Lego has announced a new music video-making app and brick kit called Vidiyo. The collaborative effort between Lego and Universal Music Group is a unique mash up of Lego elements, minifigures, music and augmented reality (AR).
The whole concept of Vidiyo can be split into two parts. There is the app itself that lets kids, aged between 7 and 10, direct, produce and star in their own music video, using licensed music from Universal Music Group (UMG). This includes music from bands like 5 Seconds of Summer and Imagine Dragons.
The second part of Vidiyo are physical Lego sets that feature customisable minifigures and scannable 2 x 2 square Lego pieces special effects-triggering tiles called “BeatBits” that unlock various digital effects that can be added into videos.
Both the minifigure and BeatBit pieces can be placed on a special scanning stage. Using the toy and the app together, users can overlay colourful and vibrant AR animated figures on to any real-world setting and set them to dance.
Kids then can record minute-long videos of their minifigure dancing and even dance alongside a full-sized version of their favourite Lego character. Once captured, kids can then cut and edit their video into short five, 10, 15 or 20-second video clips that can be uploaded to the social app created by Lego.
The whole concept sounds similar to TikTok though Lego is taking its own approach to moderating content that is uploaded onto the Vidiyo platform. All content that is uploaded to the app needs to pass a moderation test first.
Any content that features personally-identifiable information, such as children starring in the video themselves, will not be uploaded. That being said, kids can still watch and enjoy videos of themselves locally with family or friends.
The Danish toymaker said new music and challenges will be added regularly to the app to keep the experience fresh. The company said it will also add challenges to help young creators learn and improve their video producing skills.
Lego still has not revealed much information about Vidiyo. We still don’t know how much the sets will cost, but the company promised it will reveal more details Vidiyo’s worldwide launch on 1 March.
[SOURCE]