Monday – hello. Hope you’re having a good one.

We’re going to start doing some Monday roundups of our favorite cool stuff from around the web having to do with DiY filmmaking, and DiY inspiration. Let’s do it!

LEGO Film is a Thing

Make’s post about this reminded me that LEGO movies – excuse me, LEGO Brick Movies – are a thing. Check out Make’s recap for some cool ones (or below). There is even an online community dedicated to this –  Brickfilm.

I used to love making LEGO movies as a kid, and now thinking about it, I realize that there are a few benefits.

• Sets are cheap
• Actors don’t complain
• Actors heads are removable

You can’t go wrong!

There are actually HUNDREDS of these online and they can get pretty sophisticated. Check out some stuff by Squashed Cat Productions for some nice use of focus panes and smooth animation:

If you are looking for a decent tutorial on how to make these, you are kind of out of luck. Most of them are like this:

When do I take the picture?

Free Preference Manager for Final Cut Pro

The good people at FCP Daily came up with a sweet freebie last week – a preference manager for Final Cut Pro. The lack of this being native on the system drives me nuts, having worked in places where many editors use the same bay. Avid handles it fine, but its a pain in FCP. Good get!

James Cameron on TED Talks

This is hardly DiY but worth the look for inspiration. For what it’s worth, this video by JJ Abrams is one of the best TED Talks, and best filmmaking and storytelling pep talk I’ve ever seen:

That’s it! Happy monday.