Now, this isn't the most common type of a LEGO creation you see on this page! This stop motion Brickfilm was filmed in, if I remember correctly, on November of the last year by Vuhvelituotanto, an independent film production consisting of me and my friend, sometimes known as Humppakeksi. We were asked to do the video for the band Eläkeläiset (an finnish folk-ish oompah group that makes excellent humppa covers on classic songs, mostly) after the release of their newest CD/LP Humppakalmisto.
We had done a music video of their song Jukolan Humppa earlier for LUG Palikkatakomo RY's video contest. That was not released by the band officially, though, and it didn't have to whole song. This time we had a bit shorter song and more experience. Division of work was same as earlier: I built the MOCs (a cottage with old/new modes; a gloomy nursing home room; a piece of a street; part of Finnish House of Parliament's facade with stairs. Humppa Pub was used for playing sections as before.) and he edited the video. The "script" was mostly done by me while building the props, though I have to say it's mostly on the lyrics. You likely won't understand a bit of them, but I'll add a translation later when I have more time. It's about the bad situation of the eldery, terrible state of affairs and questionable political activities. Until then... Humppa or die!
It's time to go back into basic LEGO business after my super-popular (at least on my standards) Big Daddy MOC that pretty much gave this blog six times more visitors that I had had on it whole history. Big thanks to everyone who blogged and commented.
But on a second thought, this isn't basic business neither. It's LEGO animation debut of Vuhvelituotanto, the very indie video production that consists of me and my friend (Known as Humppakeksi in LEGO community). We have done several short life action films, but this is our first video released online. Without further ado, be ready to some serious humppa!
So, that was it, Humppa of Jukola, song by Finnish humppa cover group Eläkeläiset, which has had some appearances in this blog before.As you probably noticed, the name of the game is alcohol. No, wait. I was saying that you probably noticed that we used my Humppa-Pub as a fake scene prop on the playing scenes. The adventurous orienteering prop was built in couple of hours using BURPs, baseplates and some plates and plant pieces to add detail.
As I said, this is our animation debut. And I really mean it. Doing a LEGO animation is often said to be hard and time-consuming work, and we wanted to test the veracity of that rumor. We didn't do any test shots. Pretty much every pic taken is on this films. I had built the outdoor prop the previous evening, and Humppakeksi came here on the morning and we made the animating in two hours. When it comes to filming, we were ready for dinner before midday.
Later on the same day we squeezed the pics into Monkeyjam and made the stop-motion clips. Neither of us had used that software before, but luckily it was rather easy to use despite the lags and bugs in it. Humppakeksi took the clips and made the editing on the next day on his computer. I guess he's lot better than me in that (and he always does that on our films). The video was done in two days. It was not especially hard or time-consuming.
Of course the quality of the animation is not the best possible, there is some fluctuation
and lot of loop. The quality of the image isn't perfect eihter, but we
don't have any expensive editing software and we do not download those
illegally. The pics are taken on my Canon EOS 450D. A System camera
isn't the most common tool on stop-motion videos, but it was the best
one available. Just in case you wanted to know.
This video was done for Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo's annual video contest. The subject was Voyage to Uncharted. We did it as a music video of Eläkeläiset's song for several reasons. Firstly, humppa is the best music genre ever. Secondly, we had got some requests for stop-motion humppa animations after our MOCs and we had the props ready. Thirdly there was a humppa song which lyrics were perfect for the contest's subject. You likely have no idea what they are singing, but it's about orienteering trip of demented old man who forgot the map, have no idea what the compass is, has a fragment in his skull and who broke his glasses. It's a cover of Finnish metal group Nightwish's Nemo. You can listen the full song here.
(Actually, it has been done for two weeks now, but I didn't manage to photograph until today.)
This is, as you probably have noticed, another MOC concerning my favourite band, Eläkeläiset, that plays humppa (old Finnish dance-music related to fast foxtrot) covers of other people's and bands' songs. Here's a couple ofexamples of band's humppas. Their logo is Humppaava Poro, the reindeer that does humppa, which I built using pneumatic hoses. Here's a reference pic. I'm very happy with it.
This pub is located somewhere is Germany, as Eläkeläiset is pretty well-known there. It seems that there's something in the beautiful rhythm that attracts Germaniacs even when they don't understand a word of band's lyrics... So, I built a big KNEIPE sign to the facade. If we can trust the Internet, it means pub. And if it doesn't, the big pint on the roof should clear things up.
Inside the building the band is playing and the dancefolk is dancing. In other words, humppa exists. Kristian Voutilainen batters the drums (the drumsticks are pieces that connects FABULAND figs' legs...), Martti Waris bounces the bass, Lassi Kinnunen abuses the accordion, Petteri Halonen strums the organ and Onni Waris plays the electric violin while he murders his organ. The merchandise master Pekka Jokinen is selling his treasures in the corner. Merry fellows!
The building isn't than modern, probably an old house from GDR, completed with super modern cooling systems (there's a big fan inside the circle thing) and decanted plaster. Brick-bricks are used there to achieve the effect. Bikes and garbage containers add some colour. Plus there's a box of beer for emergency use. The punks have set on an illegal campfire and they are somewhat pissed of old humppa-folk... What means hard time to them. There are also some lights on the roof ridge, mostly because I ran out of tan tiles and bricks... The kleinbus bandwagon is parked on a SNOT parking lot on the other side of the building.
