LegoMatrix - Making of Scene 01

This scene was the 7th one we tackled out of all the scenes, but probably should have been left until later on so we could have got a bit more experience. It had a lot of elements to animate, as well as some tricky depth of focus. We also had to watch the original footage a bit to work out the number and placement of all the dead bodies.

We did 8 takes of this, but settled on the 3rd one that was filmed. The last one may have been technically superior, but this third one had more charm. Neo's gun dropping animation was better, even if the Agent's walk cycle was terrible.

One thing we struggled with from using a simple point-and-shoot camera was matching the focal depth of the original movie cameras. We tried altering it during this footage to give it that movie feel, but it looked pretty poor. We also tried a number of methods of mounting the agent so we could walk him across the Lego studs.

This scene was the 7th one we tackled out of all the scenes, but probably should have been left until later on so we could have got a bit more experience. It had a lot of elements to animate, as well as some tricky depth of focus. We also had to watch the original footage a bit to work out the number and placement of all the dead bodies. We did 8 takes of this, but settled on the 3rd one that was filmed. The last one may have been technically superior, but this third one had more charm. Neo's gun dropping animation was better, even if the Agent's walk cycle was terrible. One thing we struggled with from using a simple point-and-shoot camera was matching the focal depth of the original movie cameras. We tried altering it during this footage to give it that movie feel, but it looked pretty poor. We also tried a number of methods of mounting the agent so we could walk him across the Lego studs.
	The totally awesome Blu-Tack mount. Infinite degrees of variability between the start and end, and sticky enough to survive the animation procedure. Watch the hot lights, though. Things can get pretty droopy once temperatures start to spike. And check out that horrible walk cycle. Why on earth does the agent have both arms forward? Is he some sort of zombie?
	The technically nifty but woeful Bionical mount. You also get a glimpse of the rifle rig for Neo. It was an antenna with Blu-Tack on it, which was blocked from the camera's view by Neo himself. Worked a treat. I tell you, we should have had shares in the Blu-Tack company - we probably used our own body weight in the stuff.