New Spider-Man Movie Features Lego Scene Made By 14-Year-Old (yahoo.com) 35
Isaac-Lew (Slashdot reader #623) writes:
The Lego scene in "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse" was animated by a 14-year-old high school student after the producers saw the trailer he made that was animated Lego-style.
The teenager had used his father's old computers to recreate the trailer "shot for shot to look as if it belonged in a Lego world," reports the New York Times: By that point, he had been honing his skills for several years making short computer-generated Lego videos. "My dad showed me this 3-D software called Blender and I instantly got hooked on it," he said. "I watched a lot of YouTube videos to teach myself certain stuff..."
[A]fter finding the movie's Toronto-based production designer, Patrick O'Keefe, on LinkedIn, and confirming that Sony Pictures Animation's offer was legitimate, Theodore Mutanga, a medical physicist, built his son a new computer and bought him a state-of-the-art graphics card so he could render his work much faster... Over several weeks, first during spring break and then after finishing his homework on school nights, Mutanga worked on the Lego sequence... Christophre Miller [a director of "The Lego Movie" and one of the writer-producers of "Spider-Verse."] saw Mutanga's contribution to "Across the Spider-Verse" not only as a testament to the democratization of filmmaking, but also to the artist's perseverance: he dedicated intensive time and effort to animation, which is "not ever fast or easy to make," Miller said.
'The Lego Movie' is inspired by people making films with Lego bricks at home," Lord said by video. "That's what made us want to make the movie. Then the idea in 'Spider Verse' is that a hero can come from anywhere. And here comes this heroic young person who's inspired by the movie that was inspired by people like him."
The teenager had used his father's old computers to recreate the trailer "shot for shot to look as if it belonged in a Lego world," reports the New York Times: By that point, he had been honing his skills for several years making short computer-generated Lego videos. "My dad showed me this 3-D software called Blender and I instantly got hooked on it," he said. "I watched a lot of YouTube videos to teach myself certain stuff..."
[A]fter finding the movie's Toronto-based production designer, Patrick O'Keefe, on LinkedIn, and confirming that Sony Pictures Animation's offer was legitimate, Theodore Mutanga, a medical physicist, built his son a new computer and bought him a state-of-the-art graphics card so he could render his work much faster... Over several weeks, first during spring break and then after finishing his homework on school nights, Mutanga worked on the Lego sequence... Christophre Miller [a director of "The Lego Movie" and one of the writer-producers of "Spider-Verse."] saw Mutanga's contribution to "Across the Spider-Verse" not only as a testament to the democratization of filmmaking, but also to the artist's perseverance: he dedicated intensive time and effort to animation, which is "not ever fast or easy to make," Miller said.
'The Lego Movie' is inspired by people making films with Lego bricks at home," Lord said by video. "That's what made us want to make the movie. Then the idea in 'Spider Verse' is that a hero can come from anywhere. And here comes this heroic young person who's inspired by the movie that was inspired by people like him."
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They have to be or at the very least sign a release, this is textbook and movie studios are extremely averse to that type of liability.
14 year olds cannot consent to contracts so it's a matter of how gullible their parents are. Considerthing the dad here is a "medical physicist" who bought the kid a "state-of-the-art graphics card" this kid sounds like he already was already on 3rd base in the birth lottery so I think in any case they're doing just fine.
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This is America, it's drilled into us from birth that money for labor is how the world works, that's what most of us are "groomed" into (and that's a strange way to put it)
They should be paid a fair amount for their labor, similar to what any other CG artist in the industry would receive.
If this type of work is their passion and they can do it for a living they are doing very well all things considered.
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This is America, it's drilled into us from birth that money for labor is how the world works, that's what most of us are "groomed" into (and that's a strange way to put it)
The summary doesn't make this obvious, but - according to TFA, the kid lives in Toronto.
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It's OK, we have the same indoctrination here - you go to school, you get a job, you earn money to stay alive.
