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For a while now, as you might be able to tell from some of the comments I made about online broadcast technology a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been dying to make a video series of some sort, because I can’t quite work out why I haven’t already.

Today, I have taken a short break from clattering away at my keyboard to try and learn a few video editing skills, using the first few things that I could find near to my desk.  Two of those such things happened to be some LEGO figures, so that goes to explain this stupid little stop motion clip that I’ve created to try and teach myself the basics of video editing.

I found the music on a creative commons royalty free site called incompetech.  Creative commons licenses seem to be a wondrous thing that I’m going to have to learn more about, because it strikes me as the most incredible thing the internet is able to provide right now.

Things I have learnt today:  Stop motion is hard and time consuming and a real art form that I would love to dive a bit further in to and Creative Commons is the future.

 

 

by ·Comments Off on LEGO: Selling Papers

Today I received a ninja running away from a dragon.

In days gone by, papers were sold by plastering a big scoop on the front page. This morning I have witnessed a far more efficient way of selling papers.

Give away a free Lego kit.

This morning I wandered into WHSmiths with my head hung low in shame, prepared to lie that it was for my little brother, with the intention of buying a copy of the Sun for the sole purpose of getting the free Lego kit offered on the front page.

It soon became clear that I was not the only one.  A queue formed from the till to half way down the shop in the quiet Wimbledon store, everyone lined up clutching their copies of the Sun.  After a brief chat with the woman in front of me who was most definitely not a Sun reader, it was clear that this had been a daily occurrence while the offer had been running with parents and grandparents being sent out  to pick these kits up, but this was not what made my shame disappear.  These were after all devoted parents looking out for their young charges.

What made my shame vanish utterly were the people buying bundles of papers to get more kits.  An overheard conversation going on behind me revealed the snippet “oh, I see you decided to stop at 20 today” as more boxes of free Lego kits were frantically opened by till staff.  I half expected to see a mountain of discarded papers immediately outside the shop.

The Sun newspaper is on to something here.  This offer must have boosted their daily sales by a huge amount.  As a journalist, it is slightly worrying that a free plastic toy can pull more readers than hard journalistic graft, this is slightly worrying.

Of course, can free Lego really be such a bad thing?

by ·Comments Off on 9 Second Lego Castle

Well, I like stop motion and I like lego…

I remember when I was young Lego used to make amazing adverts with everything building up in stop motion and flying around all over the place.  Maybe if I’m feeling ambitious I might try something similar, but for the time being I’m just proud I got this to work.  I want to try and make a little bit of traditional style animation using the same software so this has turned into a wonderful little test.