Speaker 1: It's in the news today, but it was actually on
Speaker 1: TV Reload the podcast last week that night. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this
Speaker 1: podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players
Speaker 1: in television. Each episode you will get a front row
Speaker 1: seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors and
Speaker 1: casting agents, plus the talent that we see on our screens.
Speaker 1: TV Reload reloads the shows that you were currently watching
Speaker 1: and gives you a better insight at our television industry
Speaker 1: and streaming services today. On the podcast, I have two
Speaker 1: interviews which both involve Lego Masters Australia. I have a
Speaker 1: chat with Brickman himself, who is the judge and co
Speaker 1: host of the show with Hamish Blake. I then chat
Speaker 1: with one of the teams from the twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: series which starts Monday night at seven thirty on Channel nine,
Speaker 1: and that team is Josh and Henry. Joss and Henry
Speaker 1: stood out pretty quickly as I previewed the first few episodes.
Speaker 1: Straight away you could tell that they had some pretty
Speaker 1: cool lego bills, which we're going to be that of
Speaker 1: popular contention as the series goes on and we will
Speaker 1: get some pretty cool behind the scenes goss from their
Speaker 1: time on the show. Brickman himself, whose real name is
Speaker 1: Ryan McNaught, also shares his wealth of knowledge on Lego
Speaker 1: and his time on the full series, which have been
Speaker 1: a huge success for Endemolshin in Australia and Channel nine.
Speaker 1: I have to admit the more that I watch the series,
Speaker 1: the more that I realized that this show might be
Speaker 1: a front runner for the ratings battle which is about
Speaker 1: to play out on Australian Freedoware televisions. However, let's get started.
Speaker 1: I'd like to welcome our special guests to spotlight the
Speaker 1: brand new series of Lego Masters for twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Everything this season was the best that it's been on
Speaker 2: Lego Masters.
Speaker 1: Last year we took things to the next level.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you the pros and the cons of making
Speaker 3: something Lego maths.
Speaker 1: This year, Lego Masters is tougher than eva.
Speaker 2: You might be on the show. We can't guarantee just yet.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why it is less. Legos fairly ubiquitous in
Speaker 3: that most people have had a relationship with it.
Speaker 4: You fuck up, Australia, this is Lego Masters. You've just
Speaker 4: completely wiped hours of good footage because you've just been
Speaker 4: littering it with curse word.
Speaker 1: Hi brickman, how are you.
Speaker 3: I'm just awesome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations on Lego Masters. It's such a celebrated show
Speaker 1: which you and Hamish just nail every year.
Speaker 3: Well, we have a lot of fun making it, so
Speaker 3: we figure if we have so much fun making it,
Speaker 3: then obviously hopefully people will enjoy it. If anything, even
Speaker 3: without an audience, we just want to do it for us,
Speaker 3: for no one else but our films.
Speaker 1: Because it almost feels like you are two you know,
Speaker 1: naughty schoolboys and you're just having a great time and
Speaker 1: we just get to watch.
Speaker 3: It pretty much. And to be honest, the naughty school
Speaker 3: boy's definitely Hamish. He's the naughty one. I'm the one
Speaker 3: that puts his homework in on time and gets thing
Speaker 3: done just.
Speaker 4: So you know, just to clear the air.
Speaker 1: It's an awful amount of time to be in one
Speaker 1: room with Hamish.
Speaker 3: Well, he does spend a lot of time in the brickpit,
Speaker 3: and that's usually him stealing lego like as a rule,
Speaker 3: is a bit light fingered like that even at one point,
Speaker 3: not this season, but I think it was last season.
Speaker 3: We actually had to hold him upside down and shake
Speaker 3: him to get the Lego out of him. He was
Speaker 3: stealing that much. That's Hamish for you. He's a lot
Speaker 3: of fun.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that Hamish can afford Lego.
Speaker 3: You would assume. But the thing about the Brickpit is,
Speaker 3: and as our contestants over, it's just full of the
Speaker 3: coolest stuff. So I guess it has a certain appeal.
Speaker 1: All and we still have Brickman.
Speaker 3: Australia's only the Southern hemisphere is only Legos certified professionals.
Speaker 4: Were soucky to have him back as your mentor, your judge,
Speaker 4: your guide through the season.
Speaker 3: Welcome back Wickman, Thank you ha good to be here.
Speaker 1: This has been a big success for Channel nine. Why
Speaker 1: do you think that this show has been so successful.
Speaker 3: I think it's a couple of things. First off, Lego's
Speaker 3: fairly ubiquitous in that most people have had a relationship
Speaker 3: with it, whether they had as a kid, or they're
Speaker 3: a cool uncle or you know, whatever the case happens.
Speaker 3: We even stood on a brick you know. There's everyone
Speaker 3: has a relationship with Lego. So therefore it makes it
Speaker 3: really relatable and so when you see the contestants doing
Speaker 3: what they're doing and how they're working and using a
Speaker 3: medium that we're familiar with, it makes it really really relatable.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of a thing that everyone kind of
Speaker 3: gets behind and runs with.
Speaker 1: That moment that you just talked about, which is standing
Speaker 1: on a piece of lego, which we've all done, just
Speaker 1: brought back a memory of my mum standing on lego
Speaker 1: that I left on the floor, and it made me
Speaker 1: realize that if I was ever on lego masters, I
Speaker 1: don't think I could do it with my mum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a thing. It's almost like a rite of passage.
Speaker 3: You kind of have to earn the right. It's like
Speaker 3: the hot coals, you know, that whole trust exercise of
Speaker 3: running over the coals. Same with lego bricks.
