LEGO Masters: Interview with the third place team
Posted by MeganL,
LEGO Masters season 2 is in the books, and we're bringing you interviews of all three finalists. Today we're talking to the team who came in third place. All three final builds were outstanding, and I certainly don't envy Amy and Jamie for having to make the decision. Read on to learn who the third place team was, how they felt about their final build and some of the best memories of the experience. If you haven't seen the episode, this is your chance to keep on scrolling.
The final build was similar to last season: 24 hours to build whatever each team wanted. However, the build had to show something during the day, and then reveal something else entirely at night.
All three builds were terrific, and the team that took third place were twins Caleb and Jacob.
Caleb and Jacob built an enormous hourglass composing to two words, one by day and the other by night. By necessity one side was completely inverted.
What was it like competing against the other two teams of brothers in the finale?
Caleb: It’s crazy because each of these teams bring something very unique to the table. We have Mark and Steven, who are the expert detailers. They literally inspired some of my earliest castle builds. They can polish a build and make it look beautiful in no time at all. On the completely other end of the spectrum, we have Zack and Wayne, who can make these elaborate technical functions that I have no idea how to replicate. I don't even know where to start. Jacob and I fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. We have more technical skill than Mark and Steven, and we have more aesthetic ability than Zack and Wayne. But we are nowhere near either team in terms of their strengths. It was intimidating. Which field are you going to fight on? It was hard to make that choice and I don't know if we really went one way or the other. We were the middlemen. We were the underdogs. We stayed in the middle with our finale build. We blended the aesthetics with some movement.
Jacob: We took the technical approach during the finale build by flipping it upside down. What we really tried to embrace to make ourselves stand out was just trying to be risk takers in all of our builds. Early on with the Make and Shake, we put in that shake plate idea. Or with the hat, having the part that falls off and making it incredibly heavy on my head. That was all Caleb's fault there because he didn’t have to wear it. We just decided to take risks to make ourselves stand out; flipping the night scene upside down, making the castle look like it was falling already. Stuff like that made our technical and aesthetic advantage, I guess.
What were some of the details from your final build that did not make it onto the show?
Jacob: I had a lot of fun with the details, like in the night section, which is what I covered. I added tiny little stories all around. I had minifigs riding bats, minifigs just exploring the area up there. I also had a bat-man, so someone that looked like a bat, but he was a minifig. It was kind of for Will. Little things like that. Down on the bottom, the interior of the city had some rooms that Caleb filled with his rave lights that he was so excited about. We had little detailed stories all around the build.
Your most famous moment prior to the finale was your demolition car driving off the table. What exactly happened with the sunshine wagon in episode six?
Jacob: Well, driver, what do you have to say? [laughs]
Caleb: You know, I always knew that was going to be a great episode. It’s so funny the way it panned out because that was the first time where Jacob and I knew: “We can win this thing!” We definitely did not win that thing at all [laughs]. That was a tough night of having to deal with the guilt of what had transpired. Jacob was pretty upset about it too. But looking back on it and getting to see that episode play out was an absolute joy. My fiancé had no idea what was going to happen, and I was cackling as it was going off the edge. She was like, “Oh my gosh, you’re going home!” [Laughs] It brings a lot of fond memories. I love how much joy the sunshine wagon continues to bring to people. It’s the first thing people talk about when they see me. They’re like: “Oh, you’re the guy who drove that car off the edge!” Hey, that’s me [laughs].
The two of you seemed to have a lot of fun and positive energy throughout the season. What made you different from other teams who seemed more anxious as time went on?
Caleb: Perhaps one of the biggest contributors to that was our performance in episode six. After that episode, everyday was a gift. To some extent, we thought: “We can do anything at this point, let’s go crazy because we have nothing left to lose.” Having that feeling was so liberating. It freed us up to do some really unique builds. I think that’s why you see us really peak in the second half of the show. Jacob and I went in with the mindset that we were going to do the best we could and try to survive the first three episodes. That would have been cool. Every win, and every non-elimination really, was such a morale boost. Jacob once said, it’s just like playing together back when we were kids. There were so many good memories associated with what we were doing. It just felt right. I think that’s why we were able to carry through so much positivity to the very end.
Jacob: Well said.
Were there details from your other builds that did not show up on TV?
Jacob: In episode 11, there was one big thing that we were sad to see was missing. On the top right corner of the big cliff, we made a micro-scale sunshine wagon driving off the cliff. It was a nod to Caleb’s driving skills from episode six.