Make sure to check the Brickshelf gallery with lot of pictures when it's public.
I luckily had enough tan bricks and and light grey plates and I managed to finish (almost) the backyard of the pub building. I added some details as planned, a few containers, a couple of bikes on a self-designed bike rack, illegal campfire that punks have lit and deepened back door. I'm quite happy with the overall urban feeling. On the left side (right in the picture above) there's a Volkswagen Kleinbus, Eläkeläiset's bandwagon, on a SNOT parking lot which is compatible with Moducity standard SNOT roads.
I don't have a exact idea how I will build the roof. I don't have enough roof tiles to make full roof with them, and bright red roof wouldn't probably look so good anyway. A boring, flat roof could work, but I would leave the building open, so the humppa band and dance folk would be clearly seen. Otherwise the MOC would be pretty much a dark box.
I continued building my Humppa-Pub project with the LUGBULK parts I told about in the last post. I built a decent and sturdy module base yesterday, and started making walls. The building is supposed to be quite old and stale, so I put some brick-bricks on random places to present sections were the plaster has worn out and the brick wall is visible. I like the effect and the shade difference of tan and dark tan. There are also some old ventilation conduits and geothermal heating pipe on the backside. I'll also add some trash cans and other things that can be found on the shady alleys.
And, of course, there is an angry punk throwing Molotov Cocktail to the happy Humppa folk. Punks don't always love humppa, so there will be some nasty conflict. I'll add a illegal campfire and some more punks to the street later.
My tan bricks are running low now and I still have to make the third wall. I also need some 2xX light bluish grey plates. I hope I can snatch those from some older creations or sets, or I'll have to make a BL order... Well, luckily the forests of Finland are full of free money called blueberries now, so I can get some boost to my LEGO budget quite easily.
I'm finally back home and have enough time to continue building the five WIPs I have under work. Here's some WIP material from the biggest of them, the modular Humppa-Pub project!
This WIP is the biggest Town-themed MOC I have done. It presents a German pub with dance floor and stage for live music. There will be, probably with no surprise, Finnish Humppa band Eläkeläiset bombing the town with humppa in the stage. And lot of drunken Germaniacs dancing in hulabaloobalaibish manner. The kleinbus from my earlier Humppa MOC will be parked behind the building.
The base will be built using Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo's ModuVerse standard so I can use it in the Moducity collaboration projects on the following events and shows of Palikkatakomo in Finland.
I can finish the project after the annual LUGBULK loot arrives, hopefully on the few following weeks. I will get some TECHNIC 6x8 frame bricks to build a stable base, 100 new brick-pattern-bricks in dark tan and last but not least a lot of bottles.
A bit of a teaser of another upcoming MOC. This HumppaavaPoro (Reindeer that does Humppa) is built mostly using pneumatic parts. This is for one bigger project. It may take long to summer, because I have to get series 7 minifigs and annual LUGBULK order to finish it.
Finnish masters of Humppa, Eläkeläiset (The Pensioners), are hiding some liquid treasures for oncoming use near autobahn during a gig trip somewhere in Germany. I built this MOC
Humppa in Legoland: Petteri Halonen, Kristian Voutilainen, Lassi Kinnunen, Martti Varis, Onni Varis
somehow inspired by my friend Humppakeksi's Humppa-park project when we got a change to show these thing to actual band. More of this later.
I wanted to build the iconic Volkswagen Kleinbus which the band used on their gig trips on their earlier pension days. The bus in extremely irrationally built and uses all sorts of SNOT and offset techniques. The base and the widows are forward-SNOT, sides of the chassis are side-SNOT and the back and the front are combination of all of them. The base is six studs and one plate wide. The bus, however, is suprisingly sturdy and has decent amount of space inside (an electric organ and a crate of beer bottles there amused the band members quite a lot). I'm quite happy how the from came out, though I'd like to have some 1x2 modifiled tiles with handle in white to make the front windows in right color.
The real monsters of Humppa: Kristian Voutilainen, Martti Varis, Lassi Kinnunen, Petteri Halonen, Onni Varis.
We were able to show our humppa-creations to their paragons when the band had an album-releasing gig (The newest album, Humppasheikkailu, was released 14.3.2012) in our hometown. We weren't old enough to partake in the gig, but we listened some sound-checks few hours before it and had some chat with the band members. They liked our MOCs quite a lot (especially the drummer Kristian Voutilainen's additional stomach caused hilarity among them) and put the pics of them on their facebook pages.
My name is Eero Okkonen and I'm a 1995 born AFOL from eastern Finland, the land of northern lights. I am an architect and a Ph.D student making a doctoral Thesis on the bank buildings from 1899-1907 in my hometown Tampere.
This blog is about my adventures and experiences with LEGO bricks, one of numerous art mediums I like fiddling with. I mostly post about finished creations of mine, but there might be other content, sometimes - event reports and such. Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo hosts several events a year, so I'm also active memeber of real-life LEGO community. Online you can find me on Flickr, Instagram (@eerookkonen) and old bad Brickshelf (though no longer active, but there's link on the header in if you want to study how my style developed from 2007 to something like 2012; it's classified "old stuff".)
The other gallant people who have helped with this blog are Crudelis "Manfred" Diabolus, the master of codes and scripts, Don Valentino "Don" Delucci, the master of art and maker of (some of the older) banners, and my partner Pinja, who took the portrait. Big hand to you!
