So why should you worry about pre-production?  Well, if you are just going to make a 15 second clip, you really don't.  But if you are going to have any semblance of a story, or characters, or complexity in your film, you might want to think about what you are doing as a whole before you begin.

Writing a script is a long and involved process.  In Hollywood, a writer can submit a story idea and have that original work re-written by someone else.  The intention here is to polish the work and give it focus.  Sometimes this makes a more concise and watchable film, and sometimes the film loses the original intention and creativity that was put into it.

I'll quickly discuss screenwriting a stop-motion film.  First of all, if you intend to write one, read a few first.  It's not too complicated but it's nice to see how the pros do it.  Since you will probably be writing, directing, and filming, you can go into more detail in yours.  The entire process is a little out of the scope of this brief article, but here are a few quick tips:

* In a stop-motion animated film, you are not writing for real life actors.  Thus you must write dialog and interactions on a slightly different level than a traditional screenplay.  Examples include a more detailed description of the voices the characters will use and writing more colloquially in your script. (i.e. Goo'day gob'ner!  'Ow ar' you then?)

* Writing changes in music, camera angle, or tone in a scene is very helpful if you will be (and you probably will be) directing it yourself.  You can jot down different notes to yourself to remind you what you were thinking about when you wrote a particular scene (i.e. <music changes to fast action techno music here...>)

* Remember that when you do dialog, you will be filming these scenes in stop motion.  Say your lines out loud to yourself and time them.  Remember that your need frames will be fps multiplied by the amount of time it takes for the dialog.  Unless you are going to use computer animation later, you will not have to lip synch this.  But you can estimate the amount of time it will take and move the character's hands and head to make it look like they are talking.  People generally do not stand completely still when they talk, and minifigs should not either.

* VERY IMPORTANT - if this is your first big project, limit your scope.  If you are writing 50 pages of dialog and scenes and have not started filming or building sets yet, the road ahead is going to seem very, very long.  You may want to do a quick story outline, as described below, to get your basic scenes and plot points down.  You can then flesh out these scenes later.  This makes it much easier to cut out unneeded lines or scenes to cut down your movie.  You want to eventually finish the movie, don't you?  Since you are not getting paid to do this, have fun with it and complete it so you can have a finished work you will be proud of.

Maybe you do not want to write a full fledged screenplay.  You should still know what your story will be about.  It can be helpful to write an outline.  An outline is just what it sounds like, a general brief of what the story will be about.  It can be as simple as:

1. Guy breaks into a building through a skylight
2. Guy gets caught and is chased by guards
3. Guy gets shot by guards

You can also write down all kinds of things here that you want in the film.  Music, lighting, costumes, etc.

There are two reasons to write all of this down.  One is that when you write it down and think about it, your ideas become much more concise and your filming more streamlined.  The other is so it makes sense when you are editing it later.  You may well film (as almost all directors do) out of sequence.  This of course means that you may start filming a scene that is chronologically going to take place in the middle of the film.  You don't want to get confused, and especially make continuity errors.  This can be something as simple as a cup switching hands between shots or some having different colored pants on a minifig in the same scene.  Don't be too anal about this, but jotting down a few notes about what will go on will save you any re-filming later.

Ok, so you have a basic plot/story written down.  Your main character is going to steal the ancient artifact through the temple and be chased by skeletons, but he gets away and flies off in a bi-plane.   But what will the shots look like?  What camera angles will you use?  What sets do you need to build?  You might want to storyboard to figure it all out.

What is storyboarding?  Simply drawing the shots next to each other giving the flow of the different clips you are going to film.  You may set the first shot as an overhead looking down on the main character walking though the halls of the temple.  In the second shot, he may be approaching the artifact and you shoot him from underneath, lighting him from the side and giving a dramatic effect.  You can sketch out all these shots and notes about them on a pad of paper so you can refer to it while filming.  You may even want to include basic lines of dialog if the character speaks in the scene.  This is normally the last "writing" step before actually filming the scene.

Keep in mind for shorter films, or based on your directing style, the above techniques may not be necessary or be overkill.  But if you are filming a longer project, you will definitely want to write some things down, as it can be very confusing later, when you are editing.

