BricksWest Animation Competition

The BricksWest Animation Competition was a brickfilm competition held at the general LEGO convention BricksWest. The competition was run by Todd Thuma both years the BricksWest festival occurred, in 2002 and 2003. It is not to be confused with BrickFest, which Todd Thuma also ran animation competitions at for a number of years.

BricksWest Festival History
The BricksWest convention was founded mainly by Matthew Gerber after a call on LUGNET for a BrickFest-style LEGO convention on America's west coast. BricksWest took place near LEGOLAND California in Carlsbad, California and was sponsored by The LEGO Group. It was the first annual LEGO convention on the west coast but only ran for two years, in 2002 and 2003. BricksWest was supposed to occur in 2004, but Matthew Gerber disappeared from the LEGO fan community after his company BrickMedia took subscription fees for a planned LEGO magazine that they never produced, and the festival never took place again.

BricksWest 2002 Animation Competition
BricksWest 2002 took place from February 16-18, 2002. The animation festival and competition was hosted by Todd Thuma, and the call for entries was posted on January 9, 2002. The competition was split into two categories, the stop-motion division and the computer-generated division, and entries were required to be between 10 seconds and 5 minutes. Previously released films were permitted for submission. Awards for both categories would be presented to the Conference Organizer's Winners, as voted for by the organizers of BricksWest, and the Conference Attendee Winners, voted for by the audience. The stop-motion division received 20 entries and the computer-generated division received 6 entries.

Stop-Motion Division
Conference Organizer's Winner:
 * The Big Night Out by Corinne Halsdorff, Matt Halsdorff and Tim Dotta

Conference Attendee Winner:
 * The Rescue by Jason Allemann and Deane VanLuven

An honourable mention in the stop-motion division was given to The Gauntlet by Jay Silver.

Computer-Generated Division
Conference Organizer's Winner:
 * Complex Motion by Ahui Herrera

Conference Attendee Winner:
 * The Matrix in 6 Minutes by Colin Jones

BricksWest 2003 Animation Competition
BricksWest 2003 took place from February 14-17, 2003. Todd Thuma announced the animation festival and competition on December 12, 2002, which once again featured two divisions. The first was the Comedy Competition, which was for original films created especially for the competition and not previously posted online. Entries to the comedy competition were required to be between 1 and 6 minutes in length. The second division was the General Animation Competition, which accepted previously released films and did not impose a time limit.

Winners of the two divisions as well as an overall best of show winner would be voted on by the audience, and each winner would receive a set of engraved bricks indicating the award they won as well as a new LEGO System set. The comedy competition received 7 entries and the general animation competition received 13 entries (including one also submitted to the comedy competition).

Results
Best of Show:
 * A New Computer by Pat Mahoney

Comedy Competition Winner:
 * Really Deep Space by Jeff Leary

General Animation Competition Winner:
 * Midnight Ride by Doug James and Jared Gilbert

List of all Comedy Competition entries, in no particular order:

List of all General Animation Competition entries, in no particular order: