LEGO Masters week 10 exit interview

The last time we checked, we'd said goodbye to the team for week 9. Down to the final five teams, let's take a look at the final builds, and talk to the team that had to say goodbye.

This week's challenge was to recreate a scene in the Marvel Universe. It was also the last time the golden brick could be used, so that protected Brendan and Greg from elimination.

Stephen and Stephen won for the first time since the first episode with their rendition of this pivotal scene.

Unfortunately, one team had to go home, and this week it was Emily and LIam.

You had the tensest moments as a team during this episode. Tell us about what was going on at the end of the build.

Liam: That was a very intense moment, not just on camera. There were a bunch of factors that led up to that point. My mom had rebuilt all of these sky sections that we were planning on putting up. Unfortunately, the missile took me so long to get all that detail that I didn't have as much time to help put those sky sections up at the end as we had hoped. So, when we got to putting them up, we were going so quickly that we ended up putting a couple in the wrong places. It was getting a little bit crunched there at the end. And then as we were trying to get the back to attach to the base, we were having issues because the studs weren't lining up correctly. It was a very weird problem. Because in theory that all should have lined up. But the background that we were using was so wide, there were a lot of studs along there for it to have incremental errors that add up when you're trying to attach that to the base. So something about it wasn't going together correctly. That was when it was most intense in a way because we were like, “This isn't working, this should be working, but it's not.”

Emily: That actually led to the panic, and we lost time in there. The edit doesn't show how much time we struggled with that getting it to attach right. That's when we made some missteps in putting up the panels for the wall and not getting everything quite right. It wasn't like a straight wall backdrop like any of the other builds, there was something that had to come through it, and it had to seam up beautifully. It was a struggle. And it was at the end of our longest day of building on set in those 10 episodes. It was from the outset not our favourite. We didn't love what we were trying to build. We weren't feeling that creative flow. We had our hands tied with what we were allowed to do on that build. So that was a struggle for us there too.

Was that the most stressful episode for you?

Liam: It was definitely by far the most stressed we've been on the show. The only thing that came close to it was the dogs episode when we were trying to build Tank. But we had the golden brick at that point, so we were not nearly as worried. This was the most stressed we were. I think that it was partly because of the buildup of stress over 10 episodes and the long hours and intense builds.

Emily: I counted up how many hours we built on LEGO Masters the other day. It was 106 hours. And when I think about that, the 90 some hours before Episode 10 were overall really amazing. We woke up every day ready to build LEGO. We were excited to be there. There was a little bit of a hiccup with this 10th episode and that super long day. We went into the first day and we weren't feeling it the same way. And I remember Liam saying, “I’m just not as excited to build,” and I knew why. Because of what we had to build. But I was like, “Hang in there, honey. We just have to get over this.” But I'd say in the 106 hours that last hour, maybe all 12 hours, was not representative of the fun that we had on the show. It was really a blast, and we were super motivated and excited to be building.

What are some of the details in your builds that might not have been seen on the show?

Emily: We could start with the spaceship. We had the whole of our family on the spaceship with us and little stories of the youngest brother and sister taking the controls and trying to steer the ship and the middle brother is playing video games and my husband was napping after having gotten this docked after a long trip across the galaxies to the International Space Station. That was just the fun stories. There were actually a ton of stories in our camp build that we were so proud of. We had 19 Different dragons on there, five larger ones and 14 smaller ones. We were just so excited with how the kids were interacting with the dragons throughout the build and very little of that showed up.

Liam: On our pirate ship we had some other like resort features that weren't really shown. There is a swimming pool on deck and a little beach area where they had a little X marks the spot where they were burying some treasure.

Emily: I had made a whole Persian carpet inside the captain's quarters to reflect some of our heritage. We were struggling to bring in some of our heritage on these builds, just because the parameters were very narrow. The castle - half the story was dropped in the edit and the whole reason behind the yellow explosion of bricks that came out of it. That was basically clean radiant light bursting through, breaking the curse and winning the day.

What has being on LEGO Masters together meant to you?

Liam: It was such a wonderful experience. This is my mom, and we've known each other as long as I've been alive, but it really brought us even closer together. Because building for hours and hours, five, six days a week is a lot of time to be not just spending together, but also having to get to know each other and how we work. My mom has been an incredible mom and teacher for me. But we haven't collaborated quite in the same way before. We had to really be even more attuned to each other and what our needs were and how we were doing on set. I'm just super grateful for that experience.

Emily: And me as well. I don't know if you can tell is making me tear up again just think about it. I want to say I am really deeply proud of everything that Liam brought to the show and I'm grateful we had 10 episodes and really had an amazing experience. So proud of his creativity and just the young man he's growing into.

What’s the biggest difference for you building on set versus building at home?

Liam: There are a lot of differences but probably the biggest is just the speed at which you have to build. You really don't have that much time to plan; you're just building. You have to come up with ideas super quickly, but then also be able to just follow through with an idea and just put in those hours without having a lot of time to stand back and evaluate. When I'm building at home, I will finesse a model for days, even if it's really small, and change things over and over until it feels just right. But on set you really have to just be like “This is good enough” and move on to the next part because you only have such a small amount of time for each component.

Emily: And there are times where what stands out to you is the most unnatural feeling of having those cameras on you. You kind of ignore them most of the time, and you forget about them and you can get into the flow of building, but it's a little surreal to have. We saw this with other contestants earlier on during the Treehouse episode. That as soon as someone's really struggling, they sweep in like vultures, and it just ratchets up the stress level. There's no easy break or escape. I think everyone knows that restroom breaks are on the clock. So you just even struggled to keep hydrated and take care of yourself, let alone have a moment to just step away and gather your thoughts. So that's definitely something that doesn't feel like building at home. But on the plus side, it is phenomenal to have all those bricks at your fingertips. I'm not gonna lie, the brick pit is amazing. Yes, it's lacking some of the pieces we might have wanted here and there or in the colours or sizes or whatever, but for the most part like having the gift having so many LEGO bricks at your disposal is just phenomenal. And then when there are moments that you can pause and look at each other's builds and share the little stories and point them out to one another amongst the teams, that aren't just for the judges. Those are such a joy too, so much fun.

Liam: That's so true, and it's not part of building exactly, but not having to clean up after yourself is so nice. A huge thanks to all the brick pit staff who did all that cleanup because it's a ton, and it really makes it a really fun experience in terms of that you don't have to think about that when you're building.

Emily: I can't believe that wasn't top of my list, actually. You do start to take it for granted because you're just moving so fast. Originally we're going to build a panda for the rodeo. That was one of our first thoughts, and we had all these black and white bricks and just with a flip of a switch, you can rumble back, drop off those bins, grab empty bins and switch colours and that is just such a luxury.

Any particular favourite memories that you have with Will or the Brickmasters you can share?

Emily: One that comes to my mind is on the first episode, the first time we met Will, he came up and we were just introducing ourselves. And I said, “Will, aren’t you so excited that Liam completes you?” and he paused for a second. I'm like, “You know, Will – Liam.” and he laughed. He said “That was gonna be my line!” It's just fun seeing what a great comedian he is. There were moments where we were more stressed out where he would come up and would always bring that that moment of relief to remind us that even if we're having a difficult moment, to stop and step back and look around and appreciate that we have this time together. That we're in this amazing place and access to all these LEGO, and we are doing something really fun. So I appreciate that very much.

Liam: One of my memories that didn't make it on was when they when Chris Pratt was on set, they actually shot a bit with me meeting him as well. Which unfortunately didn't make it on. But it was super surprising to meet him and I was blown away by that.

