Today we’d like to introduce you to Logan Sheafer.
Hi Logan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In early highschool, I joined a video production class knowing nothing about cameras or cinematography. From the start of this class I had this itch to learn as much as I could to create a short film that I would be able show people and be proud. That short film was Restart, and it ended up winning first place in the eMagine film festival my senior year. I believe this was my 3rd short film I’ve made and I couldn’t be more proud. Standing on the stage with my friends holding a trophy from a film I directed was an amazing feeling that gave me the confidence to continue pursuing film. After I graduated I was an assistant filming Quinceañeras on the weekends while doing community college. This gave me real world experience that taught me more about cinematography and how to capture a live moment. I then landed a freelance real estate videography gig, and continued to build my camera rig with the money I earned, I eventually had my cinema camera all rigged out, and I felt like I could film anything and everything with this setup. I was excited to see where my skills and experience would take me next.
Unfortunately, round 6 months into my real estate videography gig, I became a victim of gun violence. I was shot in the hip, and could barely walk. I didn’t know how long the recovery process would take or how if I could fully recover. Over a couple months I was slowly able to walk normally and go outside and do things. I did physical therapy and was diagnosed with PTSD, something that still affects me today. Even thought I was making progress recovering, the damage was done. I lost my freelance gig, I had to drop my college classes, and I had absolutely nothing to do while recovering. I couldn’t film, I mainly just played video games and watched movies. One day I watched a video from this 14 year old kid who recreated the entire Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse trailer but with 3D animated LEGO. I thought to myself, if a 14 year old can do it, so could I. At this time I already had a decently large following on TikTok from making these Virtual Reality skits using popular characters from movies. It was something I did throughout highschool but was burnt out from it by the time I graduated, I’d rather work with my camera than make VR skits. I had very minimal experience in Blender, before getting shot I had posted a 4 second LEGO animation that was pretty bad. I reinstalled Blender and began to work. In a couple weeks I had this LEGO animation parodying a popular game Helldivers. It did pretty decent, but compared to my peak with the VR skits, it was almost nothing. I knew I had something special though, so I kept on working. I went on a tangent learning VFX in Blender, but after a month I went back to LEGO animations. My cinematography was getting better and better as were my animation skills. I started to post LEGO recreations of scenes from the series Invincible. These ones performed tremendously better than my first animation and I knew my page was revived and running in the algorithm again. Most videos I have posted since then gather more than a million views each, with my most recent animation reaching 7.2 million views. People were complimenting my animation style, saying it looked just like the LEGO movie. Over the next year I had fully recovered from my injury, and continued making animations including non-LEGO animations. I made a parody of McDonald’s Jujutsu Kaisen sauce campaign, recreating emotional scenes from the show with 3D rendered sauce packets. They even commented, but eventually deleted it for reasons unknown to me. Overall I am proud of myself, turning a period of pain into a period of joy and success. Giving myself something creative to do during my recover is what saved me from falling deeper into depression.
I am now at University studying computer science, another one of my passions. I would prefer to work in film though, but it’s very tough to get into. Maybe some day I’ll have the opportunity to show my cinematography skills not only in the digital space, but the physical as well.
I am currently open to both videography work and animation work.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Getting shot was definitely a huge bump in the road for me, but it was ultimately what gave me the opportunity to learn animation at such a fast pace. Something I have always struggled with is burnout. When I was making VR skits I eventually burnt out and took a large break, and I was getting burnt out from doing real estate videography. My animations take hours upon hours to craft, and can burn me out if I am not careful. Because it is something that I am very passionate about, I can recover from that burnout when I get another video idea. Currently I am in a period of creative drought, I have some video ideas but they aren’t that great, I wouldn’t consider them good enough to post.
The work from University also is something that gets in the way of me creating animations, it is very hard for me to balance both. Often I get sucked into the workflow of animating and sacrifice my focus in school to get a video out faster.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I create 3D LEGO animations in Blender and post them on my TikTok @BahaBlast. I have over 790,000 followers and post a few times a year. I am known for recreating emotional scenes from popular shows in a “The LEGO Movie” style animation with cinematic visuals. What sets me apart is the technical skill require to make these animations. I have to work with textures, materials, rigs, virtual lighting and rendering. I include realistic scratches and fingerprints on the figures and pieces to give it a realistic look. My last animation is a minute long and took almost a month of work to produce. I am most proud of building this channel from the ground up, starting with VR skits to now cinematic animations. All of the comments supporting me is what keeps me motivated, there is no other feeling better than when people enjoy my art.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I am not obsessed with LEGO. Growing up I had some sets and I have a couple now, but a lot of people that see my brand assume I am obsessed with LEGO and must own a million sets. I use LEGO as my medium because it is easy to create different characters and it is well known. When people see the first frame of my videos they are able to tell exactly what it is, a recreation from their favorite show but in LEGO.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tiktok.com/@bahablast
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lsheafer.films/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BahaBlast
