Hey there brick builders and film lovers! This is part 4 of our behind the scenes look at our stop-motion parade video made for the Steveston Salmon Festival 2021! Want to see it again, click on this link!
I spent a lot of time staring at the above picture in my browser. That’s the Google street view of the south side of Moncton Street, at the corner of Second Ave.
While most people are going to look at this as a ‘Lego’ build, we have to point out that some of the bricks and things we use aren’t Lego. Of course the signs are handmade, by Charlene Happy, and some of the bricks and characters are from competing brands. Much of our collection was purchased secondhand, and contained all sorts of things. The top of the buildings here have some grey pieces that could probably be called crown molding, just above the red. Those are not Lego, but it’s not clear what exactly they are, beyond compatible.
It was tough to have to cut the scene off, but we only had so many baseplates. In a perfect world, we would have continued with another block of Moncton Street. In the video, we featured a strange-looking minifig wearing a #13 Dallas jersey. The Dallas team is the Mavericks, and the minifig is the actual official minifig for Steve Nash, 2-time NBA MVP (sadly not with the Mavericks… or Raptors). Nash is sort of a local in BC, with some health clubs and business interests, and probably a residence somewhere. The NBA minifigs are really cool, with hands/arms designed to hold a ball, and legs with springs that could be bent back to actually shoot the little balls at a tiny hoop. I’m surprised this was never revived, honestly. They were heavily criticized for their likenesses to the players. Hmm.
That’s probably accurate, right?
Ummm, well… I’m not really sure what to say.
We hoped we did the businesses justice here. We put a map and some coloured elements in Floria’s window to represent the gift shop’s bright and inviting display. There are plenty of recognizable characters in front, like Batman (shhhh, don’t tell), several members of The Walking Dead cast, William Shakespeare, and General Veers from The Empire Strikes Back.
It wasn’t easy to get a great look into the Nikaido windows, but we tried to get some pops of colour, and a nice teapot to reflect their extensive stock.
Lots of fun characters, with Storm from the X-Men up front. You can see plenty of pink flowers everywhere. Considering the time of year the parade happens, they could either be cherry or plum blossoms, and both would be a nice fit. We got a huge scoop of them from the Lego Store’s part wall, and tried to put them everywhere we could!
Charlene’s Splash Toys sign is a work of art.
Lots of fun toys to buy, like Hedwig the Owl and Bobo the Teddy Bear.
Maybe the Hedwig is the real thing, and just roosting while Harry watches the parade. Adding the characters is a lot of fun. We tried to mix up the more familiar faces with townspeople. It can be a bit of a struggle getting some of the darker colours to pop, but it’s something we’re working on.
We really wish you couldn’t see the tape on the The Fab Pad’s sign. It occurred to us after the video was done that we had some printable sticker paper handy. We put some cool chairs in there as they do contemporary interiors. The vintage Steveston Drugs sign above was distressed a bit to show age.
Plenty more popular characters, like Winston Zeddemore, Harley Quinn, Speedy Gonzalez and Master Chief. The bigger, mascot-style characters, like the giraffe, watermelon and hot dog are really cool.
Who knew Liz from Lego Friends and Vegeta from Dragonball would bond over some lovely flowers and a delightful parade? It was fate.
Well we’ve set the stage, and the floats are on their way! We’ll see Sammy the Salmon, the real star of the show, coming up next. Thanks for reading!
