Lego™ used to be the stuff I stood on in the middle of the night going to the loo….%$#@* kids and their bloody Lego! But not anymore. It’s now your pathway to self expression. Have a look at what you can do with Lego and what else can you do with Lego?
Now perhaps I’m just jealous because in my day you had your basic block, your 1/2 block and your 1/4 block, (in red AND white), a basic window or two, a door, a couple of boards for the floor and roof and that was it bub. No building the Sydney Opera House or the Eifel Tower. No Lego assembly line to make Lego cars with computers to run the whole thing. No Stars Wars – Episode 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, AND 3.
Now I might be wrong but have you noticed how YouTube seems to have a controlling share in Lego? What’s going on here? Half of the videos on YouTube seem to be made with Lego!
You have your comedy acts.
Eddie Izzard – Death Star Canteen
Rating: ****- 5,120 ratings – Views: 3,662,400
You have your whole television series.
The Apprentice UK Series 4 – Week 1
Rating: ****- 73 ratings Views: 38,604
You have your movie trailer.
Lego 300
Rating: ****- 3,101 ratings Views: 952,766
You have your original script, screen play and direction.
Nice Pants! Lego Animation
Rating: ****- 2,785 ratings Views: 790,935
You have your songs.
Beer Song
Rating: ****- 8,940 ratings Views: 3,410,176
You have your musical.
Les Miserables
Rating: ****- 618 ratings Views: 142,434
You have your music video.
Chop Suey!
Rating: ****- 7,210 ratings Views: 1,319,002
You have your history channel (not as popular as it used to be).
Trebuchet
Rating: **— 89 ratings Views: 17,114
You have your science channel (doing reasonably well).
Danny’s Mindstorms NXT Rubik Cube Solver
Rating: ****- 4,785 ratings Views: 1,404,370
You have your porn channel (not doing all that well in LegoLand).
Lego Porn
Rating: ****- 127 ratings Views: 85,062
You have your political commentary.
Ron Paul Brickfilm
Rating: ****- 2,743 ratings Views: 85,291
Alright you get the picture. “lego” video results 121 – 140 of about 72,500 This is where I got to when Lego aversion really set in. Now this doesn’t mean there aren’t more. These are just the ones with the word Lego in the title.
So where does this leave us?
There are whole communities of Lego enthusiasts out there. There are kids using Lego. There is the AFOL community (Adult Fans of Lego) who make, discuss and critique MOC’s (My Own Creation) and the reasons they make them. Have a look at The Brothers Brick (with their Ambassadors) for instance. There are whole communities of Lego stop motion animators out there with their Minister of Film Contests.
Remember “Death Star Canteen” – the first YouTube video in this post? That was the work of Thorn2200, a 15 years old, 41 videos to his credit and well over…. oh….. 8 to 10 million views and with a rating for any one of his pieces of no less than 3 out of 5 stars (one 2 1/2 – it was a bit of a stinker). This is a career not a hobby.
Now it might not be Spielberg but that’s the point. Virtually anyone these days can create, capture, edit, and share short video clips, using inexpensive equipment and free software to put it together. We can all contribute, play, produce, share, inspire, improve, succeed, admire, and be part of an immense conversation.
Me…. I’m getting my old Lego box out of the garage, grabbing the video camera and seeing what I can do to add to the conversation. Maybe I might buy some of those new fangled Lego bits first….
