Hundbrax FAQ

We met at the cathedral choir of Paderborn. All started in 2013, when Sebastian - inspired by other stop-motion-videos - tried to make his own video: He published his 3 minute long short film in March 2013 on his own YouTube-channel named "Hundbrax", in which two bank robbers were caught by the LEGO City Police.

Our movies are produced with a framerate between 12 and 24 photos per second. We use the so-called "Ease In - Ease Out"-technique to make it look as real as possible. For constant movements like the animations of ships, cars or simple tracking shots we sometimes add additional interpolated photos using our cutting software.

This depends on the duration of the movie. For the Titanic-movie we needed more than 20 shootings days and took a total of 10,000 photos.

In total it should be about 70,000 bricks.

All ship-models are built on the same scale of 1:250. Our other models are built on different scales.

No. We are building our models without using a manual just by looking at photos of the originals as reference.

We are using small, white decoration-stones, which we move frame by frame to create the foam.

In the inside of the ships we built in micro-LEDs. We can control and dim them by using a remote control.

Our biggest ship, the Queen Mary 2, consists of approximately 15,000 bricks.

In our studio we are producing on a rotating, 2x2m large wood panel, which has LED-strips on the edges. Our models are set onto it, which we then light with our equipment.

Sometimes we produce our music by ourselves, like in our largest projects "Titanic" and "James Bond", but sometimes we also buy licenses of great fitting soundtracks.

Because we do neither have the appropriate niveau nor own the technical equipment of a professional speaker, we decided against speaking the figures ourselves from the beginning. Instead we engage professional speaker for our movies, which we find on websites like www.fiverr.com.

For our current short films we are using two DSLRs of the model Canon EOS 700D. They can take photos with 18 megapixels and a resolution of 5,184 x 3,456. Our Canon-lens has a focal length rate of 18 - 135 mm. We are taking photos using manual focus as well as manual light settings to achieve constant adjustments in all photos. To create different moods we use various white balances. For close ups we use a macro lens from Tamron.

Manfrotto 190D
We are using our solid tripod of Manfrotto in combination with a 2-way-video-head. With this setup we are able to make stop-motions as well as tracking shots.

Cullmann ALPHA 2500
This is an elevating tripod with three legs and quick coupling. With a 3-way-head we are able to precisely adjust the perspective. The tripods can be stowed away in the included bag and can be transported easily.

To illuminate our sets evenly, we use three softboxes from the TecTake studio luminairs set. For us it was very important that they can be stowed and transported easily. Since we use energy-saving lamps with a power of approximately 55 watts to the studio luminairs, we switch on the softboxes around five minutes before the start of the shooting so that the luminous intensity of the energy saving lamps can stabilize.

In order to be able to use the so-called chroma-key-method, we are using a 3 x 3 meter green screen. If we need solid backgrounds or gradients in scenes, we normally use an RGB LED strip that we have attached to a table edge. With the remote control, we can choose different colors and create fitting backgrounds for any time of the day.

To take the photos, we use the program Canon EOS Utility. We connect the cameras to laptops with mini USB cables, where we can shoot the photos. In addition, the software shows you a live image and allows you to change the camera settings. The images are automatically saved on the PC.

We use Adobe Lightroom Classic CC to optimize our photos in raw-format. In addition to lens corrections, we can adjust the colours, customize the saturation and improve the contrast for each scene.

In Adobe After Effects CC we first create video sequences from the individual image files and set their speed. We also set keying effects and motion effects on the scenes, which we then export in 4k resolution (3,840 x 2,160) with the DNxHR codec.

In Adobe Premiere Pro CC we merge the individual scenes together. In this program we can also add music, sounds and text. In our latest films we use the 3-way color correction to adjust saturation and color temperature.

With the image editing program Adobe Photoshop CC we design the thumbnails for our videos. With this software we additionally create our channel design and some other graphics for our website, our social media pages or posters for trade fairs.

In the program Lego Digital Designer, we use hundreds of digital bricks to realize our Lego creations. As the required bricks are calculated automatically, we plan and design our models with this software.

To realize animations that are not possible with Lego, we use the 3d animation software Blender.