The dinosaurs are lot smaller than the originals — and so is one of the filmmakers.
Paul Hollingsworth and his 8-year-old daughter, Hailee, decided to create a Lego version of Jurassic Park. This isn't the first parody this father-daughter duo from Los Angeles has made, but it definitely took the most work. Hollingsworth expected the project to take a week or two over winter break; it ended up taking 3 1/2 months.
They spend a lot of time with Lego. The two visit Legoland every year, spend hours every month at the Lego store and take even more time sorting the pieces every week. It's not all glamorous — especially the sorting — but it's something they do as a family, Hollingsworth says.
In the past few years, the two have started making movies together.
"She would voice, or we would build the sets together," Hollingsworth says. "We just always loved Lego, and here's a little girl that wants to play with her dad."
Hailee now has her own YouTube show, Brick Grrl, in which she shows viewers how to build Lego Friends sets. "It's just a fun little way for her to really practice her storytelling skills," Hollingsworth says.
Hollingsworth has a background in film; he has worked on low-budget features and TV shows, including Extreme Escapes. He even works for Lego on the Lego Mixels show.
The first movie he ever made was with a friend in high school — Jurassic Park with action figures. It wasn't his best work, Hollingsworth says. They used a VHS camera and recorded every shot in order because they didn't know much about editing at the time.
"Jurassic Park just struck a chord with us, and we just wanted to keep making movies after that," Hollingsworth says.
The "Lego Jurassic Park" video tried his and his daughter's patience. It could be frustrating to shoot a scene for several hours and decide it just didn't look right. But Hailee has grown to be more patient over the years, her father says. It can be rewarding to see how a scene finally comes together after shooting frame after frame.
It wasn't just Hollingsworth and his daughter working on this funny video, though. Hollingsworth and several of his friends who also work on movies and TV shows formed Digital Wizards, a group he says is geared toward creating online entertainment.
For "Lego Jurassic Park," they combined the collections of several people in the group, some of whom have collections worth $80,000, Hollingsworth says. His collection is worth roughly $40,000.
"Lego Jurassic Park" is the biggest project Digital Wizards has worked on together, he says. Other projects included The Mocking Dead, Batman's Day Off and Two Towers in Two Minutes.
Because the Lego videos are parodies, Hollingsworth says he isn't worried about copyright infringement.
The video, posted to YouTube on March 10, has received more than 900,000 views.
He tweeted to several people, including Philip Lord, Chris Pratt and Jeff Goldblum asking what they thought. Lord, writer of The Lego Movie, tweeted back that he loved it.
Hollingsworth says he'd really love to see a reaction video of the actors and Steven Spielberg watching the parody. "Could you imagine if Steven Spielberg reacts to 'Lego Jurassic Park?' " he says. "Oh my God, I want that to happen so badly."
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