After the class discussion we had on fan filmmaking a few days ago, I remembered something from my own childhood that had to do with just that: Lego Studios sets. At the time the sets were released (early 2000's) my family and I weren't very computer-savvy, and so I never fully got into the whole 'film-making' concept that the sets were designed to promote - my brothers and I just played with them like regular Legos.
However, now that I think back on those sets, I wonder if they might have been the precursor to the vast number of stop-motion Lego animations online today, especially on sites like YouTube. Only in the last couple years did I discover these stop-motion videos online (and even then only because of my younger brother's interest in the subject), so I don't know how long they've been popular or even been around.
But I'd be willing to guess that the Lego Studios sets, if they didn't completely inspire this phenomenon of Lego stop-motion animation, then at they least brought it to the mainstream media's attention and helped popularize it.
A fun fact about many of the sets: You could take off the Lego character's head and slip on a small, clear plastic piece around the neck pole that sat on the figure's back (like a backpack accessory). You could then insert a clear plastic Lego rod into the attachment and, holding the rod, move around the figure without having your hands in the way of the Lego camera. Pretty neat, considering these sets came out over a decade ago!
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