Emily: There were moments where the Brickmasters would come share some helpful advice. That was super amazing because as I went into this thinking like this is an amazing internship opportunity for Liam, and somehow I get to join. You're gonna get to actually hear feedback on all these builds and these ideas that we're working on from the Brickmasters so that's pretty cool. Then there were also times where they were impressed with for example, the rock formation for camp that Jamie liked.

Liam: Jamie is super cool. Jamie was like, “This is the first time I've seen rock built this way and I really like it.” Which is amazing for me because Jamie is the best of the best. So it was really cool because both Amy and Jamie were really supportive and it is just so cool to get to be around like real Lego designers and hear their feedback.

Emily: On episode 10, when we were trying to figure out how to do the sky in a way that would work well with the limitations of the bricks that we had, whether or not to go primarily flat, where to show studs, and which colours to go with, I basically went and found every single option in the brick pit and made a few colour swatches and texture swatches to show Liam and then work with him on like, what's the look we want to go for? What do you think? Amy came up and saw that and said, Oh, wow, you're doing this like we do this at LEGO. This is something that helps drive our decisions. I was like, Yeah, I didn't know how else to help us make the best decision. We knew that it's easy to think that the colours that you're picking are subtle and then discover that they're not once you have it all put together.

We’ve heard from other teams the limitations of the brick pit. Are there any particularly creative shifts that you came up with as a result of those limitations?

Liam: As far as pieces that felt like they're missing goes, one challenge was angle plates - they frequently would have one side, left or right, but not the other side in a certain colour. So we would have to figure out creative ways to make that other side, and sometimes it was like using bigger plates or smaller plates and using a bunch of them. I think our pirate ship sails, which had to be even on both sides, were challenging because we were like “Okay, which of these can we actually use to get that angle on both sides?” Because they did not match up. We were using different types of plates. But as far as creative parts usage goes, I would have to say the last Marvel build - actually on that missile, we used capes to fill in some odd shaped gaps. There's this line of lights that runs along the side of the missile and it goes from being bent to having this wider gap between the two lights and there isn't a LEGO piece that would fit in that gap. So we used black capes to build that space and give it a nice clean look.

What are your takeaways on this experience?

Liam: It's really true that this (experience) is like living on a dream from the LEGO perspective, getting to build such huge MOCs. The time crunch is intense, but it's also a great motivator. So I definitely would not have built those types of things at home. It's really cool to be forced to go and take that creative leap. But it was also a lot of fun. There’s so many like themed challenges that were themed to different classic themes. I've been a fan of pirates and castles and space and all of these very classic themes for so long. There were more of those than I was expecting, and I think that maybe more than on previous seasons. It was really fun to get to build in all of these various thematic areas

Emily: Yeah, so I'm sure you can imagine as a parent, it was such a unique, out of this world experience to be invited to do so much fun, play oriented, creative building with Liam. It was something that kind of reminded me of the early days of building with Liam, even before we got into LEGO - wooden blocks, like just getting down on the floor and creating worlds and just the sky's the limit kind of feeling and I loved that.

What is your advice to adults who are just getting into the hobby?

Liam: Well, I've never been out of the hobby, so but if I were to guess just choosing something that is really fun for you. Whether you like LEGO Technic, or LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Friends, whatever, just have fun with it. And if you just want to build sets, that's great. And if you want to try building your own stuff that you can get pieces in classics, or bulk. Just take apart anything you already have and just play around with it. But honestly, building sets can teach you so much so whatever you have the most fun with.

Emily: If you love all the themes and don't know where to start, it never hurts to start with a Creator set. You know, you get your 3 in 1 line and then it teaches you how you can use the same parts to create something that turns out to be different. So that's always fun, but I agree with Liam definitely go for whatever speaks to your heart. Like he said, Friends, Architecture or whatever, just go for it. You can have a lot of fun also taking it apart and rebuilding it. See how much you can rebuild from memory. You know, challenge yourself in different ways. There are so many ways to enjoy LEGO.

This week's final builds:

All photo credits: FOX