Caleb: On that build as well, there’s actually a lobster you can kind of pick out on the underside of the bridge. That build, we were really in our element. We were doing ridiculous things; it was so much fun. The sunshine wagon was a choice addition of my brother’s.
Your builds got better and better throughout the season. What do you attribute that to?
Caleb: I think a good chunk of it has to do with the fact that Jacob had actually been in his dark ages for at least the last seven years before going on the show. As we warmed up to each other, we started feeding off each other and our best instincts. We were able to really get into our strengths by the end. We were working almost completely silently on the same page all the time. It was just fun. I also think the inspiration aspect of being around these incredibly talented builders all the time helped. I was always drawing inspiration, especially from Dave and Richard, who had some crazy, unique ideas. They were a big inspiration for us to think outside the box. What can you really do with this challenge? How can you take this to the next level and make something no one is expecting?
Jacob: To add onto that, going into the competition we were stressed and nervous. As we got farther, instead of being more stressed the closer it got to the finale, we were having more and more fun. That is really what got our best builds. I think it started with our floating island build. That is probably where we had complete fun and we weren’t stressed about time. We were enjoying the whole process and it came out looking great.
You were the only team that made it to the finale without having to use the Golden Brick. Where does that rank as an accomplishment this season?
Caleb: I think to make it to the finale without having to lean on the crutch of the golden brick is perhaps the biggest flex of all. Not that Mark & Steven really used it. You know we would have loved to have had the Golden Brick and definitely would have used it on episode six. We didn't see that coming and probably would have lost it. We would have lost it in some dramatic fashion, that's kind of how we were. It's probably best that we didn't even get it, we wouldn't have put it to good use.
Jacob: We did go into the bottom two a few times. I worry we would have been losing it without using it. Now we can just say we made it there without using it. I think that's the story to stick with. It happened the way it was meant to be.
If you could have added two hours to any of the challenges, which would it be?
Caleb: I would have loved an extra two hours on the Make and Shake challenge. Never were we so frantically throwing things onto a build as we were on that challenge. We had no idea if the build was going to work, and we had to try to cover up the big multi-colored box that we made with something that loosely resembled a story. It didn’t work out in the end [laughs]. Two hours more would have been nice.
Jacob: That one was one that definitely came to mind. The other one that comes to mind would be episode ten, the ski resort. We could have incorporated those snakes a little better, completed the buildings and everything, build up our baseplate more. We tried to fill up the whole thing, and that really hurt us on the timescale.
Caleb: I will say that we’ve had months to think about how to use snakes and I still have no better ideas than dumping them in a volcano and calling it a day.
Were there any fun behind-the-scenes moments on the show?
Caleb: There’s a lot of great moments. I guess my favorite moment with the cast was after episode six, we took a trip to a local park, and we did some hiking together. It was so fun, just the group of us all masked up, hiking up this mountain. There were some really good vibes going on. I love that even that far into the competition we were closer than ever. Every time we were off set, we were geeking out about the latest kits coming out. No one ever lost their love of LEGO or had it driven out of them. Our experience on LEGO Masters only made us more avid fans.
Jacob: Every moment off set, we were enjoying each others’ company, talking about LEGO, life, everything; getting to know each other quite well. We were all very close by the end of it. We just got closer throughout the competition; we didn’t become enemies.
Looking back at all the episodes, which build were you most proud of?
Caleb: In episode 11, our collapsing castle. It came together like nothing else did on the show. The colours, the story, it’s all that we could have wanted. More so than in any of the other challenges, Jacob and I were totally in sync there. We were throwing crazy ideas like: “What if there was a giant fish on the end? What if there were two guys jousting and one of them is really, really bad at it?” It was great. I’m so happy with how that build turned out.
Jacob: Episode 11 was definitely our culmination of everything. All the story tips we got, everything just combined into one great, fun, weird build.
How proud are you of your win of the “Castle Bros” title in episode 11?
Jacob: It’s a great, great win to beat our rivals at something. We’ve been headbutting with them all season. We stole their title of Castle Bros very graciously. They handed it over very calmly. That was very kind of them. I guess now you’re going to see a lot of castles in our future. There were already castles that Caleb had done. But I think we have to post as many as Mark and Steven do. They might have to come down a little bit on the castles.
Caleb: It was so fun to embrace this ridiculous feud that we had. To have that all build up to the climax of episode 11 was a great time, for sure. Even though we stripped Mark and Steven of their title, they were quite gracious in handing it over not too reluctantly. Those two are phenomenal builders and we really struck up a rapport. Maybe that doesn’t come across on television when we’re always at each others’ throats. But they really are two great builders. We hope to carry on their legacy as best we can because they set the bar really high. I’m excited to build a lot more castles in the future.
