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Q&A with Hamish Blake: The return of Lego Masters
Lego Masters returns on Sunday evening, with Hamish Blake revealing to Mumbrella there are some serious perks to being back for round two. He chats to Mumbrella's Vivienne Kelly about what makes this year's contestants different, why he continues to steal Lego from the set, and what really matters about how the show rates.
INTERVIEW:
Hamish Blake, host, Lego Masters (JW)
AJ Johnson, series producer, Lego Masters (AJ)
Vivienne Kelly, editor, Mumbrella (VK)
VK: What’s different this year from last year for Lego Masters?
HB: You’re sitting on it, mate. Actually, this is new. We have like three couches, so you don’t have to sit in the control room. So the season two perks are flying high. You’re sitting on one of them, sitting on a bit of a season two couch. We’ve got two other chairs out the back in the make-up room, there’s like two comfortable chairs now. Honestly this is, from my perspective, the biggest difference.
VK: I mean, the viewers will really be able to feel that couch at home…
HB: Viewers, will be like ‘God those guys look rested. They look a little comfier this season’.
To be honest, the biggest difference on screen is the contestants have all seen season one, which we anticipated too. So there was that thing there of going ‘Well we can’t do the same thing again because no-one wins out of that’. Like to prove that you can do the same builds again, no-one would win. So, we knew every build and every challenge had to be different, but also that tricky thing of going, ‘It still has to feel like the show and has to feel like Lego Masters’. But I’d say that everything is slightly more challenging. Every build is slightly trickier. This was an unexpected consequence, but I would say by this stage in last year’s competition – episode nine we’re on now of 11 – somewhere along the line it developed into a thing where they walk into the room and try to figure out what’s going on. Because they kind of know it’s not going to just be a normal ‘Build Something Out Of Fun Lego Day’. They’re building Lego in ways that I don’t think anyone has ever trained for.
So I love it because it forces them to think of things that you couldn’t have come into the competition having pre-thought of.
VK: So, AJ, why the [spoiler about episode nine]?
Contestants working on a challenge on set
AJ: [They haven’t practiced for it]. And it’s also stuff that they can’t do at home, and viewers can’t do at home, which is the cool thing about us. We can be big kids and use explosions with Lego, do stuff people want to do, but they can’t, and we can kind of get away with it.
HB: It’s become a bit of a mantra for the show, a bit of like “Well, what’s a cool thing we can do because we have a cool show about Lego?” Rather than just that thing that you would do at home, but we just put it on TV.
VK: So do you feel like you just have to keep topping yourselves? Like are you going to get to the point where it’s just getting more and more outrageous?
AJ: Yea that is a big [spoiler]. I think it’s about 15 metres long, so it was quite hard getting it into the studio. There was about a 1,000 point turn backing it in over the weekend.
That’s the fun part, right? Coming up with the ideas and trying to challenge them and us, and that’s what keeps it interesting.
HB: I reckon for us, our fun, creative challenge comes before the season. Like you’re trying to invent the builds, and then the contestants’ fun, creative challenge happens during the season, trying to match their skills to the build.
I never don’t get fascinated, knowing half the equation, you know, knowing what the challenge is, and then seeing the human element of them try to, in a time frame, pick an idea, come up with the right idea, and then execute it under pressure. It’s cool.
I think we probably end up getting cooler ideas, and by the contestants’ own admission, they’re like ‘I would never have built this and I’m really glad I did’.
AJ: And they’ve done better than we thought they would a lot of the time. They do justice to the ideas, don’t they?
HB: They do.
AJ: Yea, for sure.
VK: And do you think this year’s contestants are a bit more TV savvy, because they saw last year’s, or are they just still all about the Lego?
HB: Maybe day one…
AJ: Yea, but then I think it’s probably a different breed of contestants. They’re kind of in it for the love of it.
HB: Yes, I think we’re still the only show – and it happened again today at the start – where it was like ‘If someone wins a build , they’re safe from the elimination’ – I still think we’re the only show where people get, people know they should win, it makes strategic sense, but then they’re annoyed that they have to sit out for a build.
Blake addressing contestants
So there’s a team that’s missing out today, and they will be really bummed about it. When technically you should be like “But guys, you’re closer to winning $100,000”. They’re like “Don’t care. Just want to build. Just want to do this fun thing”.
AJ: Yea, they were reluctantly leaving the studio this morning because they want to be here.
VK: For most of the season then, are they trying to come second? So they can stay near the top but still build?
HB: Yea, that’s a really good idea actually. Now that people have read that, if we make it to next season, that will happen next season.
