We are super excited about our Rocketeers Film Festival where children will create their own stop-motion animation films using LEGO® bricks! Children will build their narrative, come up with unique characters and turn bricks into awesome movie sets to unleash their creativity through LEGO Play.

Discover how your children can benefit from trying their hand at filmmaking. By getting into the craft, they can improve various skills such as:

• Understanding how to read or create narratives
• Reading, writing and decoding
• Critical thinking, problem solving and decision making
• Leading and directing others
• Exploring creativity

So, what types of films are out there for children to get involved in? Animated films may appeal to younger children because of the bright colours and accessible subject matter, which make them standout with their quirky and fun images that create the illusion of movement and excitement – and of course, with a storyline and characters they can resonate with.

Stop-motion

Stop-motion films are one of the easiest ways to get children involved in filmmaking as they don’t require a lot of technical skills. Children may use their toys, make clay moulds, LEGO bricks, and other common household items to ‘set up’ their scene and photograph (or video) each frame. A typical full-length (90 minutes) stop-motion film can contain as many as 64,800 frames!

Benefits: Helps develop children’s patience, dedication and freedom of creativity

Check out the stop-motion video “Ar Don Go” for inspiration.

Live-action

With many children having access to a mobile phone or tablet nowadays (even if it’s a parent’s), they may be more familiar and confident using digital devices to get into filmmaking. While this may be more of technical challenge, with some assistance from older siblings or parents, we believe your little filmmakers will be able to capture their scenes with enough creative freedom. It can be as simple as a ‘home video style’ movie with unscripted action and ad-libs, or scripted scenes where 'actors’ may need to record actions and their lines multiple times to get the desired shot.

Benefits: Helps encourage script writing and creative storytelling, builds teamwork and social skills

Check out this short film by some 5th graders, “Don’t Eat the Cookies” for inspiration.

Music videos

Does your child have a song they just can’t stop singing to? A fun and creative way to fuse music and video production is to encourage them to create their own music video using their favourite tunes! For children interested in this activity, we encourage them to follow these basic instructions:

• Build a story or storyboard that goes with the music
• Grab a device to film on (phone, tablet, camera)
• Create a short list of shots or scenes to film
• Think about creating unique shots (different angles, special effects, etc.)
• Edit the video to go with the theme of the music (think beats, genre, colours, dance moves)

Benefits: Great for music lovers, learn how music adds emotion to films, gain problem solving skills

Check out the band OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” for inspiration.

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Be part of the Film Festival action!

Let your child unleash their creativity using LEGO bricks to create their own stop-motion films in our Film Fest experiences in a Rocketeers service near you! Book now to secure their spot.

The winning films made by our children during the Rocketeers summer program will be premiered at our online awards show on YouTube on 3 March 2024. Stay tuned and subscribe to our YouTube channel!