You're proudest of the collapsing castle. What was your most personal build?
Caleb: I think back to our episode one build, which was very much about us and our lives together. We put a lot of our heart and soul into that one. Despite the build’s flaws, I think we’re still really happy with that one. A lot of the story was distorted in the edit. It was very much about our interests and what really made us who we are: Jacob’s career path, my engagement ring, and of course the LEGO brick at the top of our model, which was what brought us together. Oh, and the pug that popped out. We both like pugs [laughs}.
Jacob: Did the pug even make the edit?
Caleb: Probably not [laughs].
Jacob: There was the floating island one. Caleb had a lot of inspiration for that because of his job. He makes a lot of floating islands for work.
Caleb: That’s true.
Jacob: Other than that, episode one was literally us telling a story about our lives. It was pretty close and personal.
Early on, you found yourself in the bottom during the Make & Shake challenge. Given how early that was in the season, how did it feel?
Caleb: Yeah, that was rough because that was episode three and we were on the chopping block as the second team to go home. It was not a super awesome feeling. I think we were taking ourselves a little more seriously at that point in the competition. We hadn't quite let loose yet. I was convinced it was us. I had kind of made my peace with God and I was ready to go. We made it through, but it was super intense to be in the bottom that early on. It's hard, especially with the technical challenges that sometimes boiled down to almost luck. We felt like we just had no control over that situation. That made it all the harder because it wasn't a build we were super proud of. It was innovative but didn't look good. It would have been really rough to go home on that one.
Jacob: The Make and Shake challenge seemed to be challenging for the three brothers’ teams. Mark and Steven were also at the bottom of that episode, and Zack and Wayne also used the Golden Brick on that episode. None of us are good at towers, and then we all made really tall things for the finale. We learned, and the finale builds didn’t have to shake. That would have been a problem.
Where do you draw the artistic inspiration for your builds?
Caleb: This is kind of a funny answer. I actually work as a Minecraft level designer. That’s my day job. I am constantly surrounded by a lot of very creative, talented people. We build virtual environments. They have really been a great source of inspiration for me. I owe a lot of what we came up with on the show to them. They are always pushing me to be more creative, diversify my portfolio, and build anything and everything. Working along with this great group of people really set me up for success. Just having dabbled in so many different types of architecture and the like.
Jacob: Also, the cast. Their builds around us helped encourage, give us ideas, and inspiration of what looks good, what’s cool. Especially for me. As Caleb said, I was in my dark ages for seven years. I needed some inspiration here and there. Caleb was also a huge inspiration for me and showed me the ropes early on until I could go off on my own. Caleb was probably getting annoyed by me asking: “Does this look good? Does this look right?” There was just inspiration all around our builds.
If there was something you could take home from the show and add to your LEGO studio, what would that be?
Caleb: Not the clock!
Jacob: The 5 million bricks. Not the clock. Their sorting was pretty good too. The sorting containers and everything were so well organized. We could probably use that.
Caleb: That was definitely something. As soon as I got home, I was looking up new container ideas and stuff because it was really beautifully organized, and I love the bright colors. Of course, the set and the lighting were extravagant. It's a very playful, energizing space. I would love to bring that to my rather drab, white basement that I have right now.
Jacob: Caleb would also probably grab some of the nice film cameras because that is one of his interests too.
Caleb: I would love to have the big camera crane that they had on set, but don't have room for that one [laughs].
Who is the most intimidating judge, Amy or Jamie?
Caleb: When we were younger, we were the guys watching Jamie reveal Café Corner or whatever else. I was so excited to meet Jamie. He might be small and quiet, but he can be savage when he's judging a build. I was not ready for how savage some of his critiques were going to be. Don't get me wrong, he's a super sweet guy and it was awesome to meet him in person. I met a childhood hero, but he had a spicy side that I didn't expect.
Jacob: Yeah, he definitely did. He got straight to the point with the builds, which actually helped us. I appreciate his honesty. It wasn’t: “Oh, this could be a little better.” It was: “No, this is bad.” Maybe not that blatant. [laughs]
What was your relationship like with Will?
Caleb: At first, Will really intimidated us. I'll be totally honest with you, in episode 1, 2 and 3, I did not like the guy. Whenever he came over, I felt like: “Oh, I'm not ready for this, I can't do this.” By the end, I felt like Jacob, Will and I were in our element. I loved Will’s check-ins more than anything because we had some pretty great moments. Obviously, the sleeves thing was just priceless. We had a running joke that unfortunately didn't make the cut. Will would come over and do the check in, and he would turn to the camera and say: “Let's watch the Sunshine Wagon clip one more time!” He would do it every episode [laughs]. We got along with Will really well.