Speaker 1: Well, these people on the show could probably make that
Speaker 1: for us, right, They could make us like a mock
Speaker 1: fire trail. Had you thought that maybe a lego stature
Speaker 1: of the cast have married at first Sight might be
Speaker 1: a really good segue for you coming off the back
Speaker 1: of that show for Channel nine. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've been alced to make some pretty outrageous things before.
Speaker 3: I have I'll tell you the pros and the cons
Speaker 3: of making something Lego maps. First off, you wouldn't need
Speaker 3: a lot of bricks because they don't wear a lot,
Speaker 3: so you probably don't need to think about covering them
Speaker 3: up too much. So that's that's that's definitely a pro.
Speaker 3: But on the negative side, Lego don't really make a
Speaker 3: flesh tone colored Lego brick or everyone's yellow in Lego Land,
Speaker 3: of course, so I'm not sure we're going to get
Speaker 3: We're going to get what we need there.
Speaker 1: You're going to need too many of those very lucrative,
Speaker 1: very rare skin colored pieces of Lego, which I know
Speaker 1: that you've been hiding away because you just want to
Speaker 1: use them for special things, maybe not something for mass
Speaker 1: In fact, I.
Speaker 3: Reckon we could probably do a good Lego dinner party.
Speaker 3: I think that would be okay too. I think we could.
Speaker 3: We could definitely nail a dinner party, have all the
Speaker 3: nice food and they kind of stuff laid out. But
Speaker 3: as for the contestants, I'm not sure. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: we can get them though.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Moving away from that, do you think that it's
Speaker 1: important for kids to still watch television with their parents?
Speaker 3: Look, it's funny, isn't it. I mean, much like yourself.
Speaker 3: You know, I grew up the same thing. Okay, you
Speaker 3: know seven thirty on a Tuesday. We'd watch I don't know,
Speaker 3: a country practice or whatever together or you know, we
Speaker 3: had our things as a family that would that we
Speaker 3: would do. I grew up in the country, so we
Speaker 3: only had two channels like the ABC and one commercial channel,
Speaker 3: so it was even more so. And it was it
Speaker 3: was a real bonding activity. It was a thing where
Speaker 3: we'd kind of get together to do that particular whatever
Speaker 3: it was that we would watch. And I think obviously
Speaker 3: with the today generation and the ability to get whatever
Speaker 3: content you want now or in whatever format that you want,
Speaker 3: we've kind of lost that a little bit. So I
Speaker 3: think it's I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great thing. And I think it's
Speaker 1: good that we're making content on television that can be
Speaker 1: digested by families, you know, and that they can be
Speaker 1: sitting around and having that bonding moment. I think we
Speaker 1: need more of it. Talking about the competition, if you
Speaker 1: were trying to win this competition, what kind of tactics
Speaker 1: would you drive Because in other reality TV shows you
Speaker 1: could fly under the radar and pretend that you're not
Speaker 1: good at LEGO. To start with, I don't know what's
Speaker 1: your tactics.
Speaker 3: Ye are two things. First off, before I give you
Speaker 3: the answer, what I will say is hopefully Hamish and
Speaker 3: I we've been angling for years to do an international
Speaker 3: version where it's the host and judge versus the host
Speaker 3: and judge of other countries. So we really want to
Speaker 3: represent Australia. That's our thing. So we do want to
Speaker 3: get on the show as contestants one day. So taking
Speaker 3: that on board, I think two really important things. First
Speaker 3: is it is about time management. You have to find
Speaker 3: the perfect balance and this is where it gets tricky
Speaker 3: between pushing yourself to the absolute limit of your time
Speaker 3: limit of what you're capable of doing and not going
Speaker 3: over it because if you go over it, you're not
Speaker 3: going to deliver, but if you go underneath, it'll be
Speaker 3: too underwhelming. So you really go to hit this absolute
Speaker 3: sweet spot in terms of your time management of making
Speaker 3: something that you as the time the absolute best. So
Speaker 3: that's the first tip. The second tip is the advantages
Speaker 3: in the immunity. They are worth their weight in absolute gold.
Speaker 3: So I don't think you can really rest your laurels
Speaker 3: at all at any stage. You really want to win those.
Speaker 3: And you know what the first the first one obviously
Speaker 3: where you're playing for a brick, you know that means
Speaker 3: something that is absolutely critical, So that's what. Yeah, they're
Speaker 3: probably the two things. I think.
Speaker 1: Is there any of a sabotage that we haven't seen
Speaker 1: on television? Like, has any of the contestants, you know,
Speaker 1: tried to use any tactics to sabotage anyone else's lego?
Speaker 3: Because we run a pretty positive show, we don't really
Speaker 3: see anything like negative like that, so we don't see
Speaker 3: people going around stealing bricks or those kind of things.
Speaker 3: So I don't think I've ever seen in Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure we have. I mean, occasionally, what will
Speaker 3: happen is say you as a team, you've got a
Speaker 3: certain idea. I don't know, let's say you want to
Speaker 3: make a forest for example sake, and of course you
Speaker 3: might go to the brick bit and take all the
Speaker 3: easy tree pieces first, and so you know, that's not sabotage,
Speaker 3: but it's an advantage because you got your idea first,
Speaker 3: and you might get those parts first before everybody else.
Speaker 3: So there's probably some game type stuff happening, but we
Speaker 3: don't see it intentionally.
Speaker 1: No, and you're probably not casting for that either.
Speaker 3: No, that's another show that you talked about. It's a
Speaker 3: different one.
Speaker 1: Stop talking about maths. How old were you when you
Speaker 1: realized that Lego was more than just a toy and
Speaker 1: you know, could possibly be your life?
Speaker 4: Good?
Speaker 3: Good question. Well, I loved Lego as a kid. I
Speaker 3: thought Lego was awesome up until I was about thirteen
Speaker 3: or fourteen. Then it kind of became uncool as a teenager.
