Brickfilms.com

Brickfilms.com is a website focused on the art of brickfilming. It was founded in 2000 by Jason Rowoldt and is the first example of a website dedicated to LEGO animation community.

Founding
On December 15th, 2000, Jason Rowoldt posted an announcement to the LEGO enthusiast newsgroup Lugnet.com outlining his plan for a website dedicated to films created using LEGO. He had created the empty domain Brickfilms.TopCities.com, coining the term 'brickfilm' in relation to LEGO filmmaking. Rowoldt's goal was to compile all brickfilms available on the internet into one place; The Brickfilms Movie Directory.

At launch, Rowoldt's directory would include films by Thomas Foote, Marc Atkin, Christopher Brawn, Robert Thomas and Stephen Roberts, in addition to those by Rowoldt himself. He also planned to search across the internet for any other films he had not yet found and to allow submissions of brickfilms from the general public. The site would also feature a forum dedicated to all aspects of brickfilming, which Rowoldt was inspired to include due to Lugnet lacking a forum for the topic.

Jason Rowoldt-era (2000 - 2003)
After content was created for the domain, Brickfilms.TopCities.com was launched by Jason Rowoldt on the 16th of December, 2000. The earliest forum was hosted externally on Server.com. By the beginning of 2001, there were 16 films listed in the directory, and Rowoldt would soon begin publishing interviews with filmers and guides to various aspects of brickfilming. In May, a request was put out for a volunteer to assist with reviewing film submissions and to write articles for the site, and in July, Jared Gilbert was added to the Brickfilms staff.

On July 30th, in celebration of the hundreth film in the directory, Brickfilms announced its first contest, the Classical Movie Contest. On August 14th, the Server.com forum was retired and a new forum was launched on ezboard.com. In December, Brickfilms announced its second contest, the Historical Fiction Contest, to mark the one-year anniversary of the site. By 2002, the website had moved from Brickfilms.TopCities.com to just Brickfilms.com, and on January 4th, Jason requested a technical assistant to help with a site redesign and development of new site features. On January 17th, Jay Silver joined the staff as a graphics artist after creating designs for Brickfilms.com merchandise,