Lego video explains economic building blocks

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This article was published 28/01/2022 (1444 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From the man who shrunk the prime minister to four centimetres tall comes a new film centred around local economy. No, it’s not Rick Moranis, reprising the role of neglectful genius; it’s Tyler Walsh, director of marketing at Economic Development Winnipeg.

Walsh creates stop-motion videos using Lego. When Justin Trudeau addressed a speech to children, in which he tried to explain how the country was changing due to COVID-19, Walsh took that audio and animated it in Lego, to help keep children’s interest. The video went viral.

Now, Walsh has put those skills to work in a new short film that attempts to explain how economic development can improve a city.

“We were looking at the way that you can get messaging across to a wide audience and came up with this idea to apply that to the work we do,” Walsh said. “So, taking a complicated topic, breaking it down to its simplest form and then putting it out into the world in a really interesting way.”

In order to really get the point across, Walsh and his colleagues teamed up with educators around the city to create a “teacher’s toolkit” that includes lesson plans and assignments for students from grades four through 12. It also has an information packet to help people learn to create a stop-motion video themselves.

Walsh said he thinks students should learn about economic development at an early age.

“One hundred per cent, they should,” he said. “When we say the economy, we’re talking about businesses, we’re taking about jobs, but we’re also talking about quality of life. Kids want to go to the park and enjoy themselves and everything, and those things are all part of how the economy works.”

The video tells the story of a successful ice cream maker called “Peg City Ice Cream Co.” It runs through the ripple effect of local business, in which the ice cream company buys milk from local farmers and pays its employees, who then spend their money in the city.

The company also attracts a large ice cream cone factory, after the mayor, voiced by actual Winnipeg mayor Brian Bowman, declares the city the “ice cream capital of the universe.” (To be fair, there’s a shortage of dairy cows on Mars.)

While the city was purposefully left unnamed, so that the video could be used outside the city and province, Walsh said it contains plenty of nods to the city. He said the concept itself reminds him of Activate Games on Portage Avenue, who he said has created innovative products in the technology and gaming sector and has rolled them out across North America.

“They’re the quintessential Winnipeg success story … They’re growing the economy. They’re shining a light on Winnipeg because they’re now based here, but rolling that out,” Walsh said.

The Lego video came out shortly before Jan. 28, which enthusiasts recognize as “international Lego day.” The video and teachers’ resources are online at www.whatiseconomicdevelopment.com