Speaker 3: It's about sport and your friends and girls and those
Speaker 3: kind of things, and so life kind of took a
Speaker 3: bit about normal attack there. But it wasn't until we
Speaker 3: had kids in my early thirties that I kind of
Speaker 3: got back into Lego and sort of rediscovered it there.
Speaker 3: So probably I'm going to say early to mid thirties
Speaker 3: when I realized how awesome it was as a medium
Speaker 3: and kind of realized that there's something in it from there.
Speaker 1: And then I've obviously been living under a pile of
Speaker 1: pile of Lego. But can you tell me your story
Speaker 1: behind the Nick Brickman.
Speaker 3: Essentially back in two thousand and seven or thereabouts, I
Speaker 3: was starting to get a few commissions. People are asking
Speaker 3: me to make things out of Lego. I thought of stuff,
Speaker 3: I really need to get a website. I really need
Speaker 3: to find something or another. And I'm like, oh, what
Speaker 3: do we call the website? And eventually in the big
Speaker 3: brainstorm on the whiteboard was the Brickman, And so I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I'll just I'll just get that as a website. That'll
Speaker 3: be fine, and I won't call myself that. It was
Speaker 3: more about just the website, and eventually it stuck so
Speaker 3: very unglamorous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you started signing checks for it, you started asking
Speaker 1: your wife to call you Brickman instead of it took
Speaker 1: over your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you land at the passport office, hey Brickman. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's on my passport, you know. Yeah, it's a thing.
Speaker 1: How did this show come up for you? Because I
Speaker 1: can imagine that you must have pitched this to Channel nine.
Speaker 1: I mean this must be like a dream job for you,
Speaker 1: But like, can you tell me how it came across
Speaker 1: your table?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It was actually the other way around. So Lego
Speaker 3: Master has actually started off in the UK quite a
Speaker 3: different format, very much more family. They have kids on
Speaker 3: the show as well. As adults, very much a different
Speaker 3: sort of format show. And then some really i'm going
Speaker 3: to call them TV heavyweights people and enemol shine a
Speaker 3: chat by the name of David McDonald who's like Television
Speaker 3: Royalty invented goggle Box and master Chef and all sorts
Speaker 3: of things like that, and he saw the format and thought, wow,
Speaker 3: I could do stuff with this, and then basically they
Speaker 3: got working on what the show would roughly be, and
Speaker 3: then they got in contact with me and said, hey, look,
Speaker 3: we've got a very rough concept for a show. Are
Speaker 3: you interested at all? And I'm like, oh, well, I've
Speaker 3: seen the UK one. Yeah, sure, And then they kind
Speaker 3: of explained how different it was going to be and
Speaker 3: what it was going to look like and how it
Speaker 3: was going to work and how much of a totally
Speaker 3: different production, and I'm like, yeah, look, I'll give it
Speaker 3: a go. It's one of those things. I know how
Speaker 3: popular Lego is and I know how cool Lego is,
Speaker 3: but whether that translated to a television audience that's a
Speaker 3: very different question. And so yeah, we kind of just
Speaker 3: merged the two together. And obviously once Haymen came on
Speaker 3: board as well, it worked well.
Speaker 1: Both of you added tone to it as well, which
Speaker 1: I think is kind of your own signature. You know,
Speaker 1: like you can't really be Haymission. We've seen that with
Speaker 1: people trying to be him on radio, and you can't
Speaker 1: be you with your knowledge on Lego and I don't
Speaker 1: think we have anyone in Australia that's at that level.
Speaker 1: Have you asked d Mac whether or not you could
Speaker 1: be on goggle Box as well, because he's obviously given
Speaker 1: that job to Hamish'd.
Speaker 3: Say that for the real celebrities, mate, I'm like d Grade,
Speaker 3: So I'm very happy watching goggle Box if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: How stressful is it for the contestants each day?
Speaker 3: I think there's multiple levels of stress and it happens
Speaker 3: at different points of time. First off, the initial concept,
Speaker 3: so we're all creative. Everybody's creative in their own way.
Speaker 3: But what we do on the show is we tell
Speaker 3: them you need to be creative right now, like right
Speaker 3: this very second, and we're going to put ten cameras
Speaker 3: in your face and lights and Hamish just going to
Speaker 3: come around and pester you and I'm going to say,
Speaker 3: what the hell's going on and all this kind of stuff, right,
Speaker 3: So the poor contestants have to come up with something
Speaker 3: very very quickly, and that's that's actually hard to be
Speaker 3: creative on demand. So that's the first sort of level
Speaker 3: of pressure that hits them. And then secondly, of course
Speaker 3: you know that we talk to say it's a ten
Speaker 3: hour bill, you know, there's actually a hard slog where
Speaker 3: the've actually got to do a lot of work, and
Speaker 3: at various points in milestones they'll be like, oh gosh,
Speaker 3: I needed to have done this or I haven't done
Speaker 3: that yet, and then they'll have to adapt their plans
Speaker 3: and change and that kind of stuff. And then usually
Speaker 3: some TV stuff will happen, you know, in between hamish'll
Speaker 3: come out and do something crazy all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: So we kind of have this building pressure and it's
Speaker 3: really I don't know why this is a thing, but
Speaker 3: it always comes down to like the last ten minutes.
Speaker 3: It always does without fail, and that just of course
Speaker 3: amplifies all of the pressure that's on top of everybody.
Speaker 1: I was imagining the people from Endermulshine just you know
Speaker 1: they'd finished the lego through three hours early, and you
Speaker 1: know that it'd be like the last piece of the
Speaker 1: jigsaw puzzle, you know, with the family that you get
Speaker 1: one person in particular to do it, but you quickly
Speaker 1: rush them to the table, quickly, quickly, make it look
Speaker 1: like it's been really intense. But interestingly enough, which you
Speaker 1: can explain to us, is that, yeah, they are just
Speaker 1: working all the way right to the very end.
