Mateus de Paula Santos

Lego

Go Miniman Go

The “Go Miniman Go” spot was created by agency Pereira & O’Dell in 2008, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the famous minifigure that goes together with LEGO building blocks since 1978.

The script stitches together a series of cultural and historical references from the past three decades, like the movies “Star Wars” and “Saturday Night Fever”, the emergence of hip-hop culture and the fall of the Berlin wall, portraying them with LEGO blocks and minifigures.

Despite the ambitious concept, our intention was to create an exciting and fun spot, one that didn’t feel like a history lesson but rather like a child’s imagination at work, flowing freely from one playing scenario to the next. That’s why, when designing the storyboards, we dedicated special attention to the transitions between scenes, to ensure that the film flowed in a natural, intuitive and also surprising way.

The entire animation was produced in 3D, but we wanted it to feel like a real stop-motion short, made with actual LEGO pieces. What helps convey this feeling is that when it came to animate the Miniman figures we respected their “natural” motion constraints, that is, they never twist or bend more than a real Miniman could. Of course, those self-imposed rules didn’t mean we couldn’t make use of all the possibilities allowed by CGI when it came to animating dazzling camera moves, creating expressive lighting effects, and producing a special stereoscopic version of the spot.

Credits

Executive Producer
Alberto Lopes
Sergio Salles
Creative Director
Mateus de Paula Santos
Director
Cadu Macedo
Head Of Production
Loic François Marie Dubois
Lead Modelling
Franck Falgueyrac
Olavo Chagas
Lead Render
Franck Falgueyrac
Storyboard
Libero Malavoglia
Cadu Macedo
Modelling
Cadu Macedo
Rafael Segnini
Sergio Rochas
Diego Aragão Maia
Animators
Yuri Lementy
Cadu Macedo
Marco Antonio Trandafilov
Jason Tadeu de Oliveira
Alexandre Martins
Helio Takahashi
Vitor Viela
3D Rendering
Franck Falgueyrac
Olavo Chagas
Ivan Imanishi
Textures
Cadu Macedo
Compositing
Cadu Macedo
CG Script Development
Paulo Nogueira
Ivan Imanishi
Stereoscopic Imaging Consultant
Andre Rosa