Story board/how we'll construct it.

Here's an overview of are storyboard.

Scene 1

This will be the scene where the title is shown, as we want people to know its a LEgo product . LEGO' s a famous brand and should catch peoples attenion. The NXT part of the text shall build itself into shape, with the "Mindstorms" text just behind it. We are thinking of using stock frame animation for this part of the advert , for the HD camera can capture sharp imagery.

Scene 2 (the 4 sensory shots)


This shall be the overview of the robot , we shall add different effects to each sensor , for example a lens flare on the sight sensor, a rippling in the touch sensor etc.. The effects will be made in After Effects along with the majority of the feature.
We may have a white background behind the robot, though we aren't sure.

Scene 3

The software, this will be a short scene, maybe of the disc being inserted into a hard drive (this is so the viewer knows what it comes with. The child that features will put this into his hard drive and him and his dad will play with the sofware for a short time.


Scene 4

Programming the machine manually . This scene involves the kid programming the mainframe, maybe going through its different types of connectivity, this is to show off its many different functions such as Bluetooth and adjustable presets.

Scene 5

This scene shows the robot being created and adjusted. We will do this by slowing turning it (each two degrees taking a shot), removing pieces and then reversing the frames. Then we will have the child playing with it after each creation.


Scene 6

The Logo comes back on again and thats a wrap.

The music

My partner DJ Ash Haven has already started work on the backing track for this piece, its a smooth electronic tune that should blend in niecely with the product, we are thinking of using some of the sounds the NXT makes in the actual track. The music shall enter subtly during the first scene, just after the logo has formed itself, it will slowly build up in speed and complexity, before it makes its slow descent at the end.

Voice Over,

THe voice over hasn't been finalised in are minds yet, we were thinking about doing a informative American voice , but we're not too sure if it will fit in with the advert itself. We shall have to finish some scenes and see what works with the Imagery

NXT Development

Well, in order to evaluate our current group work myself and Ed have decided to summarize or work by writing this post together, hence why i Ash am writing in Ed's blog! Hello! We have decided that during the 45 seconds we have, we need to show all the features that the NXT robot has and how they can be used by various age groups. There is a lot to cover with the NXT simply because of its advanced user input abilities are based on software that incorporates elements of modern robotics and also program ability that results in a fully customizable tool. To show what this means for the buyer in an advertisement style we feel that if we cover as much of its features as we can during the time we have, and also show the product being used in the hands of a target consumer we can achieve the kind of advert which educates about the product.


So, we can achieve this by including the following things in our footage:

+A description of the main features of the product. In this case this means the various sensors that are on the robot. They are the backbone of the robots usability.
-Optical Sensor *Allows the robot to sense movement of objects and thus use the programmed responses the user inputs. This needs to be explained and also needs to be evidenced of how this adds to the robots full uses
-Voice Sensor *Allows the robot to detect sound and respond appropriately again, The same is true for the:
-Light Sensor - This allows the robot to follows lines along the floor
-Touch Sensor

These will all be covered in the first portion of the ident. Each sensor will be animated to show its function and a description in both text and voice will be given of the features and what they do. We will make the images of these sensors quite high res, as we believe this will show them along with the processing unit as the real core components of the product. After all the rest of it is simply lego! This means we need to put across that the possibilities of customization are so massive because under the Lego brand it can be modified with new lego parts and thus any type of personal activity robot or creation can be achieved.!

Now for the next part of the ident! We need to show the processing unit YAH! This is the nucleus of our robot. All the main components plug directly into this and obviously this means the unit is responsible for product to pc communication with its usb port. At the bottom of the unit are the 4 main 'limb' (if you like) ports that allow for the maneuverability of the product! So well show all this by first showing the unit in a hand for clear definition of its scale and looks. Then well show footage of people plugging the unit into a pc and how the software can be installed onto windows or mac and is user friendly.\


With these parts covered its time to show the robot in action! Well be asking one of Ed's cousin to play the part of teen consumer and target audience. Hell be shown in different environments constructing the robot and using its key features while experiencing pure ecstasy from the sheer bliss that can be achieved from the awesome heart stopping NXT SERIES! (slight joke)
Ed's cousin will probably be shown sitting down and hopefully in a homely environment we've not to show true application of the product.

After this well show all the units together clearly and using stop start style shooting, well show the various parts being put together in various ways, making sure to incorporate all the different parts such as wheels, and all the nuts and bolts that can be constructed in different ways. Our idea is to get the product to maybe rotate as it is constructed/deconstructed which will give a challenging but fast and flowing looking montage of images.

That about coveres it till the end of the ident! But i must mention there will be relevant logos shown both at the start and end of the ident which will be animated to show the lego style parts. Also to get everything covered decided to narrate over the advert in an 'infomercial' style, well be using a relvant voice for this as well as a backing track, produced to sound robotic and futuristic!



Ed + Ash

Lego NXT Graphics

Please click to Enlarge.



I've been working on trying to produce some text to accomplify my movie, when I uploaded these to blogger it changed the colour (probably because I didn't correct the colour settings in Photoshop or illustrator). I was thinking that I could create text out of the pieces of lego so that it matched upt with the product. The Logo's at the top look pretty silly, the colours don't mach up, tough the logo at the bottom of the image looks quite niece I think. I still need to work more on this logo though as it still isn't clear what the writing says, It would probably aid the piece incorporate the Mindstorms part of the sentence. I may still scan in the actually pieces, but first I'l see how far I can get with this.

Lego Mindstorms graphics ideas

I've been thinking about the graphics, which that I'm going to use in the Lego advert. I came across this picture of all this pieces from the an older lego kit and it gave me an idea. I thought I could create text or a logo from these pieces if aligned corectly. I'm going to try and make some logo's in illustrator and photoshop first, but if they don't work I may well try scanning in the actual pieces and creating a logo out of them.

Lego stop motion

The last blog I made looked at variations of Lego models that you can create of the Mindstorms kit. My partner came up with the idea of building a Lego piece bit by bit using stock frame animation, so that create thmeselves in front of the camera. I was thinking it may be a good idea to show the toys diversity by showing quite a few different creation being built up piece by piece. Below is a representation of the effect we could use. Though the piece below is rather dull, I think we could get past this by making it much quicker, brighter and exciting. With music that corresponds more with the actual creation itself.

Lego Mindstorms Creations

One of the ideas that I've been thinking of is creating multiple versions of the toy eg, cars , turntables and .... well I'm not to sure what else to at the moment. This is partly because I don't really know everything that you can do with it, hence forth I shall research into it, I've recently come across a honey pot of creation ideas on Youtube, here's a few of them and my thoughts on wether knew ideas that they bring :

The Gramophone/Phonograph.



This is a video that I'm quite fond of, a record player. I think the sound quality on this player is pretty poor, though this piece really shows the versatility of the product. I think it could be used in the advert to maybe, intertwine with the sound.

Remote Control Robot.



I think this kind of robot would be a good one to include you'd think it would appeal to kids that liked remote control cars and older kids that are more interested in the mechanics of the machines.

The Cat Toy



I think this model would appeal to children and adults, although I'd guess that its the type of thing an adult help a child make and then the child would get the most enjoyment out of playing with it.

Research Lego advert

Here's a look at a recent existing Indiana Jones advert for Lego. The age group this is amed at is a bit younger then the age group for my advert. I just looked at this to get an idea of the style the cooperation used.

As you can see the advert is very bold and uses quick action to engross the children. The bright music has been put there to make it more exciting.
One key thing to note is that the Lego logo is featured at the beggining and end of the advert, this should be something I Include in my advert. Also the lego writing itself is distorted at the end and references the product. I think I could ust this in the advert to make it look more professional.
I think the music in my advert shouldn't really be as vibrant as this because the toy itself isn't about fast action. The toy's capabillities are based on reaction and movement, so I Don't think it would be wise to include a soundtrack that jitters with it. It would be better to make one that hums along and just provides a niece relaxing backing to the showcase of the product.

Lego Mindstorm NXT Product research/target audiance

Since I've chosen this as my subject, I thought I'd have a look at the product itself.
I've had a look at the site and gathered that the packages are about £150 and are aimed at people from 10 years upwards. The product itself is very variable, it let can let you create humanoid, vehicle and animal robots that react to yourself and environmental elements such as light sound and objects using ulra-sonic waves. Some of the robots themselves can be created in half an hour.
The price of the product itself suggests that the advert will have to really grip the audience and show off the product in a golden light. Speed should reflected in the advert I think as this is a big selling point (robots can be made in half an hour!!).
Aspects such as the sensors themselves should be shown off. Some sites say its for ages 10 and over though , I personaly think that the main pepople buying or using these products would be boys aged from 11-16. So the advert should really have a bright modern theme, maybe use electric colors and such.

The advert must be 45 seconds long. So that sould be enough to show off its ablitys as long as has a quick pace.

The knew brief.

For this knew project we have been asked to choose from an array of briefs. In doing so we'll specify which area that we'd like to concentrate on, "moving image" or "interactive". I have chosen to do the Lego Mindstorm NXT brief. This is one of the Moving image brief. I chose this as I can include aspects of production that I'm interested in like flash animation, after effects animation moving image and special effects . The next step now is to do some research on lego itself and the adverts.