Behind the scenes at the LEGO Masters set
Posted by MeganL,
Our day visiting LEGO Masters started with a tour of the set. Dave from The Brothers Brick and I headed to a non-descript studio located in a light-industrial area near Burbank, CA (apparently next to the building used for the exterior shots for the US television series The Office we were told). Arriving at the studio by car, we provided our names to the security guard and were allowed onto the lot. The production staff greeted us and ushered us inside. After passing through a reception area, we stepped onto the massive set.
Read on for a guided tour of the set…..
Passing through a darkened tech area filled with cameras, monitors and other equipment, we walked into the center of the set, which was divided into three sections. The first section featured an enormous floor-to-ceiling screen on the far wall, broadcasting the logo of the show. This section is used as a staging area for contestants and challenges, and was the first room the contestants entered before walking into the main set--hinting at what was to come.
Passing through the central entrance way (and stepping around quite a few cameras), we got our first view of the entire set divided into two additional sections, the Brick Pit and the main competition floor. Gigantic illuminated LEGO 2x4 bricks hung from the ceiling and the walls were covered in studs. The far wall featured a glowing LEGO Masters logo affixed to a brilliant white wall constructed with oversized LEGO bricks.
Looking up at the dark ceiling hiding lights and wires, we saw a teleprompter screen used by host Will Arnett, and there was little doubt what was about to happen.
Looking around at the central area of the set, we found ourselves in a LEGO paradise, with three walls covered with clear bins and hoppers of every color of LEGO you could imagine, all illuminated by a lit back wall. We learned this is the Brick Pit where the contestants would run to get the bricks they would need to complete the challenges.
We were introduced to Brent Benedetti, supervising producer for the show. Brent and his co-supervising producer, Christian Heaton, have the job that we all would love – creating the challenges for the LEGO Masters contestants. He said he was referred to as the Challenge Master.
Brent provided us with a walking interview as he showed off the Brick Pit, an area under a raised walkway we walked through earlier. He explained the organization of the elements that he created, with the main bulk of brick housed in 30 cabinets of drawers, and each cabinet holding five drawers each. Every drawer contained up to eight different elements. The more common elements like simple plates and brick were located on the left and got more specialized as you moved across the room to the right, going from jumpers to Technic to specialty parts like animals, minifigures and more. Brent mentioned that depending on the challenge, they would swap out specialty parts needed for a particular theme of an episode. One thing that wasn’t in the Brick Pit? Duplo.
Above the cabinets, even more hoppers of coloured LEGO bricks were available, though only the lower two rows were considered fair game for competition. The higher rows were set dressing to make the area look more impressive and because they were too high for the contestants to reach. Two circular stands punctuated each side of the room and were filled with basic bricks, serving as focal points and almost seeming like never-ending fountains of LEGO.
Brent explained that at the beginning of the show, each contestant team received a brick key to the sorting system that was available to reference off camera that served as a handy guide as to what was in each drawer. He said that the contestants took a few episodes to get acquainted with the system, but then were able to use it fairly naturally as filming progressed.
We asked Brent about his favourite drawer of elements, and he walked directly to the minifigure section. It’s the most popular part of the Brick Pit with the crew as well. During breaks in filming, the crew could often be found huddled this area, building their own sigfigs of themselves.
Standing in the middle of the Brick Pit, Brent informed us that it housed more than 3.3 million bricks, with some of that amount still being sorted back into the hoppers after previous challenges. (Personally, I expected 3.3 million bricks to take up a lot more space!)
A staircase off to the side of the Brick Pit led to a raised platform used by judges to survey the room during the competition. The staircase was styled to look like stacked LEGO and led to the second floor filled with more hoppers of colorful bricks. According to Brent, the upstairs area was not considered a viable option for the contestant to retrieve bricks and was included to provide a consistent look across the entire area. One other eye-catching area of the Brick Pit was a two-storey-tall minifig display case that contained more than 5,000 unique minifigs (again, used for set dressing and not by the contestants).
The height of the upstairs area gave a great vantage point of the entire set, which was currently set up with six tables--presumably there were more tables in the room earlier in the season.
Heading into the main competition area, Brent shared with us that all of the building for the LEGO Masters competition happened there in the room. While contestants were free to research ideas, building techniques, or look at concepts from their previous builds while they weren’t on set, they were not allowed to bring anything from home or take anything out of the competition space.
Brent showed us the large building tables which could change heights, including a center section that could be raised or lowered even more. Each table was on wheels that could lock into place, so the contestants could move their LEGO creations into place as needed.
While all building was intended to take place around these tables where the majority of cameras were set up, Brent said they encountered a problem where contestants would get so absorbed in their building that they would stand in the Brick Pit and test and build a few concepts. The crew had to continually canvass the area to usher contestants back to their workstations.
