LEGO's are coming to a theatre near you February 7, 2014 and we got a sneak peek at the stop motion/computer-animated comedy adventure film with three of the directors at this year's Comic Con.
Based on the Lego line of construction toys, The LEGO® Movie has been three years in the making with three directors at the helm.Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord with Robot Chicken director Chris McKay as a co-director approached the project differently than others. For one, they describe the process as a "creative machine" in which they had different parts of the production on the same page. The editors would talk with the storyboard artists when creating the visual storyline.
Seondly, during production, they had sets of actors working together when doing the voices. In animation, it’s the norm to have people do their voice acting separately of each other. "We found out it’s hard to get famous people together in the same place at the same time due to their schedules," said director Phil Lord. Some of the actors who were able to work together included Elizabeth Banks/Will Arnett and Will Ferrell/Liam Neeson. There were other voice collaborations, but the filmmakers didn’t want to give anything else away.
Although based on a popular toy franchise and video games, the directors are creating a whole new world. Co-director Chris McKay says the limited animaton style of the original work helped in that they could only make it better. Director Chris Miller admits he wanted a stand-alone movie. "I didn’t want to make a "bullshit movie," but rather a film that had a complete story in it’s own universe."
However, they didn't stray too far. According to the filmmakers, all LEGO worlds are represented in this film including superheroes and historical figures. When it came to their favorite LEGO toy, Phil Lord names the new Back to the Future LEGO set as a favorite, while Chris Miller's choice is the Lunar Base Lego set, and Chris McKay likes putting together Catwoman in LEGO form.
