Ninjago is one of the most successful LEGO franchises. The characters have appeared across TV shows, movies, countless toys, books, magazines, video games, and more. Fans have seen pretty much everything Ninjago and still wanted more. So, we created the Ninjago Dragon Cam, a 24/7 stop-motion “live” cam, giving viewers a chance to new way to engage with the world of Ninjago and see what their favorite ninjas and dragons get up to when they’re not appearing everywhere else. And it was all made from LEGO bricks. The cam showed a candid side of these beloved characters that fans couldn’t find anywhere else.

We worked with an animation studio and thousands of LEGO bricks to create the footage broadcast through the live cam feed. We crafted scenes that would appeal broadly to kids and parents alike, as well as scenes that would entertain new fans who weren’t as familiar with Ninjago.

The Dragon Cam ran for months on YouTube Live. We also ran the YouTube Live feed on the LEGO Ninjago homepage where viewers could purchase the sets they saw featured in the Dragon Cam scenes. Digital media directed new viewers to the cam as well. And to promote the experience, we created a trailer for the live cam in the style of an epic action movie which ran as pre-roll on YouTube.

Fans loved it. With over four million people watching a total of 600,000 hours of Dragon Cam footage. The average view time topped 9 minutes. And fans even began ripping footage from the live cam and uploading it to their own Ninjago fan accounts on YouTube, archiving the action themselves.