Speaker 3: Totally, and you know, it's this classic thing and we
Speaker 3: can see without contestants all the time when is a
Speaker 3: model finished, a lot of contestants they would love another
Speaker 3: ten hours to do all this other stuff with their model,
Speaker 3: or add to it, or change it up or do whatever, right,
Speaker 3: but the time is the time, and once it goes,
Speaker 3: that is the ultimate end of it. So often what
Speaker 3: teams will do, let's just say you're cruising, things are
Speaker 3: going great halfway through and they'll look over the room
Speaker 3: and they'll go, oh my god, look what they've done.
Speaker 3: This is like twice the size, or it's like the
Speaker 3: coolest idea ever, and then they'll need to change it
Speaker 3: up and go. So it's very very rare. We've had
Speaker 3: some people that might go, oh, you know what, we've
Speaker 3: got a couple of minutes to go. Let's do nothing
Speaker 3: too stressful, do a bit of set dressing, just tidy
Speaker 3: things up a little bit, but as a rule, people
Speaker 3: are like full on, and even some of the technical
Speaker 3: challenges their contraption or the gizmo might not even be
Speaker 3: working until like there's a minute to go or something.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty full on, pretty full on.
Speaker 1: Do you know if there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: want to be on Lego Masters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is. I prefer not to get involved in
Speaker 3: casting because I love to meet the contestants first time
Speaker 3: when they come through the door and have that whole
Speaker 3: chemistry as they arrive. I have. I have done some
Speaker 3: of the casting bits and pieces, and literally, you know,
Speaker 3: thousands of people do apply, so it's not something that
Speaker 3: we're ever going to run out of contestants or anything
Speaker 3: along those lines, which is great.
Speaker 1: So I just imagine people trying to bribe you with
Speaker 1: some lego, some of that rare flesh colored lego, you know,
Speaker 1: just a hego brickman, here's a pound of lego, flesh
Speaker 1: colored lego. Can you get me on the show?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, Fortunately I don't. I don't make the casting decisions likely,
Speaker 3: So no bribery whatsoever. I'm all good.
Speaker 1: What's the best advice though, that you offer people? I
Speaker 1: mean I'm sure that you get a chance to speak
Speaker 1: to them, you know, on their first day. You know,
Speaker 1: what sort of advice do you give these contestants in
Speaker 1: starting out in the competition.
Speaker 3: I think if I was to look from a from
Speaker 3: a competition perspective, if I look at all the winners
Speaker 3: that we've had on the show, they've all got one
Speaker 3: trait is they've learned each of the skills in each
Speaker 3: of the challenges and then learned how to apply them.
Speaker 3: And so whoever grasps that the best will end up
Speaker 3: making the coolest, grandest, most incredible thing because of all
Speaker 3: the things that they're picking up and natural when you're
Speaker 3: putting a lego at home, for example, like you don't
Speaker 3: often think about the perspective of how a lego model
Speaker 3: is viewed. You just make something awesome at time.
Speaker 4: That's just what you do.
Speaker 3: But of course for television, hey, we're looking for a
Speaker 3: very particular angle. So as we're teaching people skills like
Speaker 3: that one, and you know, we tach probably thirty or
Speaker 3: forty different skills, but as we teach in that one,
Speaker 3: people who understand and grasp that and can take that
Speaker 3: going forward, they end up going places. So probably the
Speaker 3: ability to learn. As strange as that sounds.
Speaker 1: On a show, this might be the nerdiest question that
Speaker 1: I can ask you about Lego, But what is your
Speaker 1: favorite piece of Lego constructed over the last for a
Speaker 1: few seasons.
Speaker 3: Look, it's tonny. I do get asked that one a
Speaker 3: bit because you know, everyone has their own favorites, and
Speaker 3: so it's kind of like picking your favorite child, and
Speaker 3: you know you can't do that, so it gets a
Speaker 3: little bit tricky. But I have a few. I think
Speaker 3: Henry and Kaid's tried and coming out of the water
Speaker 3: with the boat, I think that was pretty incredible. That
Speaker 3: kind of set a tone for what the show's about,
Speaker 3: So that definitely sticks in my mind. From the previous season,
Speaker 3: Scott and they made this arcade machine called the strum King.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember that one, but it
Speaker 3: was mind blowing from a lot of reasons. It was
Speaker 3: so much fun. It was them in Lego personified, and
Speaker 3: it had some of the most craziest contraptions and gizmo's
Speaker 3: in it. So in terms of my favorites, it's probably
Speaker 3: those and the tiger as well in the tree that
Speaker 3: was unreal as well. So we've been very lucky.
Speaker 1: I just love that there's some people sitting around every
Speaker 1: year coming up with the weekly challenges, like what about
Speaker 1: if we get a jukebox and we get them to
Speaker 1: get a record from a popular piece of pop history
Speaker 1: and then get them to build a piece of Lego
Speaker 1: and then ask Delta Gudrum to guess what it is?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, who's making this stuff up?
Speaker 3: It's funny to say that. So there's quite a challenge
Speaker 3: team at Lego Masters that are incredible people, and we
Speaker 3: actually have probably I don't know, maybe a good one
Speaker 3: hundred or so challenges that we've just never got to yet.
Speaker 3: We've had a brainstorm and we've got ideas for them.
Speaker 3: But what the most important thing about all the challenges
Speaker 3: is is the challenge team and everybody. We actually do
Speaker 3: these challenges ourselves to make sure that they work and
Speaker 3: we know what to expect and that they're reasonable and
Speaker 3: the timeframes great and that kind of stuff. So we
Speaker 3: actually test all of them first, which is often hilarious.
