Cool Brick Movies

Cool Brick Movies was a website focused on the art of brickfilming. It was founded in 2001 by Seth Rotkin. It was regularly updated until 2004 and remained online until 2006.

History
Originally located at coolbrickmovies.f2s.com, Cool brick Movies was launched in 2001 by Seth Rotkin, at the time aged 14. Its primary feature was its film directory, which took inspiration from Brickfilms.com. This directory was structured similarly to the one on Brickfilms.com, however its intention was somewhat different. The stated goal of Cool Brick Movies' directory was to collect the best brickfilms available on the internet, whereas Brickfilms.com at the time aimed to catalog all that could be found. The site also included a forum and hosted occasional low-key contests for a short time, including a Matrix contest won by The Matrix Thief by CJ Doss, and a Star Wars contest won by Xarkun 8 by Joel Batterman.

The site moved to coolbrickmovies.com in November 2001. Rotkin continued to develop the site, adding a member system and launched a major new design in June 2003. The news section, covering site upkeep and general brickfilming news, was updated until late 2004.

Cool Brick Movies received one last news update in early 2006, declaring it to be "not dead". However, no further activity occurred on the site and by 2007, it had gone offline.

NWBrickCon Animation Competitions
In 2003 and 2004, Seth Rotkin and Cool Brick Movies hosted animation competitions at the LEGO convention NWBrickCon (later renamed to just BrickCon) in Seattle, Washington. Rotkin first became involved with the convention when he hosted a seminar on LEGO animation at the first NWBrickCon, in 2002.

NWBrickCon 2003 Animation Competition
Seth Rotkin announced the Cool Brick Movies NWBrickCon 2003 Animation Competition on LUGNET on February 19, 2003. He posted the rules on June 24, 2003, and the competition did not have a theme and allowed previously released films to be entered. The deadline for submissions was September 15, 2003 and NWBrickCon 2003 took place from October 4 - 6.

Despite previous mention that there would be different winners in both the categories Audience’s Choice and Event Coordinator’s Choice, only one winner of the animation competition was announced: Out of Time by Chris Salt.

NWBrickCon 2004 Mystery Contest
The Cool Brick Movies NWBrickCon 2004 Animation Competition was announced on September 7, 2004, and had the theme "Mystery". (Rotkin had attempted a contest with the same theme and logo on Cool Brick Movies in 2002, but it ended up not receiving any entries, most likely due to occurring at the same time as the ShootinBricks.com Horror Animation Contest.) Entries were originally required to have never been previously released, but this rule was undone after only one entry, Mr Mortintoj by Viljami Teekkinen and Ilmari Teekkinen, was received by the deadline. Rotkin allowed brickfilmers to submit any existing film in the genres mystery or horror, and received Totentanz by Steffen Troeger and Andreas Mooslechner, and his pick of any other films by the Teekkinens. NWBrickCon 2004 took place from October 29 - 31.

Results

 * 1) Totentanz by Steffen Troeger and Andreas Mooslechner
 * 2) Rohaddey by Viljami Teekkinen and Ilmari Teekkinen

Steffen Troeger requested that his prize be given to the Teekkinens because they were the only people who produced a film specifically for the contest and because he already owned the first place prize, LEGO set 1382 Scary Laboratory. In the results announcement, Rotkin mentioned hosting the competition again in the next year, but it ultimately never occurred again.