Brickmasters Amy and Jamie Share LEGO Masters Secrets, Tease Season 4’s Big Drama (and Kitten-Filled Mayhem!)
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LEGO Masters judges Jamie Berard and Amy Corbett are here to build some excitement for the Fox series’ fourth season, which premieres this Thursday, Sept. 28 at 9/8c.
Because not only does Season 4 include a Cirque du Soleil challenge (aith acrobats as special guests), a “Catropolis” episode that involved the herding of adorable kittens, and the building of the ultimate RC off-road vehicle, but the usual grand prize — $100,000 cash, a trophy and the grand title of LEGO Masters — added something extra. For the first time in series history, the winning build will be transformed into a set you at home can buy.
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TVLine invited Brickmasters/Denmark-based LEGO employees Amy and Jamie to tease the ultra-competitive new season, and answer some burning Qs along the way….
TVLINE | As part of Season 4’s grand prize, for the first time ever the winner’s build is going to be turned into a LEGO set available in stores. Drive home for the layman how big a deal that is.
JAMIE BERARD | It is actually really huge. It’s never been done before and I have to say, it took a lot of thinking-through, a lot of conversations, but then they just said, “Let’s just do it. This would be be the most awesome thing ever,” and it genuinely is. I’d love to share more details because we’re in headquarters now where we develop the products, and it is that close to us that it is in the building being worked on as we speak. So, it is real.
AMY CORBETT | You can see on the faces of the contestants, when we announce that part of the prize, how excited they were. Mentioning the $100,000 did not get the same reaction as having your set be available to be bought!
TVLINE | And without spoiling what it is, how cool is this winning build?
JAMIE | It was enough to win the whole show, so we thought it was pretty cool — and I think people at home will definitely agree. It’s pretty, pretty cool.
TVLINE | What’s the last boxed LEGO set either of you built?
JAMIE | Oh, I just built one last night — a Disney 100 set (shop Walmart).
AMY | Nice. I just took down the Haunted House (shop Amazon) because I have to make space for my new build. The last thing I built was probably the Wildflowers (shop Amazon). I did some home interior decorating and built the Wildflowers.
TVLINE | What’s the key to preserving a build that you might not ever want to take apart?
AMY | I would say the biggest thing is keeping it clean. I use a little makeup brush to dust mine and keep them clean without damaging or breaking any of the pieces that are so perfectly put.
TVLINE | But there’s no way to “glue it after the fact,” you’re saying…?
AMY | I don’t believe in gluing. Even when I say “I took down the Haunted House,” I’m going to take it apart and take it home for my dad at Christmas, so he can rebuild it — because I believe LEGO builds should have many lives.
JAMIE | I think the other secret [to preserving a build] is having good relationships [Laughs], because it takes whoever else is living in the house to agree that this “has value” in order to prevent it from being repurposed.
TVLINE | Do any personalities among Season 4’s builders stand out?
JAMIE | This season there’s a competitive side that comes out that is beyond what we’ve seen in any other season. And when I say that, it’s in their ambition. Meaning, when one team does something amazing it inspires another team to try to top it, and then it’s this battle of who can be even more amazing — and it gets to a point that we were shocked.
AMY | Like, Jamie and Will [Arnett] and I were literally holding onto each other like, “Is this happening? Are they actually going to build this? Are they serious?!”
JAMIE | I really hope it makes it in the final edit because we were just gobsmacked — like, “This is not happening right now,” and it did. I have a bit of a math side, and I did some quick calculations on the ambition that [this team] had set forward for this challenge, in terms of how many bricks they would have to put down to pull it off, and that was eye-opening. I did not challenge any teams after that, because clearly anything was possible!
TVLINE | You talking about how many bricks a team needed brings me to one of my burning questions: Is there a finite number of any particular brick in stock? Like, if I need 72 green 8×8 plates for my build, am I going to have access to 72 green 8×8 plates?
