Lego stop motion animation shot with DIY Lego camera holder

Lego Inchworm Stop Motion Animation

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I was inspired by @davixesk8 post about creating a camera stand out of Lego. @thingone has been talking about making a movie and I decided to create a Lego movie stage and camera boom, out of Lego.

@dillemma shooting the inchworm animation - I made two different camera case mounts for her phone and my phone

A heavy SNOT (Studs Not On Top) base provides a smooth surface for the boom to travel over. The entire boom can rotate 180° to pan around the Lego movie stage. The camera holder can slide up and down the boom to zoom in or out from the stage as well.

The camera holder is geared, twisting the little nob under the camera tilts the camera up or down. The camera holder is also on a turntable piece so the camera can rotate left and right independently of the entire boom moving. I built a Lego counterweight to balance out the camera and keep the camera holder level on top of the boom.

This short stop motion shows how the camera can pan out by sliding the holder back on the boom, then the whole boom rotates to move the camera around the subject before zooming back in by sliding back up the boom (I messed up the order of a few frames in here but this was just a proof of concept anyway):

The next step is going to be shooting some movies with @thingone. He has been building intricate scenes, now we can just plop the whole scene down on top of the Lego stage and make stop motion movie magic :) Stay tuned!