The challenges on the show we were created by Brent, Christian and their team in coordination with the judges and producers. Brent was an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) prior to working on the show, and he converted Christian into one during the show’s production run. Brent explained that having AFOLs on the production team helped them know what kinds of LEGO activities were popular at fan conventions and other AFOL gatherings. He said that activities like blind builds and quick builds were what inspired the show, and the LEGO Masters challenges drew inspiration from those, but taking them to a new extreme level. By having such deep AFOL experience on the team, there was no problem coming up with enough challenges for the first season--and that they had enough ideas throughout the show’s filming to populate several more seasons with fresh, interesting and exciting challenges.
Speaking of AFOLs, each of the challenges was tested ahead of time by Brent and a few other AFOLs to see how they would work. The testers were given the exact parameters and rules of the challenge as they would be given to the contestants, and then sent off under the same time constraint to see what they could do. Based on the testers’ performance and feedback, Brent and Christian learned whether they needed to add more time to a challenge or perhaps reduce the allotted time to make things more interesting--or even provide different instructions to clarify expectations and set up the contestants for success.
We were curious what happened to the LEGO creations after the contestants had finished and were judged, as we didn’t see much evidence of anything that had been already built. (As we’ve seen in some of the trailers, some of the builds meet a rather violent end by being dropped from the balcony, hit by a baseball bat, or even blown up with explosives!) The creations that didn’t meet a destructive end and weren’t saved for marketing purposes headed to the “Brick Separators.” Brent showed us a tent outside where a team of a dozen people would work 12-hour days, sometimes 5-6 days a week, tearing apart builds, sorting through the brick and then replenishing the Brick Pit.
The tent wasn’t nearly as glamourous as the set, with large LEGO sorting heads used for a quick first pass, then hard manual labour to sort the rest into plastic containers before being run back to the drawers and hoppers on the set. We noticed several dozen pieces scattered throughout the dusty parking lot that had escaped the Brick Separators and silently mourned their loss as they were eventually swept up and tossed out.
Back in the studio, we toured the far end of the competition area opposite of the Brick Pit. From this perspective we could see the whole building area, the Brick Pit, balcony and the far room with the large screen. We learned that the overhead hanging bricks changed colour to match the lighting scheme, currently a bright white.
Wrapping up our tour of the set, we ended at the main focal point —an imposing LEGO Masters logo at the front of the main room.
Getting a closer look, we could see it was built of actual LEGO elements. It was built by Nathan Sawaya (brick artist and consulting producer on the show) for filming (see our interview with Nathan here).
As we moved on to other interviews, the feeling of excitement was palpable in the studio. Everyone seemed to enjoy working on the set and were thrilled for the show to start airing in February. From our perspective, LEGO Masters is being built by a team of dedicated professionals who are passionate about LEGO and hoping that the show will be a hit.
To end the day, Brent shared a secret with us that all the LEGO brick in the room was going to be put in storage where it would stay, hopefully, until there is a season two. He promised if that happens, all 3.3 million LEGO bricks will be back – and more!
Thanks to the collaboration with The Brothers Brick, we were able to spend more time on the interviews at the LEGO Masters set, and consequently, ask more questions and provide more in depth coverage to our readers. I worked with Dave at The Brothers Brick, also known as DaveChef6 here.
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18 comments on this article
“I headed to a non-descript studio located in a light-industrial area near Burbank, CA (apparently next to the building used for the exterior shots for the US television series “
Thats in Van Nuys. That’s the warehouse they filmed The Office. Next door is the production building used for exterior shots. That’s dope
Since they're done filming the show I'd be happy to buy the whole studio, complete w/3 million + bricks... for a mint crisp dollar! I'd gladly step aside for any future filming, of course. If that sounds a bit on the cheap I can negotiate, and possibly go as high as 100.00... much higher than that and my wife would still say ok, w/the stipulation that it become my primary residence. Which, that would be do-able as well...
3.3 million pieces, nobody look as I take the all for me to complete my projects. How's the London Toy Fair recon going?
Now that's what I call a brick set! :P
I'm assuming they're only allowed to make legal connections when building (e.g no sticking cheese slopes on plates and then attaching it to a brick to make a brick with studs on top and bottom)?
3,300,000 parts. And yet, I'm having a headache sorting 2 Sterlite tubs and a big Sterlite chest of drawers full of LEGO, which is roughly what I own. That's, oh, about 10,000 parts +/- all the Bestlock, Cobi, and most MEGA that's getting binned. I really love how they have all the parts organized. I plan to do similar, so guess I need to prepare for a little carpentry work in the basement. Nothing that complicated, however.
