LEGO makes a high-octane movie trailer out of kids' wild stories
The LEGO Agency and Hobby Film bring their ideas to life in fake promo for bank heist film
Editor's Pick
“The LEGO Movie” and its sequels have done a brilliant job of illustrating how kids’ minds are incubators of marvelous worlds. A charming new ad created in-house out of The LEGO Agency and produced by Hobby Film revisits that concept on a smaller scale in the form of a high-octane movie trailer.
Working with director Torben Kjelstrup, the team at The LEGO Agency set up a group of crafty kids with LEGO City Police sets and asked them to plot out a movie as they played with the bricks. The little ones delivered a flurry of ideas, which LEGO then turned into a wild, action-packed trailer for a bank heist film-turned-musical involving a code-cracker, a titanium fish, a three billion-trillion dollar diamond, lollipop snafus, a monster truck and more.
Hobby Film CEO Tom Rickard told Ad Age that making the film involved serious teamwork among all parties. "At the first meeting we had no idea of the film we'd ultimately be making so it was extremely collaborative in terms of trying to lay down the framework for the entire campaign and the story around it," he says. "Everybody at the table had this same feeling that 'We are not going to cheat it. We're not allowed to script anything ... we have to follow the thread.'"
“There was definitely a bit of angst at first when we handed over the creative control to a group of eight-year-old kids,” added director Kjelstrup in a statement. “We directors are not exactly renowned for happily giving up the reins. We then did a whole writing session and saw them come up with all of these incredible problem solving skills as they played.”
Casting was a crucial part of the process, Rickard adds. "Going in we were really after kids that could come up with the maddest stories, but as we listened to them it became strangely clear that the kids that had just this little weird abstraction on something very everyday were actually incredibly funny was well. And the thoughtful quiet ones were sneaky assassins of narrative. Some of them had an absolutely insane ability to weave a story together so that it came full circle."
“We believe that every child is born with incredible problem-solving capabilities, so we wanted to bring to life how kids would use these creative skills to catch crooks with our new LEGO City police sets,” said The LEGO Agency Creative Director Debs Gerrard.
The production was shot on a backlot in Bulgaria. The film will be shown in cinemas, online and on TV.
Credits
- Date
- Feb 19, 2020
- Client:
- Lego
- Agency:
- Lego Agency
- Production:
- Hobby Film
- Director:
- Torben Kjelstrup
- Director of Photography:
- Kasper Wind
- Producer:
- Phie Hansen
- Producer:
- Ola Rutz
- Executive Producer:
- Phie Hansen
- Managing Director:
- Tom Rickard
- Director of Photography:
- Balthazar Hertel
- VFX Company:
- Swiss
- VFX Supervisor:
- Pablo Fernandez
- Post Production Company:
- Art Official Agency
- Editing House:
- Art Official Agency
- Editing House:
- Work Editorial
- Editor:
- Rasmus Nyholm Schmidt
- Editor:
- Mark Edinoff
- Editor:
- Freddie Schmidt
- Sound Engineer/Designer:
- Kevin Koch
- Music Production Company:
- Asger Baden & Peder
- Creative Director:
- Debra Gerrard
- Associate Creative Director:
- Budjette Tan
- Art Director:
- Julie Koch
- Sr. Graphic Designer:
- Janni Egense
- Sr. Global Communication Partner:
- Mélanie Cumbo
- Sr. Global Project Manager:
- Malene Østerlund
- Head of Film Production:
- Charlie Cooper Henniker
- Agency Producer:
- Tony Lauge Madsen
- Agency Producer:
- Michael Toft Adelholm
- Senior Communication Strategist:
- Daniel Ord Rasmussen
Need a credit fix? Contact the Creativity Editors
