Journey to the Moon

En rejse til månen, or Journey to the Moon in English, is a 1973 brickfilm by cousins Lars and Henrik Hassing about a journey into space. It is considered to be the earliest known amateur LEGO stop-motion animation, and the earliest known brickfilm that is structured as a short film with a plot. It first became known to the brickfilming community in 2013, when Lars Hassing uploaded the film to YouTube for its 40th anniversary.

Plot
Astronauts head to the Legoland Aeronautics & Space Administration, and are brought to a rocket. The rocket takes off and enters space. As it approaches the moon, a lunar lander ejects and lands on the moon. The astronauts exit the lander and plant a flag before exploring in a moon buggy. They return to the lander and take off to get back to the rocket. They return to earth and land in the ocean, where they are picked up by a helicopter. The helicopter takes them to a ferry, and two days later they arrive back to their home town.

Production
The film was created using a Super 8 camera for the golden wedding anniversary of the Hassing cousins' grandparents, and while mostly stop-motion animation, the film does contain some live action scenes with movement created with a fishing line. The film was shot at the framerate 24 on twos, as the Hassings had a cable that allowed them to advance the film one frame at a time consistently. When they made the film, Lars and Henrik Hassing were aged 12 and 10, respectively. They learned techniques from a 1967 book about amateur filmmaking called Jeg smalfilmer.

Legacy
Shortly after completion, the film was shown to then-current head of The LEGO Group, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, who liked the film and awarded the Hassings with a tour of the LEGO factory and some large LEGO sets, and also organized the copying of the master film so that the cousins could have a copy each, as well as him keeping one for himself.

Lars Hassing holds the record for widest span of brickfilming activity, as he made a short brickfilm in February 2023 along with Seán Willis and Chris Wynn at the in Denmark while participating in the filming of a video to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Journey to the Moon made by Bricks in Motion.

Crew

 * Lars Hassing - Director
 * Henrik Hassing - Director
 * Inger Hassing - Additional papier-mâché construction