Speaker 1: What did you do with the jukebox?
Speaker 3: I probably would have sucked on that one, let's be honest.
Speaker 3: But the first episode, of course, which is underwater with
Speaker 3: the whole sunken world. I tested that one. I had
Speaker 3: like an Atlantis underwater, which was the stereotype and the trope,
Speaker 3: but I managed to do a few wacky things with
Speaker 3: some characters, so it was a lot of fun. Actually,
Speaker 3: the ability to do stuff like pyrotechnics or explosions or
Speaker 3: flames of this kind oft we just don't get to
Speaker 3: do that stuff normally, so when you get to do
Speaker 3: it on the show, it makes it a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: It really does. Well.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for this series. As I said, I've
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to see a few episodes, and I
Speaker 1: think that the casting this year is just magic. So
Speaker 1: I think there's some brilliant people on the show. One
Speaker 1: question I ask everyone who joins the podcast is what
Speaker 1: is something from behind the scenes that we did not
Speaker 1: see that we will not see that you can share
Speaker 1: from behind the scenes of Lego Masters.
Speaker 3: Well, great question, I think for me. I mean, we
Speaker 3: filmed this series in like peak COVID, and so we
Speaker 3: were all in a bubble and all of the contestants
Speaker 3: were in the one hotel, you know, having to basically
Speaker 3: couldn't go out to dinners, couldn't do all those things.
Speaker 3: So they basically kicked up. And I think this group,
Speaker 3: as a collective of contestants, they are so tight together
Speaker 3: they are like a family, and that added a whole
Speaker 3: another dynamic to teamwork and to helping each other and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. So I don't know if they'll make
Speaker 3: the cut, but there's a lot of great parts in
Speaker 3: the show where other teams are helping teams, which in
Speaker 3: a reality competition show is like unheard of when there's
Speaker 3: money on the line or there's eliminations and whatever the
Speaker 3: case happens to be. And so watching people do that
Speaker 3: just out of the nature of their heart and stuff,
Speaker 3: this series is like next level.
Speaker 1: For that every other reality show that's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: throw someone under the bus, but for these people, this
Speaker 1: is an opportunity to help them beat them in the competition,
Speaker 1: which I think says something about the type of people
Speaker 1: that we get to enjoy on this show, and I
Speaker 1: think that's the magic of the show in itself. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being able to answer some
Speaker 1: really random questions about the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks it.
Speaker 1: You're a fantastic guest on the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I mean I took about at Master's forever, so no
Speaker 3: problems at all.
Speaker 1: A special thanks to Brickman for joining us up until
Speaker 1: this point. But let's get into our chat with Joss
Speaker 1: and Henry, who I'm delighted to have on TV reload.
Speaker 4: I'm Josh, I'm twenty four, and I'm Henry. I'm twenty one,
Speaker 4: and I'm Justic's younger brother. Going up. Every single hobby
Speaker 4: was share. We'll build Lego together, We'll listen to the
Speaker 4: same music, we'll do the same video games. Everything just
Speaker 4: is really amazing at.
Speaker 2: Creating creatures, that possibility of just making anything in your
Speaker 2: mind in a physical form. I can't wait to show what.
Speaker 1: We can do. Hey, boys, congratulations on making it onto
Speaker 1: Lego Masters. Is it a dream come true to be
Speaker 1: on this show?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? I mean this is kind of just like It's
Speaker 2: the pinnacle, really, isn't it. If you're into a Lego
Speaker 2: it doesn't get much better than this.
Speaker 1: Who decided to apply for the show?
Speaker 4: That was That was my doing. I don't want to
Speaker 4: make it sound like I didn't want to go on
Speaker 4: the show. Josh had applied like for a previous season
Speaker 4: or season one, and I didn't apply with him at
Speaker 4: that time, but then he sort of said, oh, do
Speaker 4: you want to do this? And I haven't really built
Speaker 4: Lego mocks as they call it, like own creations, Like
Speaker 4: I haven't really done that well, Like think the last
Speaker 4: mock that I made was when I was about twelve
Speaker 4: years old. So we did like the Lego Master's Crash
Speaker 4: Course about a month before we left, where we were
Speaker 4: up till like three am at Just's place, just like
Speaker 4: building stuff to try and like get me back up
Speaker 4: to speed and like building Lego again.
Speaker 2: Introduce it all the new parts that have come out
Speaker 2: in the last few years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so strange. So that when you applied for
Speaker 1: the first season, then who were you originally going to
Speaker 1: be doing the show with.
Speaker 2: I have a work mate I work at a Lego
Speaker 2: store and we both work there and we're good friends
Speaker 2: and we both do very similar sort of builds and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I applied with him for season one, but we
Speaker 2: just didn't make it. So I was like, I kind
Speaker 2: of want to go on with someone who I'm like
Speaker 2: really close with and I can that kind of interact
Speaker 2: with very seamlessly. And I was like, oh, Henry knows
Speaker 2: me inside and out.
Speaker 4: Like I came the same word, Ah, yes, that's right,
Speaker 4: how delightful. I think Josh is the only person that
Speaker 4: I could tolerate for three months straight and be doing
Speaker 4: a competition with straight away.
Speaker 1: As soon as the series starts. For some reason, the
Speaker 1: two of you really stand out. So I mean, we
Speaker 1: can't spoil anything to say how well you do on
Speaker 1: the show, but straight away, from a viewer's perspective, you
Speaker 1: guys look like an early favorite.
Speaker 4: That's so bizarre because we were well, I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to speak to Josh, but I was
Speaker 4: so nervous, and I think that comes from the fact
Speaker 4: that like I haven't been haven't been on on the
Speaker 4: Lego game for as long as Joss has, like I
Speaker 4: haven't been. I haven't been as deep into the Lego field.
