How They Animated 'The Lego Batman Movie' | Design FX | WIRED

'The Lego Batman Movie' uses an impressive style of animation that replicates the look of real lego bricks. These digital bricks abide by all the rules of real Lego bricks, so they cannot bend or move in an impractical way. Mike Seymour breaks down a few of the most remarkable scenes, where numerous complex techniques were used to create a believable image.

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How They Animated 'The Lego Batman Movie' | Design FX | WIRED

Starring: Mike Seymour

("We Ridin'" by V.I.C. ft. Hurricane Chris)

- Batman, we love you!

- Thanks for saving the city!

- You're welcome.

- Hi, I'm Mike Seymour from fxguide.com for Wired,

looking at the tech of making the LEGO Batman Movie.

Animal Logic has another hit on their hands

with the Warner Bros' The Batman Movie.

But these films are like really hard to make. (chuckles)

Gotham City alone is made up
of 220 million distinct LEGO blocks.

All these blocks have a unique patina.

Each brick, when it's made, has a lookup table

into various scratch maps, thumb prints,

dent maps, edge profiles, and all the other effects

that makes each one of them slightly unique.

- It's the Bat Cave!

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,

oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,

oh my gosh, oh my gu-- (wails).

(thud)
Oh!

(gasps) Batman!

Whoa!

- You're darned right, whoa.

- In the film, Animal Logic
used its own Glimpse renderer

to produce the spectacular Gotham City.

By the way, that set alone would be
6 1/2 football fields wide

if it was real.

The shot with the largest number of elements

had over three trillion primitives,

give or take a bit.

So, it was significantly larger
than the original LEGO Movie.

But that wasn't the hardest part about the film.

While technical issues are huge

and something to think about,

the real challenge was getting a great performance

from the 1.5-inch-tall Batman toy.

In the first LEGO Movie,
the lead character was Emmet

and he had just two black dots for eyes,

but here in the Batman film,

he only has really a glowing area
under a cowl for eyes.

All the performances come from replacement animation.

So, to deliver his lines,

every expression means that one cowl pops off

and a new cowl is added.

You'll never see the traditional
Disney-style squash and stretch animation

on Batman's face, even the bending of an elbow.

If you see an arm bend, then it does so

by having digital LEGO blocks
being swapped in and out

to make the bending shape of the arm.

It's all animated brick replacement.

Now, given how limited this kind of
stepped key frame approach is

for a facial performance,
animation director Rob Coleman

and the team at Animal Logic tried really hard

to give the audience every hook
to really believe in the characters.

And this shows, I think, in the nonverbal acting,

when say, a character's listening
to other characters in the scene.

The team of course has to work out
how to animate what's being said

and do the facial animation of the dialogue,

but also, they have to make you question,

"Does that other character that's listening

"actually believe what's going on?"

All of which, of course,
plays into the subtext of the scene.

And it's the subtext that the audience loves.

Now, personally for Rob Coleman,

Rosario Dawson was extremely valuable in this regard.

She's the voice of Barbara Gordon.

Rosario acted as much when she was listening

to the other actors doing their voiceovers

as she did when she was delivering her own lines,

which gave Rob these really great moments

of a living, thinking Barbara Gordon,

especially when she's listening
to the BS of Robin and Batman.

- I can wear my costume, too.

- Well, luckily for us,

you left your costume back at--

- Rip!
- That's... perfect.

It's called the LEGO Batman Movie.

Just sayin'.

- Oh, you're such a great padre.

- What are you doing?!

- I'm trying to give you a big old hug.

- I thought you were attacking me.

- Now remember, all the acting has to be delivered

with just nine points of movement
for any LEGO character.

This notion of subtext was
also picked up in the lighting.

Is Batman moving more towards the idea of a family?

In which case, he moves more into the light.

Or does he want to go off on his own?

In which case, he steps more into darkness.

Every shot had its emotional beats
underscored by the lighting.

This is really hard to get right in a real film

when everyone's on set together,

let alone when you're lighting
plastic toys months apart.

To help bring all this together,

department heads met at regular turnover meetings.

And for each scene, before they went into production,

the director, Chris McKay,
would outline at a pretty high level

where the scene is at in terms
of the character's arc and development,

what's going on, why the scene
was actually in the movie,

and what he wanted the audience
to take away from it.

And then each of the lighting, animation effects,

and other departments would be able
to contribute their own ideas

as to how to deliver on that scene.

I mean, animation is hard.

I mean, it's really hard.

Keeping performances fresh and spontaneous

is incredibly complex.

I guess that's the nature of all animation,

but just how hard is it?

Well, watch this simple side gag.

- Woo hoo hoo!

(tires squealing)
(Robin grunts)

- I am so sorry.

Soon as I get back to the Bat Cave,

I will make sure that Alfred
puts seat belts on there.

- Well, that took quite a few takes to get right.

In fact, the gag of Robin hitting his head

on the dashboard, which may be kind of a small thing,

but to hit his head in a way

that was deemed funny, but not gratuitous,

took 45 takes and months to do.

And it was just seven seconds of screen time.

Well, don't forget,

subscribe for more behind-the-scenes action.

I'm Mike Seymour for Wired.

("Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa)

- [Batman] This movie has everything.

Action.

("We Ridin'" by V.I.C. ft. Hurricane Chris)