To some degree that's just an abstracted and formal recognition of reality - ever living thing has to do something to stay that way - but many humans have kind of fetishized it into something that's supposed to be valuable and good in its own way.
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I'm concerned when children appear to be "actively groomed towards giving out the milk for free"
Obvious troll is obvious
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They contacted his parents, so presumably they were able to help him negotiate a fair deal.
It's rather sad that you immediately jump from the story's "look at what this talented kid did" to child exploitation. That's cynical even for Slashdot. Well done.
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Disney exploiting other people's work and racking in billions? Yeah... Cynical.
Neither Spiderman nor Disney will ever love you. (Score:2)
As I was saying before some Disney fetishist tried to censor reality...
Disney exploiting other people's work and racking in billions? Yeah... Cynical.
Re:Child exploitation? What was the compensation? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just happy (and surprised) that Sony didn't sue him into the ground for copyright infringement, etc ... -- also piracy, 'cause you know some corporate lawyer is going to try arguing that exactly re-creating a movie (or trailer) yourself from scratch hurts their revenues. :-)
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I certainly hope that child was paid for cost of production along with retaining a royalty for every showing of the trailer.
I have never much cared for ripping off children just because they're at a disadvantage.
The kid wasn't trans and its pride month, so no.
Impressive... (Score:1)
I didn't know any eleven year olds played with legos. I thought it was just 35 year old male virgins.
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Re:Impressive... (Score:4, Informative)
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Oh they do and people of all ages get bought them at some point (though only the wealthy ones get bought many of those insanely priced little bricks).
Then they end up lining edges and corners of bins. Even if a kid wanted to build something the kits really don't come with enough universal and assorted bricks to do so, they really only build the thing in the kit well. They'd need a bunch of expensive kits before they could just sit down and craft a spaceship from their imagination.
The only time I've seen sig
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> Even if a kid wanted to build something the kits really don't come with enough universal and assorted bricks to do so, they really only build the thing in the kit well. They'd need a bunch of expensive kits before they could just sit down and craft a spaceship from their imagination.
If you want boxes of assorted bricks, then buy boxes of assorted bricks: https://www.lego.com/en-us/the... [lego.com]
You don't have to buy themed kits, and you especially don't have to buy the licensed kits (Marvel, Star Wars, etc).
L
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You know what I partially take it back. They still have the overpriced sets and that is what you find in the toy isle at a store so I thought nothing had changed. Checking Amazon lego does have what look like generic building assortments now. Despite having seen the announcement they were killing the mindstorm robotics stuff it does still seem to be available... it is like triple the already insane price of the last time I checked at !!!$800!!! for the basic kit but it does still exist.
Gimmick (Score:2)
What a gimmick. I wonder how they managed to work a brief detour to an alternate Lego universe into the story.
Of course, if you're watching a superhero movie, you've already purchased tickets for the gimmick train. And maybe it can be a fun ride sometimes, I remember enjoying The Dark Knight when I was a teenager. But it didn't have a Legoland scene in the middle of it. That would seem to be on another level of cheese. The superhero tropes, multiple-identities thing can at least be extruded into something i
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I wonder how they managed to work a brief detour to an alternate Lego universe into the story.
Alternate universes, each with a different animation style, basically are the story. The current series of Spider-man movies take place in the "Spider-verse" which is a web of universes, most with their own Spider-man (who is not necessarily Peter Parker, a man, or even human), and characters travel between universes,
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The movie - at least from what I remember about the previous one - is just as much about the art as it is the story. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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OK, so it's basically a collection of loosely related short films, like the Animatrix. Makes sense now.
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Re:Gimmick (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, you sound like you're the life of every party haha.
The movie this is a sequel to was universally acclaimed by people who like movies, not comic book movies. I am someone doesn't care much for Marvel's formula either, but this one was animated and had a much longer leash -- it's really good.
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Maverick has entered the chat (Score:2)
One brick at a time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]