Jacob: As Caleb said, early on he was quite intimidating. He has a lot of energy. We weren't ready, we were still getting used to the clock, building, all that stuff. When he comes in there with full excitement, oh boy, that's a lot. Then we got used to it, and it was great.
Is there a challenge from season one that you wish you had in season two?
Caleb: There's so many great artistic challenges from season one. That's what I missed a little bit in our season. Though, I can't complain about how anything played out. There were some really fun, unique challenges this time around. But I would have been very curious to see what we could have done with the Cut in Half challenge. That was so bizarre and unique, and everyone had something so different. No two items were alike. It would have been really interesting to see what zany direction we could have taken on that one.
Jacob: One that I was thinking about was the finale build. In season one, there wasn't the restriction of the day and night looks. Also, I would say it kind of shaped our builds a lot. It required a lot more effort and thought with the lights in there and everything. I would have liked to see what we could have done with the build without having to focus on that and see where it would have taken us. A little change could make a lot of difference.
If there was a challenge that was perfectly suited to your strengths, what would that challenge be?
Caleb: Part of me thinks we got that challenge in Episode 11. That’s hard to answer. I've done a lot of vignette building, which isn't great for TV because they're intentionally tiny. But that would have played to our strengths really well. You know, incorporate some small movement into a really small, really fleshed out, detailed build like that. If they gave us, a 32 by 32 baseplate and said: “Make something with movement.” I think we could have really excelled with that, given some of our smaller detail work.
Jacob: Yeah, the smaller detail work is really where we excel. Like the castle and the floating islands too. We really put in those small details. Those episodes had a little bit of technical detail. But the smaller it is, the more suited we are. Zack and Wayne were more suited towards the gigantic builds. We need a little smaller so we're not encroaching on their territory there.
What is next for you on your LEGO journey?
Caleb: Lots of castles, I can promise you that one. I've got a lot of things planned in terms of conventions. I'm really excited to get back onto the convention scene and I'm going to be dragging Jacob to as many as I can, whether he likes it or not. I've recently started up a YouTube channel so I'm looking forward to sharing some of what I'm doing with that audience there. I've got a new LEGO space that I need to decorate, so that's another big project. Lots of things going on, but I'm definitely most excited about getting to conventions again and sharing our experiences on the show with the people who have been watching from day one.
Jacob: The conventions are the main thing on my plate right now too. It's going to be harder for me to actually stay connected to LEGO because I am moving nine hours away from where it is at. That's just going to cause problems there. I’ll still find opportunities to maintain my title of Castle Bros by building castles with Caleb. I don't want to lose the title for an activity or anything like that [laughs].
Caleb: We have to discuss the terms of that with Mark and Steven. I don’t want to forfeit it either accidentally!
Many thanks to our friends at True North Bricks, BZ Power and The Brothers Brick for their collaboration on this interview.
Photo credit all pictures: FOX
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10 comments on this article
They were a fun group and they really did get better and better as the show went on, with their castle bridge build being their crowning achievement.
This was one of the least stressful finales of any show I've watched in a while since out of the 3 final teams I didn't care who won because I really like all three of these teams.
Regarding the demolition derby, it’s good to see they have a sense of humor about how it ended. The more public displays you do, the more you’re likely to need one. In just over two decades, my LUG has seen a train wipe out a row of monorail stanchions, countless train derailments (including several directly onto the floor), a few models that didn’t travel very well (one even broke as the builder was turning into the parking lot of the venue), and a 5’ tall building that got knocked right off the end of a table. At Brickworld Chicago, events even play into this, with Trainheads sending creations into head-on collisions, and I believe it was Simon Liu who organized a Space-themed game of Battleship where any spacecraft that was eliminated from the game had to be smashed on the floor. I’ve seen Steve Hassenplug deliberately destroy a robot to score an easy win on a Mindstorms space elevator challenge, and video of Kevin Hinkle accidentally dropping the head of Mjolnir onto one of Simon’s spaceships. The final time a speed build was conducted for 10030, I believe the building team threw it off a balcony onto a hard floor.