Now, the fun part.  Who knows, you may just do this part first and story ideas will flow from the creations you make.  But this is the reason you are using LEGO to make your film, and not clay or pen, right?  Building the sets.

There is one thing I learned that I think all directors learn early on.  Choose the detail of your sets wisely.   You may want to build bathrooms for all of your houses.  You may want to build a set of spare tires to go in the back of the car that's chasing your protagonist.  But will the audience ever see these things?  It's easy to go overboard, as we all love to build stuff out of LEGO.  But if you put your efforts into what the camera will actually see, you can do a lot better job of showing detail.

This is one reason, by the way, that we storyboard.  If you show in paper or just know in your mind what camera angles you want before you start building the sets, you will have a much better time understanding which parts need to be built and which can be omitted.  A classic example if this is the house facade.  Remember all those western sets where only the front of the saloon was built?  Obviously, that's because the camera only saw the front of the saloon.  So what do you build?

I personally used to build the set first, then the main actors, the vehicles, any other scenery or items, then look through the camera and see what the angle I was using saw.  Since then, I think the much better thing to do is figure out what angle you will be using first.  If your camera angle shows your main character with a crowd far behind her, you will not have to put much detail into the crowd.  But if you want to pan the crowd's faces, you will want a few of those minifigs to have much more detail.  The same hold true for the sets.  Much detail up close, less the further away from the camera it is.  Construct your sets according to what the camera will see, not what the story says.

Let's take an example.  A guy walks into a bar and goes to the bartender.  He asks some questions then promptly leaves.  You want to show him in a close-up enter the door from the outside, then switch to him opening the door and walking in from the inside.  You want tight camera angles on the bartender and the guy from the left side or directly in front of them only.

What do you need to build?  Obviously, the bartender and questioner must have a lot of detail.  The immediate area around the bar should have a fair amount of detail too.  Since the back of the bar is so close to the bartender, you might want to have some detail on the wall behind him.  What else?  The door outside.  Does this have to be a part of the actual same set the bar is (that is, the same wall), or can you use the same door on another set?  The audience will never know unless you show detailed scenery through the open door.  How many walls does the bar need?  From the description above, probably only two.  The back of the bar and the wall the questioner walks in from.  And of that, probably only part of the wall.

What about the camera angles of the questioner?  A shot from the left will only need the door he walked in from.  Straight on shots will be tight on his face.  So for background, you may only want to build a black wall with a few colored shapes or a minifig or two out of focus.  The audience and the camera will be focus on his face and will not need to see a whole dance floor and set of table with minifigs in complex poses behind him.

For my film, Vecna's Lens, I made a tavern with four walls.  I had to do this since I wanted to show the same characters from all different actors.  But I built the set so I could always detached one or two walls easily to get the camera in there.  Remember, rarely will a set have more than three walls, and in some cases two or only one. 

Take another example of a car chase scene.  Chase scenes are very tricky as you need to show a lot of movement.  You need at the least scrolling background to give the appearance of motion.   You might also have to move the sets, not the cars, to show long movements, unless you have a lot of LEGO bricks and can make a huge set.  Or, put your chase scene somewhere like a open plain with not a whole lot of scenery around (e.g. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior).

When properly edited, this all comes together seemlessly.

Disney animators will tell you to do the voice recording for dialog first and then animate around the lines.  For LEGO filming, I think you can do it both ways.  Since you will not be lip-synching, you will have to worry much less about the characters movements during speaking.   Remember, you can always cut out footage, but it's difficult to add it back in unless you use looping (identical) clips.

So, if you have dialog in your movie, you may put off getting actors for it.  But keep this in mind during pre-production, especially if you have strong characters and dialog.

You will also want to round up any additional LEGOs you will need for the sets or characters.  You want to get any lights ready for filming.  You definitely want to line up a dedicated work space, as tearing down and putting up sets in between filming sessions can not only be a pain in the ass, but can lead to continuity errors (oops, that fig was facing over there or had his arm this other way in the preceding shot).

Well, Marine Force One just buzzed my house again, so I'll sign off for now.  Hope you enjoyed this week's article and Happy Filming!

Next time, we will discuss another aspect of film making.  Any suggestion?  Leave them in the forum.