AMY | I mean, our brick stall is big. We have 5 million bricks, we have all the different kinds, but sometimes if everyone wants the same brick there is a point where there aren’t enough. But I think the teams are really good at planning around what they know there are large quantities of and thinking about it in their build as they go forward. And actually, they have quite an amazing sharing culture of being like, “I really need those pieces so, can you maybe not use them?” But they’ve got to use a lot of the pieces for them to run out.
JAMIE | And when we talk about running out, they have to use a lot because the brick pit is continually restocked. What you see on TV is not 5 million bricks; that is just what fits in the bins, and then they’re continually restocked the whole way through. So, even when you see one that’s low in one take, you’re probably going to see on the next take it’s full again.
TVLINE | I’m a cat person, and I understand there’s an episode this season involving kittens…
AMY | Yes, and that was mayhem in the studio for all of the best reasons! I mean, it was really hard to get anything done with these little kittens running around. They were so tiny and so cute and soooo distracting….
TVLINE | The challenge is to, what, build a little house for it?
JAMIE | We’re trying to give a little play space for them. But not only do you have to herd cats but you had to give them something to get their attention and keep it, and that was a really fun challenge. It’s very different than the dogs or the puppy challenge that we had last season. This time it is really about trying to create a play space, and it was fun to see how the cats actually interacted with the model, and how the teams designed it with that in mind. Some of the clever solutions that they came up with were nothing that we would have expected.
LEGO Masters Season 4: Meet the Cast
TVLINE | Another burning question: We often see a team ohhhh-so-gingerly tip-toe, say, their very delicate pirate ship across the studio and place it where it needs to go — but before it gets “blown up,” the show gives us this great hero shot with the camera circling around it 360 degrees. When are they getting that hero shot?
JAMIE | If we’re going do something that will blow up a model, we’ll have a pause just beforehand and make sure we got everything [on camera] because when it’s gone, it’s truly gone. That is just a bit of the “movie magic,” where we give the teams a break to have lunch or something and it’s at that time that they’ll get those images.
AMY | Because once it’s blown up, there no going back.
TVLINE | You’ve seen how the episodes get edited for broadcast. Is there anything that typically gets cut out that you wish viewers got to see more of?
AMY | There’s so much time for the challenges that’s cut down to minutes, and I love the way it’s edited, but we would love more of the creative process to be shown, because the teams have so many ideas and so many awesome builds. But there’s only time to show quick snippets of some of them early in the episode.
JAMIE | There’s plenty of extended content if people want to be able to see that, but I do like that they truly do capture the essence of each of the challenges, which is incredible. When you think about how many teams we have, constantly being shot with multiple cameras, it’s just an ocean of footage to go through — and yet somehow our brilliant editors are able to catch those moments that tell the story.
TVLINE | I assume that you two and Will aren’t on-set for the full duration of a multi-hour build. But are you just off-camera “on standby” in case some drama happens in the workspace and they need your reaction?
AMY | We literally sneak, say, 10 meters off-set and I slip into my comfy shoes and then we watch from a screen what’s happening, just so the builders are not getting distracted. But we’re also keeping track all the time of what they’re doing and seeing how their creative process is working, and then we are ready if we need to give advice or guidance — or if there’s a disaster that we need to go and give some cheerleading for.
JAMIE | But we genuinely are there when they’re there, and it’s just a matter of whether you see us on camera and we’re on set, or we’re behind the scenes. That’s the beauty of the access that we have. We genuinely have eyes and ears all the time.
AMY | Jamie and I just can’t get enough of watching everyone build, to be honest.
TVLINE | Lastly, dazzle us with your favorite LEGO-building lingo….
AMY | Oh, I mean, SNOT (Studs Not On Top) is my fave, it always makes me giggle a little bit.
JAMIE | And I like BURPs. The BURP is the Big Ugly Rock Piece. LEGO fans love to hate it even though it’s actually quite useful for small kits–
AMY | — and to build quickly!
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