Speaker 4: So as soon as it was like, hey, you're in
Speaker 4: the brick pit, build some cool stuff, I was like,
Speaker 4: just forgot how to build Lego. For about an hour,
Speaker 4: was like grab some two by four red bricks and
Speaker 4: was trying to build a little castle or something, and
Speaker 4: I was like, all right, there's there's a lot of
Speaker 4: a lot of learning to do. But we found what worked.
Speaker 4: I think pretty quickly, like we found what each of
Speaker 4: us could do for a build and how we could
Speaker 4: make it work. It was never really like all right,
Speaker 4: you build this entire part, I'll build that entire part.
Speaker 4: It was usually quite a bit of just jumping in
Speaker 4: wherever we saw fit and saying, oh, I want to
Speaker 4: build that bit, and we're like all right.
Speaker 2: Our character bio says that you know, we're the architect
Speaker 2: and the engineer, but really there's no desert needed person
Speaker 2: for each of those roles. It kind of just depends
Speaker 2: on who knows more about like the subject matter and
Speaker 2: the like, you know, what would work best for it
Speaker 2: in Lego, so very much differs between builds.
Speaker 1: You know, I think this is an important question to
Speaker 1: ask you at this point. Do you think that you
Speaker 1: will get more attention from the ladies now that you've
Speaker 1: become Lego famous or do you think that you're just
Speaker 1: going to get more attention from other Lego nerds.
Speaker 4: Well you've better not.
Speaker 1: Jos.
Speaker 2: Definitely Lego nerds, hopefully Lego.
Speaker 4: That's the only attention we want a Lego nerd community.
Speaker 1: Josh Hamish kicks off the news series saying that this
Speaker 1: year is going to be tougher than ever, is tougher
Speaker 1: than ever. It was hamish just being hamish.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's absolutely the toughest one ever. Like you'll
Speaker 2: see from Challenge one, you know, we got the most
Speaker 2: difficult first challenge. And you'll also notice that throughout the
Speaker 2: season if you're a fan of the show and you've
Speaker 2: watched other seasons, they typically sort of have the same
Speaker 2: amount of hours for certain kinds of builds, so you know,
Speaker 2: this will be a twelve hour build, this will be
Speaker 2: like a sixteen hour build, like things like that. Hours
Speaker 2: are all like an hour or two shorter than they
Speaker 2: normally would be.
Speaker 4: And you felt it too, like you as soon as
Speaker 4: the time gets thrown up, you're like, oh is that all?
Speaker 4: And then watching previous seasons like we're screaming at the TV, like, oh,
Speaker 4: they've got so much time, Like what is why?
Speaker 1: Well, Henry, how long was the application process and what
Speaker 1: do you have to do to get on this show?
Speaker 4: So I believe for us it was like you do
Speaker 4: just the internet application on the website first, and then
Speaker 4: an interview, then an audition build, and then a couple
Speaker 4: more interviews and more interviews and things like that, and
Speaker 4: it was all pretty like up in the air. I'd say,
Speaker 4: like you were like are we going to be there?
Speaker 4: And then what just the week before or something?
Speaker 2: It was pretty much all right the way you go,
Speaker 2: like they get you to do all this stuff and
Speaker 2: it's just like you might be on the show, we
Speaker 2: can't guarantee just yet. And then yeah, like like you said,
Speaker 2: a week before, it's like, okay, you're on pack up
Speaker 2: everything up, come.
Speaker 1: And then we I mean, did you have to pack
Speaker 1: everything up and go and live there for three months?
Speaker 4: That's very much?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is crazy. How do you put your life
Speaker 1: on hold to go and build Lego for three months?
Speaker 4: I just didn't have much going on, so I was
Speaker 4: I was stoked. Actually I was sitting at home because
Speaker 4: this is COVID. In fact, I think when we left
Speaker 4: it was still part of a lockdown. Yeah, so I
Speaker 4: was really bored. So then when it was like, hey,
Speaker 4: do you want to go hang out with people and
Speaker 4: build Lego for a while, it was like, yeah, yes
Speaker 4: I do. That's great.
Speaker 1: Well how old did you guys get along with the
Speaker 1: other people building? Were those work rooms anything like married
Speaker 1: at first sight, dinner party or was it very different?
Speaker 2: I was super chummy like, I mean everyone got along
Speaker 2: so well and again almost everyone, Yeah, almost everyone.
Speaker 1: Spill the tea who didn't get along with who?
Speaker 4: There's always one no that that's very true though, Like
Speaker 4: I think we've got the best cast, so so good.
Speaker 4: It sounds like we're selling it real hard here, but
Speaker 4: I think everything is better about the season. That's why
Speaker 4: I'm so excited to watch it, not just because we're
Speaker 4: in it.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I'm really glad that I guess I
Speaker 2: didn't get on for season one because there weren't as
Speaker 2: many pieces in the brickpit at the time. So they've
Speaker 2: added more now, and you know, they've had more time
Speaker 2: to kind of get on their feet, and you can tell,
Speaker 2: like the people who are designing the challenges are doing
Speaker 2: such a good job now, and like it's all really fun,
Speaker 2: really like stimulating. You do some really interesting stuff you
Speaker 2: wouldn't think to do with lego, and I got to
Speaker 2: do it with Henry.
Speaker 1: Did they pat you down to make sure you weren't
Speaker 1: stealing any lego out of that room?
Speaker 4: Stupid? It's a great honor system.
Speaker 2: More unintentionally than not, you ended up stealing some lego
Speaker 2: from the brick pick because you're just like you're running
Speaker 2: back and forth putting things in your pockets, just like oh,
Speaker 2: I got to get it back to the table, and
Speaker 2: you just forget about it.
