.

Lego Diem — 1979 Commercial

Bill — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:57:43 +0000

Thanks to the Lego Diem blog for pointing out this 1979 Commercial for the best LEGO set ever sold…

My Video of BrickCon 2008 (Part 2) on LAMLtv

Bill — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:09:26 +0000

As promised, I made a second episode for LAMLtv about BrickCon. The main feature is an interview with Joe Meno, editor of BrickJournal.

This video stuff is a lot of fun. I’ve got a lot more ideas for video projects. For example:

BayLUG meeting and event footage
Interviews with BayLUG members
My MOCs and those of other local folks who will consent to being taped
Other LEGO conventions (I’m already planning on BrickFest PDX in 2009)

If you have any thoughts about LEGO video projects, you can share them with me here or over on the LAMLradio blog.

My Video of BrickCon 2008 (Part 1) on LAMLtv

Bill — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:56:45 +0000

At BrickCon 2008, I shot video of a lot of models on display and interviewed a few people. The result has just been released as an episode of LAMLtv, the new video podcast arm of LAMLradio. This episode features interviews with Simon Kent, design lead at Lego Creator in Denmark, and Jenn “The Brick Chick” Wagner, as well as footage of models on display.

I have enough footage to make at least one more episode. I hope you enjoy! Let me know if you have any feedback – comments, questions, or suggestions. And if you are interested in video, contact James Wadsworth and offer your services. It’s a lot of fun to be involved in LAMLtv and there’s always room for more.

BrickCon 2008 so far

Bill — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:41:31 +0000

BrickCon is going very well so far. There are tons of great models on display, many great deals to be had on LEGO, and some amazing news.

I took a lot of photos yesterday and they’re all up on my Flickr account. The biggest news was the unveiling of a new castle set, the 10193 Medieval Village. I made a video of it and posted it on YouTube (but had to wait until 12 noon today so that BrickJournal.com could have an exclusive 3-hour early announcement). I also created a special photoset for just those pictures so you don’t have to dig through all the images in my BrickCon set to find them.

MeatSpace: LEGO Animation on TV!

Bill — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:55:44 +0000

Have you seen MeatSpace yet? If you live in Australia, and watch the TV show “Good Game” (Tuesdays, 8:30pm, ABC2) then chances are you have. But for those of us in the rest of the world we have to wait until it goes up on the Internet.

MeatSpace is the latest innovation from Australian filmmaker Nate “Blunty” Burr, who has been producing Brickfilm videos for years. His video Circle Circle Dot Dot broke out of the Brickfilm community when it appeared on YouTube, and next thing he knew he was a professional animator working with LEGO.

There’s a great interview with Blunty in Volume 8 of Brick Journal. In fact that’s how I found MeatSpace. Here’s the latest episode:

Daniel Rojas’ Cable Car

Bill — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:09:11 +0000

One of the more impressive LEGO robots I’ve seen lately is Daniel Rojas’s Cable Car. He came to one of the BayLUG meetings recently and met some of us, and told us about the project, and when he finally posted his finished product he was kind enough to email us about it.

It’s a great model of a cable car, and a very clever robot too. Like the real deal, it has a grab-arm which goes below the track to hold on to a cable which pulls it. And it’s controlled by an RCX (Mindstorms). It even has a working emergency brake! Daniel even made a great YouTube video so we can see it in action:

If you liked that, check the rest of the pics on Daniel’s site.

United Air Lines DC-3

Bill — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 22:12:41 +0000

When my father left the Navy and joined United Air Lines in the late 1950′s, he flew this plane, the DC-3.

Like my Lunar Mobile Lounge, this has been at several BayLUG meetings, and now I am finally posting about it here.

Also like that model, it is motorized. There are two motors, located in the fuselage: one which powers the propellers and the other which makes the landing gear go up and down. There is a battery box in the fuselage that powers the propellers, and a wire coming out of the entry door leading to a battery box that controls the landing gear. In both cases, a Technic axle passes through the fuselage and the base of each wing. For the props, there are bevel gears in each engine which drive the propshafts. For the landing gear, the axle is mounted directly to the mechanism. A roof panel is removable to view the mechanism inside. Here’s a video I made to illustrate how it works (it’s also available as a QuickTime movie on Brickshelf):

There are other parts that move as well: the ailerons, elevators, and rudder are all freely hinged. Oh, and the wheels rotate :-) The wings and vertical tail can be removed easily for storage and transportation.

The fuselage is designed using half-stud offsets to achieve the desired shape. This means the walls are very fragile as they cannot be properly interconnected.

On the leading edge of each wing are “de-icing boots” which are made of rubber in the real plane. These are modeled using a curved brick that I got at LEGOLAND California in their “build it and buy it” area in 2003. I don’t know if they were ever part of an official LEGO set, but I never saw them anywhere else. It’s the same shape as the trans-light-blue spotlights in the Soccer sets. These “boots” are attached at an angle using plate hinges and plates, and have half-stud offsets to follow the desired wing angle.

Overall this was an interesting experiment in half-stud offsets and integrating a Technic mechanism into a realistic looking model. I learned a lot making this and hope you enjoy it.

Click the photo above to see more, or click to look on Flickr (slideshow) or on Brickshelf.

Dragostea din Tei in LEGO??

Bill — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:29:12 +0000

The song “Dragostea din Tei” by the Moldovan band O-Zone, more widely known as “the Numa Numa song,” is probably the most widely recognized song in the Romanian language ever written. And now it has finally been done in LEGO! Do you remember Gary Brolsma’s famous “Numa Numa Dance” video? This LEGO animation is a remake of that dance using a LEGO minifig. The minifig’s mouth has been animated and the arms move in ways that LEGO just can’t do, unless you rip them off at the shoulders!! Muahahahahaha!!!! (sorry, lost control there for a moment). Anyway, here’s the video (Update 12/23/2008: The original video has been removed from YouTube, but I found another copy and have replaced the embedded video here):

The original Gary Brolsma version, to refresh your memory (or if you’ve been living under a rock somewhere and never saw it):

For more about the song, check out the Wikipedia entries for “Dragostea din Tei” and “Numa Numa.” And for more about Gary Brolsma, check out his fan site or his latest work, NewNuma.

Via The Brothers Brick.