Building The LEGO Batman Movie Premiere

To celebrate the release of The LEGO Batman Movie in a few days time, Daniel Konstanski created this minifigure-sized premiere. Here, he explains his inspiration and process.

The idea to decorate the Palace Cinema actually came to me several years ago back when The LEGO Movie was released. My children get the official LEGO Club Magazine, and it had an illustration where a host of figures were streaming into 10232 Palace Cinema, although it was slightly modified. Instead of the more vintage movie posters that come with the set, they had been replaced by advertisements featuring Emmet, Wyldstyle and the gang. At the time I thought that it would be a really cool thing to try, but never did anything about it.

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The first iteration was so crowded nothing could be distinguished from anything else.

Fast forward to today and the pending release of The LEGO Batman Movie, I realised this was my second chance to get to that poster switch. In those intervening few years, my photography skills have improved so my imagination started running – the idea to not just decorate the Palace Cinema, but do an entire build of the film’s premiere was born.

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The second iteration solved the overcrowding problem but still only allowed birds eye photos which made everything feel far away.

I did not realise quite how complicated this would become. It took three iterations of constructing the entire premiere layout, and photographing it, before the results were finally satisfactory. All told the project ultimately involved not just building, but creating graphics for the stickers, and purchasing additional lighting equipment to get the kind of shots I wanted. The first two rounds of images didn’t work because I couldn’t get close enough. Actual premieres are all about the closeups of the actors and actresses. My builds were keeping me at a bird’s eye view. It took a while but I finally got it right – it was totally worth it.

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The LEGO Batman Movie is in cinemas February 10. The LEGO Batman Movie range of LEGO sets are currently available to buy at shop.LEGO.com.

Check back regularly at Brick Fanatics for plenty more The LEGO Batman Movie content, including our The LEGO Batman Movie Premiere build features.

Author Profile

Daniel
When I was 3 years old my dad bought home 6659 TV Camera Crew as a gift — he had no idea what he had just unleashed. Three decades and no dark age later, I am still going strong. My love of LEGO led me to a career in Civil Engineering and I am now raising three budding LEGO lovers with my lovely wife who is, bless her, a huge supporter of my brick addiction. When not writing for Brick Fanatics or fulfilling my duties as the U.S. Editor of Blocks Magazine I enjoy collecting, MOCing, exhibiting, as well as running, climbing and home improvement.

Daniel

When I was 3 years old my dad bought home 6659 TV Camera Crew as a gift — he had no idea what he had just unleashed. Three decades and no dark age later, I am still going strong. My love of LEGO led me to a career in Civil Engineering and I am now raising three budding LEGO lovers with my lovely wife who is, bless her, a huge supporter of my brick addiction. When not writing for Brick Fanatics or fulfilling my duties as the U.S. Editor of Blocks Magazine I enjoy collecting, MOCing, exhibiting, as well as running, climbing and home improvement.

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