As much as we like to see cool MOCs, we will celebrate a cool destruction video. This is something that non-FOLs don’t seem to get. We always have people ask if we glue our models together, and on rare occasion we even have parents ask how they can glue their kids’ models together so they won’t fall apart during play. As I regularly have to explain, if you drop a glued model, it’s probably garbage, where an unglued model can be rebuilt (as that 5’ tall skyscraper was). If you glue a model together, you can’t disassemble it and build something else when you grow tired of it. But the downside is that yes, sometimes MOCs suffer accidents. If they had been eliminated that episode, that absolutely would have turned the crash into a tragedy, but instead they got one of the biggest highlights of the combined two seasons.
The things you learn reading Brickset. Minecraft level designer as a day job. Had not realised that was actually a thing.
Great interview as always. I look forward to the remaining two.
These guys should have gotten 2nd place. The hourglass was executed significantly better than the pagoda!
The hourglass was a cool idea, but it needed to be much bigger. Their build was smaller than either of the others, and then they split it in half, meaning that they had two MUCH smaller builds compared to the giant builds of the other teams. It was a fine build, but it never stood a chance.
The forest build was very impressive from a distance and had a lot of nice details, but I'm not sure it should have won, especially since the flying pig was in the bottom two for being too blocky, and the walking tree was just as blocky as that. I guess I can agree it was better than the pagoda, but I would have liked to see it look more organic than robotic.
These two were nice competitors. IMO they should have been number 2. They had some movement with the bat and it was neat having two worlds in an hour glass, even one half being inverted! Yes, it was smaller, but the details were better.
Either way, I wish them well. They should be proud of how far they came.
@sm5574 said:
"The hourglass was a cool idea, but it needed to be much bigger. Their build was smaller than either of the others, and then they split it in half, meaning that they had two MUCH smaller builds compared to the giant builds of the other teams. It was a fine build, but it never stood a chance.
The forest build was very impressive from a distance and had a lot of nice details, but I'm not sure it should have won, especially since the flying pig was in the bottom two for being too blocky, and the walking tree was just as blocky as that. I guess I can agree it was better than the pagoda, but I would have liked to see it look more organic than robotic."
I suspect the lightning is what sealed the deal for that build; to me, it was the only build of those 3 that really had a different look when the room lights were turned down and the model lights came on. The other two builds didn’t seem a whole lot different with the lighting that was added.
FWIW, I would have given them 1st for the finale. Zack and Wayne didn't make the magic that day; their dragon body didn't rotate, and their end result was just not as attractive. And the Ent was not as creative or unique, IMO.
That said, I knew that Caleb and Jacob would be unlikely to win with the Hourglass. Why?
1) It wasn't a character like Mark and Steven's build. My impression is that Amy goes gaga over characters, so that instantly gave those two an advantage.
2) It didn't look like it would show well at Legoland. Since the winning build was going to be shown in Florida, it had to be a build that would show well. The Hourglass had a bit too much fragility and fine detail, and it looked a bit square at a distance, which translated to uninviting.
Those two were my favorite contestants, with Zack and Wayne being the most inspiring throughout the contest. Some of the movements they managed were just, well, "WHOA!"
@Th3_3m3rald_M1n3cart:
I’m with you on this one. Where they probably lost it was in building a model that was divided into day and night, where the challenge was more to build a single model that had distinct day and night looks. The pagoda drew your attention to the exterior during day, and the interior during night, so you were more attentive of different parts of the build, but there wasn’t anything there that wasn’t visible the whole time. The forest walker had some really cool lighting, but didn’t really look like a different model. So they were all good, but none of them really stood out to me as being a clear winner. Maybe if someone had figured out a color scheme where transparent and opaque parts would kind of blend together, but a hidden pattern would show up with interior lighting. There was a tiny hint of that with the forest walker’s legs, but not enough that I noticed without them talking about it first.
@BrickRandom:
I’m not sure I would have expected someone to only design levels for the original Minecraft (though that certainly needed to be done to include new types of terrain and NPCs), but now they’ve got Minecraft Dungeons which sounds more like a standard RPG video game crammed into the Minecraft format.
@VBaskin2010:
There’s no word yet. Last year it didn’t get official renewal notice until November, with a low viewership of 4.71 million viewers. This year the highest reported number is 2.92 million, so that’s a pretty steep drop. On average, they lost over 50% of their viewers. As a reality show, production is fairly cheap compared to scripted shows (especially those that have large casts, or lots of action scenes), but there’s a point where it stops making money. Before you get there, you reach a point where it’s not making as much money as they anticipate being able to bring in with a different show. S1 has a few ugly “drama” moments that just weren’t in evidence this season. It would be interesting to know if those moments actually hooked in viewers who otherwise might have watched some other show, or if they drove viewers away leading into S2.