Speaker 4: They've got the buckets and stuff, but sometimes it's easier
Speaker 4: to just like grab a pocket full of that color
Speaker 4: because you don't need a whole buckets. So then like,
Speaker 4: I've got these like cargo pants that I was sort
Speaker 4: of just like finding lego in for for a long time.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, there's more.
Speaker 1: Well that's a really good point. You know, like you're
Speaker 1: in that workroom for ages, and how do food breaks
Speaker 1: work or toilet breaks? I mean, I feel like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to go to the toilets. I'd be wearing
Speaker 1: an adult diaper. But you know, how does that all work?
Speaker 4: Well, you're absolutely right, Like we do get like a
Speaker 4: designated like lunch and everything, but if in crunch time
Speaker 4: you need to go to the executive office, that's on
Speaker 4: your time. So it was a bit like that sometimes
Speaker 4: where it's like you've got an hour left and you're like,
Speaker 4: I've just got to stick it out.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: That might be TMI, but there's a bit of exclusive
Speaker 4: insight for you.
Speaker 1: The exclusive insight of the people from Lego Masters. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about their toilet break.
Speaker 4: That's why we're here.
Speaker 1: You know, I was chatting with Brickman yesterday and man,
Speaker 1: he's a piece of work and so lovely. Did you
Speaker 1: try and charm Brickman? I mean, I can imagine that
Speaker 1: he would have found it really hard not to give
Speaker 1: a lot of input, But were you trying to charm
Speaker 1: him to try and get tips or anything? Oh?
Speaker 4: All the time?
Speaker 2: It's just like, you know, you're constantly asking him, like,
Speaker 2: you know, should I do this? And he kind of
Speaker 2: gives you liqu a hmm, and it's just like, just
Speaker 2: tell me, please, please.
Speaker 4: He's very good at what he does, not just in
Speaker 4: the lego sense, but in the being a judge sense.
Speaker 4: He's very good at giving you just enough of a
Speaker 4: hint of that being the right thing to do. But
Speaker 4: then you're sort of playing this little riddle in your
Speaker 4: head where you're like, is he doing a double negative
Speaker 4: with me? And it's all very very strange to read, and.
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of pressure to impress him because
Speaker 2: he is the only judge on the show exactly right,
Speaker 2: You've got to impress Brickman's that's the end of the game.
Speaker 1: I'd be bribing him with rare pieces of lego, That's
Speaker 1: what I would have been doing.
Speaker 4: Well, it's so unfortunate, right because he's the lego man,
Speaker 4: so he's got it all.
Speaker 1: He's got it all. Well, he was saying yesterday that
Speaker 1: you know, Hamish was stealing so much lego, and I
Speaker 1: was like, doesn't Hamish earn millions of dollars for being
Speaker 1: on this show? Can't he buy his own lego?
Speaker 4: But it's brickpit lego. He gets to bring it home
Speaker 4: to his kids and go, look at this.
Speaker 1: It's celebrity lego, this case of legos.
Speaker 4: As famous as an inanimate object can get?
Speaker 1: What about a duo name? Because I was watching it
Speaker 1: and I felt so old because I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what nickname can these guys are going to get?
Speaker 1: Who are they going to be related to? And I
Speaker 1: was thinking Ren and Stimpy? But I was thinking, probably
Speaker 1: don't even know who Ren and Stimpy Isak, God, what.
Speaker 4: Did we do to deserve that there was actually Rand?
Speaker 4: And which one Stimpy? I'm definitely ran, I know.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm left with Stimpy.
Speaker 1: Well, what who is a better duo name? Did you
Speaker 1: get given a nickname while you're real.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the most the most famous of those nicknames was
Speaker 4: the brothers grim right, Yeah, and that was from Paul.
Speaker 4: But we quite like was that.
Speaker 1: Because at the start one of them was claiming that
Speaker 1: you guys weren't smiling or you just had like the
Speaker 1: very serious Yeah.
Speaker 2: Throughout the build, we had people coming up to us asking,
Speaker 2: are you guys okay, Yeah, you're not smiling. You're so quiet.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you laughing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I haven't heard you laugh. I've been laughing enough. Jos,
Speaker 4: I think that's that's evil. Yeah, that's sinister, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Josh?
Speaker 4: Josh and I being brothers, we don't have nearly as
Speaker 4: much to talk about as you know some of the
Speaker 4: teams who've just met each other, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Joss and I kind of get in there and we're like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: it's the lego competition, so let's just crack down and
Speaker 4: build some lego. So there's a lot of moments where
Speaker 4: it's like we probably just look like absolute serial killers,
Speaker 4: just building lego in silence next to each other with
Speaker 4: straight faces, but having a ball on the inside, right,
Speaker 4: Like just amazing.
Speaker 1: But still actually name the brothers grim and Stimpy.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: We look very grim and our subject matter for build
Speaker 2: is often very grim as well.
Speaker 4: That being said, I will put Ren in my bio
Speaker 4: and from.
Speaker 1: There, some random dude has nicknamed us rend and Stimpy
Speaker 1: and we're running with it.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 1: You know, Josh, do you think that there are any
Speaker 1: advantages to being you know, the best at this game?
Speaker 1: Like what kind of processes did you go to? You know,
Speaker 1: we always trying to follow the brief? Were you just
Speaker 1: trying to use your imagination? Like what was the process
Speaker 1: like for you every time you had to do a build?
Speaker 2: I think it kind of evolved as like time went on. So,
Speaker 2: you know, we started off just like trying to do
Speaker 2: as much like our own spin on it and like
Speaker 2: trying to sort of like bend the brief in more
Speaker 2: weird ways. But as like we progressed, we realized that
Speaker 2: it was all about you know, them teaching us how
Speaker 2: to do a certain thing. And so rather than trying
Speaker 2: to make the brief into something you're good at, trying
Speaker 2: to sort of of embrace the challenge of it being
Speaker 2: something different and trying to like rise to that, because
Speaker 2: that's what really impresses Brickman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Henry, what would you say is the hardest
Speaker 1: part of this competition? Like what was the hardest thing
Speaker 1: for you to get your head around.
