by Daniel Junge, Davis Coombe, & Kief Davidson
While we were on vacation, my 10 year old son (known around here as Freebird) and I watched A LEGO Brickumentary which is… a documentary about LEGO. He’s entirely on board with anything that’s all about LEGO. I think he might be a LEGO, or at least 33% of him might be. He wasn’t too excited about the idea of watching a movie that wasn’t a story, but the documentary revealed so much about the behind-the-scenes of the founding of LEGO, the way the company works now, and what the different jobs are within and surrounding it, and did so through a mostly engaging narrative.
Freebird’s takeaways:
- He really, really wants to work for LEGO someday.
- He was bothered by the fact that most of the documentary featured interviews with men, and white men at that. A direct quote: “What is with all the dudes? He, he, he, he, and more he.”
My takeaways:
- My kvelling that he noticed the gender disparity and the lack of people of color: pretty intense. He was right. It’s a lot of white dudes, with few exceptions.
- There are some powerful and important messages about control and community building around a brand that apply to many, many creative industries, including publishing.
The documentary is narrated by a LEGO minifigure voiced by Jason Bateman, and the film itself reveals quickly that neither the documentary nor LEGO itself take themselves too seriously. If you have a LEGO fan in your house, they’ll like this. It’s not too deep and while it drags a bit in the middle, it also moves through various stories quickly with a mix of LEGO animation and live footage.
Highlights include behind-the-scenes information about The LEGO Movie, which at the time of filming hadn’t come out yet, and interviews with people who work at LEGO building stuff all day, every day. The filmmakers interviewed the folks building the set for the giant LEGO city in the movie, and viewers are introduced to some of the very lucky, very smart folks who work for LEGO in various countries around the world, basically building and designing with LEGO and getting paid for it – aka Master Builders. (This was the part at which Freebird’s eyes got all round and he said, THAT IS AN ACTUL JOB?!?!?! I WANT TO DO THAT SOMEDAY!”)
The Brickumentary spends a good amount of time examining and exploring the communities of LEGO builders and fanatics that surround the company and have begun to influence it. There are people who design LEGO projects, or who build LEGO weapons. LEGO does not issue guns or firearms except in historical settings, so an independent company designs and sells thousands of different contemporary firearms for LEGO enthusiasts (something I had really mixed feelings about).
The interviews with the LEGO fans who became employees were particularly fun, as were the stories of how different LEGO product lines, such as the LEGO Architecture sets, came to be. There are also profiles of mathematics professors calculating exactly how many combinations can be made with a specific set of bricks (it’s a big honking huge number) and of therapists using LEGOs and building projects to help children on the autism spectrum work together socially.
The film does drag a bit in the middle as it focused on those who make stop-motion LEGO movies, including one Kickstarter project which seems to have stalled out short of completion.
But by far the best part was when one of the representatives of LEGO corporate in Denmark was discussing the community of enthusiasts that are expanding on the possibilities of the product line, and said, “We don’t have control of any of it.”
Instead of tightening control over what people do with LEGO, the corporate perspective shared in the film was one of freedom and encouragement. They adapt and develop projects based on user proposals, and they create new lines and explore new audiences because they recognized the fact that a giant convention hall full of LEGO enthusiasts is only a good thing. It was giving me all sorts of happy feels that a company whose main and only product line is building blocks for creative construction seems to, based on the narrative of this film anyway, embrace the creativity of the people who use their product. I spent a good hour afterward pondering the parallels of LEGO and LEGO enthusiasts, and authors and publishers and fanfiction writers. The protection of their product and brand were a distant second to LEGO’s encouragement of the creativity of their users.
The children featured in the documentary were global, too – and it’s lovely to think that children on opposite sides of the earth with very little language in common can share hours of building and playing with the same set of plastic bricks. As I said, if you have a LEGO fan in your home, this documentary might make them very, very happy. Aside from the dragging part in the middle, and the over-focus on white dudes in the LEGO community (Freebird: “Seriously. He, he, he. What’s with that?”) watching A LEGO Brickumentary together was one of the best evenings of our vacation. And yes, Freebird brought a box of LEGOs with him.
A LEGO Brickumentary is currently available on Amazon Prime.
Agreed about “he, he, he,” but you didn’t mention that one of the most amazing–and award winning–projects was the Rivendel recreation (http://www.wired.com/2013/12/lego-rivendell/) by Alice Finch, who also built a 400,000-brick Hogwarts. I want to be like her if I ever grow up, just for sheer creativity and skill. We definitely need to encourage more girls and women to pick up these bricks and run with them.
So many companies (hello, Apple) erect titanium barriers instead of reaping the benefits of collaboration as LEGO has with their customers and fans. That synergy practically guarantees unlimited bright and world-changing possibilities.
YES – the collaboration between LEGO corporate and their fans and the myriad ways their creativity can intersect was my favorite part. I had this huge happy grin on my face listening to the ways the company encourages their fans and includes them in development.
I wish the documentary had spent more time with Finch’s Rivendell – you could do a documentary just about her, I think! At times in this film, I felt like she was being treated as an anomaly, and there weren’t enough other women when looking at the LEGO fandom. Her creations, seriously – I could have spent hours looking at them on film.
I have a 10yob who would probably enjoy it, too. So many legos in this house. His First Lego League team took home a Judges Award at the State Championship!
When my first son was three, my boss at the time brought in a giant paper box full of Duplos (the large-size LEGO blocks) and said “Here, my kids are too old for this stuff and they’re tired of it.” Another son and 20 years later, both of my kids have rooms full of LEGO. Both of them are in engineering. And my oldest is trying his damnedest to get hired as a Master Builder. (He was actually in a full-scale competition that took place over two days during which they tested applicants by giving them a theme, unlimited LEGO, and one hour to build their best idea. Six rounds to the winner.) Meanwhile, their Dad took to building the Architecture series as a way to improve his fine motor coordination after his stroke. Seriously, if you want your kid to grow up to be an engineer, architect, or scientist, or if you just want to improve their imagination and spatial coordination, give them all the LEGO.
I do wish they’d get over the idea that it’s primarily a boy’s toy, though. They do make girl-centric sets (the Friends, Elves and Princess series) but they don’t seem to get it that girls wouldn’t mind grabbing a Star Wars, Marvel or Lord of the Rings set just as well, and maybe more.