First Look at "Gone Ice Fishin'"

By: Andrew Bermudez

(Lego Studios; May 21, 2012)

     Since last October, the Lego Studios Traditional Animation Department has been working non-stop on the revolutionary brickfilm, Gone Ice Fishin'. Now, this new film is only one and a half weeks away from its release! "We are so excited about this new film," said Steve Brocko, head of the traditional animation department. "Even after all of the issues that we've had, we're finally going to have it done and released on time." While you wait for the film's release, here is a behind-the-scenes look at how two forms of animation were blended together for the film.

     When the film was first conceived, the original plan was to have the ice fisherman deal with researchers who were interrupting his fishing expedition. "However," said writer Peter Samuel, "we ran into an issue when the story was submitted. Apparently, it felt too irreverent and uninteresting. The current story involving the ice fisherman, a polar bear, and a fish actually stemmed out of the finishing gag from the original concept. In this gag, the ice fisherman finally caught a fish, but a polar bear steals it. Because that felt more like a plot point than a gag, that ending became the basis for the whole film."

     Also, the ice fisherman was originally going to interact with an actual polar bear. "But," said animal trainer Seth Corman, "all of the polar bears we were allowed to use were either too aggressive or too sleepy. Also, real polar bears can't do what we wanted our polar bear to do. After all, have you ever seen a real polar bear pop open a Coca-Cola? I sure haven't." Generally speaking, this revolutionary form of brickfilming happened by accident, when the project was handed over to traditional animation for development.

     Combining the stop motion with traditional animation is another story, but the general layering process is actually relatively simple, as illustrated here.

Mountain Range Background Concept by Andrew Bermudez

     Layer 1: Background Saved off of the internet as jpgs, the backgrounds in the film give the set a sense of vastness. This layer is the furthest back and is exposed using chroma keying on the stop motion.

Raw image from the film.

     Layer 2: Stop-Motion Animation Photographed as jpgs, this is the part of the film that was filmed physically. Camera placement is very important, as room must be made for both the background and the traditional animation. This layer is directly above the background.

Polar Bear frame by Andrew Bermudez; this one has been prepared for the film.

     Layer 3: Traditional Animation Scanned, edited, and converted to a PNG, this is the layer containing the polar bear animation. The reason why these images are PNGs is so that the lower layers will show up in place of the erased background, something not possible with jpgs. This is the top layer.

     In order to see how it will all appear together, be sure to watch Gone Ice Fishin', coming June 1st! Another film, Guard Dog, comes out the same day. We'll give you a first look at that this weekend.