Paul Drolet, owner of Salmon Arm Auto & Truck, sits with a piece of the set he used to create an ad for the company with stop motion animation.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Paul Drolet
February 12, 2021 - 7:30 AM
With a love of LEGO and some inspiration from his brother, a Shuswap auto repair shop owner decided to get creative with his advertising.
Paul Drolet, owner of Salmon Arm Auto & Truck, spent 15 hours creating the main scene for a LEGO stop-motion animation he put together with the help of his brother Ben Drolet.
This is the second time Paul has created an ad of this nature. The first was released in 2019, while the most recent one was released on the auto repair shop’s Facebook page last week, Jan. 31.
The video uses LEGO stop motion characters to give the inside scoop of what goes on inside an auto-repair shop.
“It’s just something I have an interest in, it’s a fun thing to do. I don’t think people would normally go to that kind of length unless it was enjoyable,” Paul said.
His first LEGO animation promoted his business both on Facebook and at Salmar Grand Theatre in Salmon Arm.
The idea for a second video came to him last spring, and he’s been picking away at it for months.
“Everything you see in the whole animation… everything is live, some of the backgrounds are cut out (with) construction paper,” he said.
Armed with notes and a tape measure, the filming of the main scene took place at his home at night to avoid different ambient light and he took the entire night to complete it.
Ben edited the shots together, and even the set pieces that took many additional hours to even put together, Paul said.
“It’s mostly brand awareness for me… I’ll probably run it for a couple months until people get sick of me, but they’ll remember me,” he said.
For now, considering the amount of time and effort it took to put together, he doesn’t plan on creating another stop animation video anytime soon.
His brother Ben was the inspiration behind the video creations, he said.
“My kids love LEGO and we all play with LEGO… so it’s just a good medium. It’s something that people can relate to,” Paul said.
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