Speaker 4: The whole building? Lego came back pretty quick, like I
Speaker 4: started to get the hang of things and like figured
Speaker 4: out what worked and what didn't. But then I'd say, yeah,
Speaker 4: the hardest part was the brief. You don't want to
Speaker 4: seem like you're trying to bend it so that you
Speaker 4: can build whatever you want using a brief, because that's
Speaker 4: not what our intention is. It was just like you
Speaker 4: want to stand out, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 4: a lot of the time you get given a brief
Speaker 4: and there's one idea that comes to your head straight away,
Speaker 4: and you're like, that's probably what everyone else is thinking,
Speaker 4: so then what's the next thing? But then sometimes you
Speaker 4: get a bit lost in that and you go down
Speaker 4: a rabbit hole and suddenly you're miles away from what
Speaker 4: the brief is asking. So that was probably the hardest part,
Speaker 4: was a bit of self restraint on like actual build ideas. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: Well, in the first episode when you were building the
Speaker 1: Sea Dragon, I would say, but it was funny, like
Speaker 1: I was like this is amazing. But when brick Bank
Speaker 1: came over and said, you know, like when this is
Speaker 1: going to be coming out of the water, you know
Speaker 1: you want to be able to see the most impressive
Speaker 1: thing about it. And so you guys turned its head
Speaker 1: a little bit. But it's so interesting to watch the
Speaker 1: show because you know, I didn't think about that, do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like I didn't think about
Speaker 1: the angle that it was going to be coming out
Speaker 1: of the water.
Speaker 4: So oh, neither did we. So that's such a good
Speaker 4: point because that is like one of the pivotal moments
Speaker 4: where we sort of realize, oh, this is something you
Speaker 4: need to think about from now on, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. Like, you can't just how it is at home,
Speaker 4: where it's like I'll build this thing and I'll photograph
Speaker 4: it from whatever angle I want. I'll figure it out
Speaker 4: when I'm done. You've really got to think, like, okay,
Speaker 4: so where is a brickman and b the camera going
Speaker 4: to see this and is it going to look good
Speaker 4: in that context? So that's something that we learned from
Speaker 4: that point straight away, and we tried to incorporate every
Speaker 4: single time from then on because we never really well,
Speaker 4: I never built much by myself, but I know Jos
Speaker 4: doesn't do set pieces as much as he would just
Speaker 4: sort of create a character for something. But that composition
Speaker 4: side of things was something that we really It.
Speaker 2: Was something I relied on you a lot for I
Speaker 2: think towards you know.
Speaker 4: We also said to ourselves at some stage, we are
Speaker 4: so happy with committing an hour of planning for every build.
Speaker 4: If it takes us an hour to get a good
Speaker 4: idea good composition, we're happy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: We're not feeling that we're wasting time because we know
Speaker 4: how important it is.
Speaker 1: Now well, I can I only I mentione how excited
Speaker 1: you guys are to watch this because you know, episode
Speaker 1: two there's a lot of smashing of lego and it
Speaker 1: was definitely the highlight for me, thus far from watching
Speaker 1: a few of the preview episodes, because I actually watched
Speaker 1: every single person's, every team's smashing of the lego through
Speaker 1: that hoop. I think I saw like two or three time.
Speaker 1: Go back and watch it again and again and again,
Speaker 1: because do they show you any of the slow moo parts?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so like when we look up at the wall
Speaker 4: and everything and that's real, Like we do get to
Speaker 4: see it in slow moo straight away. But like you said,
Speaker 4: we love to sit there and press the replay button
Speaker 4: over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: It was the best, just so good. Anyway. One of
Speaker 1: the questions that I ask everyone who joins the podcast
Speaker 1: to sort of wrap things up, is you know, what
Speaker 1: is something from behind the scenes that we did not see,
Speaker 1: that we won't see that you can share from your
Speaker 1: experience of making Lego Masters.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I get in trouble for saying it,
Speaker 4: but I'm not the best with like refraining profanity, Okay,
Speaker 4: so I would just that's probably what I would say
Speaker 4: is Lego can be frustrating. There's one episode one build
Speaker 4: where I was sort of going off like an old
Speaker 4: sailor and actually had someone sort of saying you, like, look,
Speaker 4: you've got to like, can't we can't use this, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean? You've just you've just completely wiped
Speaker 4: hours of good footage because you've just been littering it
Speaker 4: with first words.
Speaker 1: We'll look out for that in the future episodes. We'll
Speaker 1: just see looking like you've got Tourette's as your.
Speaker 2: Hair just madded to his face. You'll know what's happening.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to be putting swearing into
Speaker 1: Lego Masters any time, so I'd appreciate it though.
Speaker 4: I think it'd be hilarious. We have had There was
Speaker 4: one moment on the show where someone goes, oh shit,
Speaker 4: and I was like what because I didn't know that
Speaker 4: that was koshit.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I we were what season one in the Bridge episode, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were like, oh, I see they let one sugar
Speaker 2: honey iced tea to Yeah.
Speaker 4: I didn't have said it.
Speaker 1: Well boys, I as I said, I've only seen two
Speaker 1: episodes and I absolutely loved it. And I think you
Speaker 1: guys do such a great job on the show. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy watching it along with the rest of Australia.
Speaker 1: And thanks so much for being able to chat with
Speaker 1: me today.
Speaker 4: Oh thank Chris Man.
Speaker 2: It's been an absolute treat.