This is a great article! Thanks for the inside info.
The scale of it all is mind-boggling; oh, to spend a day on that set...
I’d love to see the “brick key to the sorting system“ as it would be an interesting guide to arranging sorted bricks for easy access...
Is this a TV show or something?
@SeekerBear
Obviously I haven't seen the show yet but I suspect these types of "advanced" techniques will not be used very often. My bet is that the challenges will focus on building as big as you can as fast as you can. Nobody has time to figure out complicated connections when your in a hurry. Size will matter far more than complexity.
I've never heard of this show before these articles, is it actually aired on major networks or only available on some obscure, paid-for streaming service?
Cody6268 - Don't waste time sorting like shown here, it may look neat but requires way too much maintenance and a lot of suitable containers. Instead, start with 4 or 5 containers and sort by size - like one box of pieces smaller than 1x2s, one for medium pieces up to 1x6s, one for large pieces like 1x8s, larger plates and castle elements, and one box for the largest parts like baseplates, large wheels, PF parts, boat hulls etc. I prefer to compensate for rarity by putting rare parts together with smaller ones and very common pieces with the larger ones.
You may want to keep minifigs separate in a 3-room box, one room for complete figs, one for larger bits like legs, torsos, heads and larger hairpieces, and one room for the smaller accessories (and possibly sort the technic pieces in a similar way). If you still have too many parts (or too small containers) for this I prefer to sort into color groups, one box for black and white, one box for light/dark grey and one box for common earth colors like tan and brown. I have the less common colors (including primaries) sorted in ziplock bags in a separate box (with a smaller bag inside for the smallest parts).
The key point to remember is that you sort to find the parts you need reasonably fast, not to impress people on the interwebs. So you'll have to find a system that suits you needs and what parts and containers you have. I use several Raaco toolboxes (bloody expensive, I found mine at a deep discount) with the small parts in the upper tray (throw out the smallest boxes, they're just annoying) and the medium parts in the bottom, and some large plastic tubs for built/half-built stuff that doesn't fit on my shelves.
@SeekerBear:
To impose that restriction, they would have to know all of the possible illegal connections, and carefully train every contestant on which ones were not allowed. Legal connections are something they are required to abide by for official sets, because they don't want tons of families calling up to complain about broken parts. What you chose to do on your own is your business.
@Lydian_Coda:
If the show runs long enough, I'm sure the key will make it onto the internet at some point, whether by the hands of a contestant (especially if one with eidetic memory gets onto the show) or in an official capacity (maybe they could include it as an extra on any home video release).
@mroper295:
Figuring out fancy techniques may take time, but if you walk in knowing a bunch of them, many of them don't really take much time to implement. The more challenging aspect would probably figuring out a reason to use one. As you said, speed is critical, so you don't have time to get everything absolutely perfect when simply completing the model is challenge enough.
@axeleng:
The first show was in the UK, and the second was in Australia. Neither appears to have gotten more than cursory mention outside of their respective nations. This is the third iteration, but this one has Hollywood budgeting to back it up, and will be going up against heavily marketed shows in the US. Hence the big push to get the word out.
Am I the only one having my eyes hurt when i see those roof lego-bricks lighting things? Dimensions shouldn't be wrong like that on a show like this.
A two-storey tall display case with 5,000 unique minifigures. How cool would it be to have that at home? Ah, the stuff of dreams!
@bue_car said:
"Is this a TV show or something? "
It’s on satellite radio.
@PurpleDave said:
"The first show was in the UK, and the second was in Australia. Neither appears to have gotten more than cursory mention outside of their respective nations. This is the third iteration, but this one has Hollywood budgeting to back it up, and will be going up against heavily marketed shows in the US. Hence the big push to get the word out."
There was also one in Germany, but that also flew very much under the radar. Hardly anybody seems to have noticed it. And that even was on one of our largest private TV stations, which also hosts stuff like "Who wants to be a millionaire". But it wasn't on at primetime, so there.
I watched a couple of episodes, but even though the sets looked similar to the ones shown here, the whole thing was way more low-key, and the contestants were just normal families or friends who liked building with and collecting LEGO. Not a lot of spectacular talent tbh and it showed. Plus, the show was hosted by one of Germany's most boring TV show hosts and the judges were also very much unknown. Nothing of sorts the likes of Jamie.
@Legobub21 said:
" @bue_car said:
"Is this a TV show or something? "
It’s on satellite radio.
"
LMAO! Don't forget the Limited Edition Print Version - too bad it's in Braille only.
@AustinPowers:
Flew under the radar? Sounds more like it was tunneling deep underground. This is literally the first time I've heard of this iteration, which is surprising given the number of articles that have been posted on various sites pertaining to the US series.