Welcome to Night Owl Films.
Night Owl
films is a one-man independent film studio run by me, Nikolas
Jaeger.
I am one of a small but growing community of people who have one of the weirdest, nerdiest hobbies imaginable: making brickfilms.
What is a brickfilm?
A brickfilm is an animated film featuring LEGO bricks, made using the technique of stop motion animation.This laborious process involves moving things in tiny increments and then taking each frame of a movie one at a time. When played back at a high speed (say, 24 frames per second), all those small changes create the impression of realistic movement.
Stop motion has been used to great effect in films like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Chicken Run, as well as in short films like the Wallace and Gromit series.
As far as brickfilms go, the best place on the Internet is
definitely Brickfilms.com.
I'll be mentioning this site quite often, as it is essential to most
brickfilmers.
News!
03-31-2008
Several important bits of news!Brickfilms.com, once a haven for brickfilmers, has fallen into chaos under a new ownership that doesn't really have any clue. Incompetent people now hold positions of authority; the forums are a mess. Luckily, the old administrator, Jonathan Schlaepfer, is busy building a new site which should be up very soon.
The results of the BAFA (Brick Achievement in Film Arts) are out; my films did quite well. Here's s table showing how I did.
| FILM | NOMINEE | WINNER |
| Hastings | Best Film, Director, Music, Sound Design, Lead Voice Actor (Henrik Person) | Best Cinematography |
| Night of the Tater | Best Music | |
| The Crucible - Trailer | Best Ensemble Cast | |
| The Gift From The Future | Best Lead Voice Actor (David Wardell) |
I'm currently working on two films. One is in the early planning stages, the other is already being animated. See the Projects page for more.
01-02-2008
First of all, Happy New Year!I've released three new films this past month. The first is a trailer for a hypothetical film version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible that I made for English class, the second is my long-awaited project Hastings, and the third is my entry in the 4th Twenty-Four Hour Animation Contest, entitled The Gift From The Future. They can all be found on my Films page; check them out!
11-22-2007
Wow, I haven't updated this in a while.I have several bits of news:
First of all, my film Night of the Tater placed 6th out of 10 entries in the Brickfilms.com IDEA contest!
Second of all, I animated a short entry in the Twenty-Four Hour Animation Competition 3 (THAC3) called Spontaneous Insanity.
Lastly, for my birthday on the 19th of November (I turned 17), I got a Nikon D40x DSLR. This should give me fantastic image quality. I'll also be able to start making films in glorious high definition, probably 1280x720 or something like that.
07-20-2007: A new film!
I've added two new films. One is a short clip made for a community project, the other is my longest film to date and my first film in black-and-white. Check them out!05-12-2007: New Site!
The new site is online! I added some new sections and updated the film page. Not to mention the new look.I like it a lot and hope everyone else does as well.