These Cool Parents Recreate Famous Movie Scenes Using Cardboard Boxes And Their Baby
Every week for the last three months, parents Lilly and Leon Mackie have been recreating movie scenes with their now 10-month-old son Orson in an ongoing project that is cleverly dubbed Cardboard Box Office.
By Sadho Ram — 24 Dec 2013, 05:36 AM — Updated over 10 years ago
What do you do when you have a lot of cardboard boxes left over from a move and a baby that needs to be kept busy?
Passionate cinephiles Leon Mackie and his wife, Lilly Lang, solved the problem by launching the Cardboard Box office project
Cardboard Box Office is the place where they re-create famous movies scenes in the cutest way possible. Starring their new born baby Orson.
nydailynews.comThe couple, who live in Australia, explained that they decided to turn their home into an amateur film studio after moving. In October, Mackie, a book designer, transplanted his family from Melbourne to Sydney to take a job with a book publisher.
'With our social lives drastically altered we decided to find a way to make some of those housebound weekends a little more fun,' the couple wrote on their site.
dailymail.co.uk
Even Orson the baby is in shock that his parents could so cleverly re-create this scene from "Jaws" using cardboard boxes and sheets.
Image via cbsistatic.comFor the past month, Leon, Lilly and their 10-month-old son, Orson, have been busy building movie sets out of household items and re-enacting scenes from films like Apollo 13, The Dark Knight (in their version, The Dark Knighty-Night), Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom (The Cradle of Doom), and many others.
cnet.comThe family so far have accumulated more than a dozen hilarious photos showcasing their unbridled creativity and acting chops, with amusing, child-friendly titles to boot.
Castababy: In Leon and Lilly's version of Castaway, Wilson the ball is fashioned out of rolled up paper
Image via dailymail.co.ukThis re-created scene from "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" shows that even with just cardboard boxes, blankets and a few knit caps, you can have an adventure at sea
Ironically, their re-creation of an underwater scene from "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" almost looks more like a Wes Anderson film than the original scene.
cnet.comTheir latest pre-Christmas offering posted this week on their site and labelled 'Homemade Alone' is inspired by the 1990 holiday classic Home Alone
In the photo, little Orson is shown booby-trapping a cooking pot as a pair of hapless house burglars, portrayed by his parents, are coming through the door.
cnet.comAnother image shows the toddler as Tom Hanks’ Castaway on a raft in amid a stormy sea of teal-colored fabric, with only Wilson the ball (here made of rolled-up paper) to keep him company
Leon said the family will think of an idea during the week and then spend a few hours on Friday or Saturday designing the set. They do everything with the boxes and household items, he said.
nydailynews.comLilly said "We wanted to depict our messy and sleep-deprived new life of raising a baby."
Whoever isn’t in the photo will shoot it, and they’ll use a timer if all three are in it, which Lilly said can prove to be a challenge
“For Apollo 13, Leon had to set the five-second timer, run around the cardboard space capsule, grab my legs, and pull me into a headstand position, before quickly getting himself into position,” she said
Out of this world: For their re-enactment of Apollo 13, Mackie and Lang build a rocket out of cardboard
Image via dailymail.co.uk“We had to do this about six or seven times. … We’re avoiding any more space ones for the time being.”
stuff.co.nz
And while scenes from "Alien" and "Jaws" are more adorable than scary, it's interesting to see the baby's facial expressions in all the photos
We can only imagine what thoughts are racing through little Orson's brain as he looks around, from atop a cardboard ship surrounded in blue sheets representing the ocean, to see his father looking frightened by a homemade shark.
dailymail.co.uk
Their work has drawn a vast majority of positive reaction from people — many of whom compliment the parents on finding something fun to do with their newborn
"We're spending a lot of time with him and making good use of it," he said. "Instead of just sitting in front of the TV with the kid."
Orson really enjoys playing with the boxes and using his imagination, Leon said. The father hopes his kid will enjoy seeing the pictures when he's older.
"I hope he looks at them and sees the humor in it and enjoys it," Leon said. "He really is the important part. ... With him, it makes sense."
Papa La Vista, Baby: Mackie and Lang built a tractor-trailer out of cardboard and furniture for this remake of Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Image via buzzfed.com
Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom received the Cardboard Box Office treatment, with Mackie playing Indie himself
Image via dailymail.co.uk