First Look at "Late for the Soccer Match!"

By: Andrew Bermudez

(LEGO Studios; September 30, 2012)

     While the Vacation: Unlimited Scrapbook contest enters its final day with only one entry (more are expected by the end of the day), it's time to give a first look at our upcoming film, Late for the Soccer Match! It's a film that is several months in the making, and is almost done! Let's get started!

     When the Bricksinmotion.com contest Kitchen Sink was first announced, it was certain that we had to make a film for this one-of-a-kind contest, despite all of the other work we were doing at the time. "However," stated scriptwriter Peter Samuel, "We had no idea what to do. That is actually kind of ironic. In the past, we come up with so many ideas, half of them never see the light of day. Now we were given the opportunity to keep all those ideas, but we couldn't come up with one that would work well in the choose your own path format." Several ideas, including stories about chasing robbers and flying to the moon, were tossed around but just didn't click. Then archive.org's Wayback Machine entered the picture to save the day.

The soccer stadium as it appears in the movie.

     The idea team was spending their day browsing the old LEGO Studios microsite using the Wayback Machine when they found something that would change the course of development. Peter noted, "While browsing the site, we found something called Story Starters. Checking it out, it turned out to be a page to help you if you can't come up with a good idea. They had ideas based on Alpha Team, Sports, Life on Mars, and Arctic. We chose the Sports idea, since the contest rules prohibit the use of existing properties, including LEGO's characters." In the suggested idea, the soccer game is about to start, but the team captain is missing! Where is he, and why is he late. It suggested that the idea was adaptable to a number of genres, including horror, drama, and comedy. As soon as the idea team found their story basis, writing the script was very simple - except that it had to be written in order to distinguish the different variations.

     And what a various movie it is! Having a total of 8 combinations, it's rarely the same movie twice. However, there were going to be more. "We were going to have the viewer build in the movie," said director Seth Masterson. "However, I reviewed that part of the movie recently, and I asked it to be cut out. This is supposed to be a movie where you choose your own path. No one wants to work to make the movie progress." Instead, the animation will be tweaked so that Peter Whitman will appear to do the building.

Wendy Simmons with her new, updated look.

     However, something else got tweaked before production even started. "For this film, we decided to change Wendy Simmons, the reporter from A Very Patrick Christmas and The First Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Fan Choice Awards," continued Seth. "The old design was nice and all, but not very official looking. The new design is more sleek and more modern, even if this movie is based on a decade-old theme." Wendy also now carries a gold microphone, which matches her bright red apparel.

The bank robber blows his whistle, signaling the start of a game of shark hoops.

     Promoting the movie is another story. While filming was progressing, the Nightly News at Nine announced a contest titled Olympics Schmolympics, which was intended to promote their latest episode, The End of Sports. "When I heard about this contest, I thought 'This is too good an opportunity to promote the movie and win a prize at the same time,'" stated the movie's producer, Jonathon H. Harker. "I talked to Seth about it, and we both liked it." This resulted in Seth Masterson vs. Shark Hoops. Actually, this was the third idea for this promotional film. The first two ideas were The Invention of Bear-Train Cavorting and Breakdown Trouble. Even though the film didn't win, Shadow Spy Productions forfeited their prize, so we received a poster and a soccer ball in the end.

     Now the film is entering its final stages of development. The original musical score is being composed while the animation receives its final touches and sound effects are added. There is still work to be done for the theatrical poster and other promotional material, but the film is ahead of schedule. On October 10th, the film will be submitted to the Kitchen Sink contest, but will remain unlisted. The film will be officially released on October 19th.