LEGO Studios Movie Making Contest

The LEGO Studios Movie Making Contest was a brickfilming competition hosted by The LEGO Group to tie in with the launch of LEGO Studios. It began in late 2000, making it the earliest known brickfilming competition. It also ties in with a brickfilm category in a German film festival, and there was also a very little-known UK edition of the contest.

Another contest that tied in with LEGO Studios was the National Movie-Competition at Singapore Polytechnic. This contest did not tie in with the LEGO Studios Movie Making Contest, but its winners were available to view on the LEGO Studios website alongside the winners of the other LEGO Studios contests.

Alhough the LEGO Studios Movie Making Contest is the earliest known brickfilm contest, it is the second known video contest hosted by LEGO. The LEGO Maniac's Coolest Home Video Contest took place earlier in 2000, and while it was not strictly for brickfilms, it did include brickfilms among its winners and other semi-finalists.

History
The contest was launched around November and December 2000, roughly coinciding with the launch of the LEGO Studios line. The deadline for submission was March 31, 2001. Entry forms were first distributed in shops. Entries were required to be submitted on VHS, CD-R/CD-RW or. The contest was open to residents of the US and Canada (excluding Quebec) aged between 8 and 18. More than 700 submissions were received.

Three semi-finalists were chosen in each of three age categories, 8-10, 11-13 and 14-18. These nine films were screened at the LEGO Studios Movie Making Award Ceremony, which took place in June 2001 at Planet Hollywood in New York. Winners in each category were announced at this event. The three winners then went on to be screened at the Backyard National Children's Film Festival in November 2001, where they were supposed to compete for the LEGO Studios Global Movie Making Award against "finalists from the rest of the world". However, the only additional films at the Backyard screening were two German films that won a LEGO Studios-sponsored category in a German youth film festival.

At least one other version of the LEGO Studios Movie Making Contest is known to have taken place in some form in the UK, though information on this is very scarce.

Judging and prizes
Preliminary judging was handled by D.L. Blair, Inc. which selected 10 films in each age category. These films were then judged by LEGO Systems, Inc to determine the three semi-finalists in each category. The criteria used in these stages of the judging were original and imaginative story and presentation, weighted at 40%, technical execution (production, editing and audio), weighted at 30% and creative uses of LEGO elements, weighted at 30%.

Prizes were awarded to the winners of each age category. These included a trip to the Backyard National Children's Film Festival, where the winners would be screened, a tour of a major Hollywood film studio, an award constructed from LEGO bricks and the entire LEGO Studios 2001 product assortment. Additional prizes were to be awarded to the winners of the LEGO Studios Global Movie Making Award. These were a trip for four to a Hollywood movie premiere in 2002 and varying sums of money for each age category, $1000 for 8-10, $2000 for 11-13 and $5000 for 14-18.

Results
Listed here are the winners of the main North American contest, along with the other semi-finalists in each age bracket.

The German youth film festival fast forward KINDER FILMen FESTIVAL 2001 included a category called LEGO Studios-Sonderpreises für den besten LEGO-Trickfilm ("LEGO Studios Special Prize for the Best LEGO Animated Film"). Two winners were listed; Die Zeit by Jens Müller and Der Weg ins LEGOLAND  by Kirsten Brandmayer. These films were added to the screening at the Backyard National Children's Film Festival in November 2001, both in the 11-13 age bracket. Der Weg ins LEGOLAND was declared as the new winner of this category. The other two age categories were won by default, as the only films screened were the North American winners.

There are also two known winners of the UK version of the contest: TBC News directed by Sam Roelich in the 14-18 age category, and Heavenly Balls by Ben Roper and Richard Seaman in the 11-13 age category. These winners are the only known information of the UK contest. As they were the only two winners listed on the LEGO Studios website, it can be assumed that there was no 8-10 age bracket.