But it’s funny, because you could be TV savvy, but you can’t fake being a good builder. You could possibly fake your way onto other shows. But if you can’t build Lego, we will notice.
VK: Were you surprised last year by just how well it rated? There aren’t many shows now that get over 1m metro viewers in terms of overnights. And we certainly didn’t see it coming. Every day with the ratings, we have a bet about how something’s going to rate, and we were way off…
HB: How low did you go for it?
VK: Oh, I don’t want to say.
HB: Don’t tell me you’ve discovered what’s been rumoured for years, which is ‘Who knows?’ Oh my god, don’t tell me it’s not an exact science? Oh my gosh. After all these years of believing it was.
VK: We knew that MAFS would do well, and we just didn’t think that this would be the same…
HB: Oh, who was the bold person in the office sweep who had heard about MAFS?
MAFS: A ratings smash
VK: We were surprised that it stayed up there – that it wasn’t just a curiosity factor that then completely disappeared. So, were you similarly surprised?
HB: I mean, I think you have to say ‘yes’, because if we said ‘no, we were expecting it to rate really high’, that would be fairly arrogant.
Surprise is probably the wrong word. Just kind of relieved, I suppose. Honestly, probably just appreciative.
We have so much fun making the show, so numbers are nice and the network – it’s great for the network. And it’s awesome that families enjoyed it.
But from us inside the show, you just want people who will enjoy the show to find it. You just want something to do good enough that you can do it again. And so, the reward for us is getting to do it again.
And also it’s lovely, it was a very unexpected thing that so many families – the feedback we would get is that so many families watched it as their family show. And they had a ball. So, for us, that was super gratifying.
VK: Any mishaps this year on set?
HB: Mishaps? No, not deliberate mishaps.
AJ: Just trying to get the [spoiler] into the studio… and all that stuff.
HB: We had an episode where one of the challenges was [spoiler]. And more than one [team beat the challenge]. So, the builders are very good on this season. So, fair to say they beat the show.
It’s an amazing testament to how well they build. That really made us laugh a lot. We really thought we had a lot of contingencies covered.
VK: And AJ, how many Lego bricks do you have here?
AJ: 3m bricks.
VK: How many do you think you’ll get through? Do you count them at the end?
AJ: I wish I knew. I wish I knew. We probably get through 1m, I would say.
Blake with Ryan ‘Brick Man’ McNaught and some not-yet-stolen Lego
HB: I reckon that’s fair.
It’s not unusual in like a 10-hour build, per team, for them to get close to 7,000 or 8,000 bricks each. Some episodes I reckon we go close to or over 1200,000 bricks.
The thing about 3m bricks is though, it’ like, there’s so many. There’s like 5,000 different pieces of Lego, then there’s like 30 colors. So, you’re at 150,000 bricks if you just had one of everything in each colour. So to have like thousands and thousands of white bricks, which you need, or grey bricks, that’s where I think a lot of the volume goes, just so there’s enough. Because who knows what kind of problem they have to solve.
Suddenly if everyone’s like “Well I need 500 white three-stud L-bricks”, you need to have 500 white three-stud L-bricks. So, I think for the contestants, it’s just every contingency is covered for whatever they might need.
VK: And have you gotten better at building Lego, do you think?
HB: Again, I’ve gone deep. I steal a lot of ideas, and a lot of Lego.
It’s a soft 3m since I’ve been on set.
It’s kind of a great, fun joke production and I have, where they pretend to be a bit annoyed because it’s quote, unquote “stealing their money”, and then I know how much they love it, so I keep doing it for morale, and the real winner is my kids.
VK: So when you built your son’s birthday cake, was that with Lego Masters’ Lego?
HB: That was actually with Brick Man Lego.
VK: So you stole from him?
HB: Yea. He just brought it over, and then I never gave it back. But I feel like Brick Man has also got enough Lego that he won’t miss it too much.
I still have that dinosaur that Brick Man made because I was like “Brick Man, that was such an amazing dinosaur skeleton that you made for Sonny’s birthday cake”, and he’s like “Dude, it’s so simple”. Not for me, it’s not. I was very impressed by it. It still exists. I had to wash it, but it still exists.
VK: And what do you think viewers will like most about this season?
HB: I hope that we’ve found the right balance of obviously keeping what connected with people in that first season. At the end of the day, it is 100% about the Lego and the teams. And I think we’ve got great teams, and they’ve built great things. So if all goes correctly, I think the viewers will love getting to know these teams and seeing what they achieve.
As AJ said, the builds have always risen to the challenge. We’re getting stuff we would never have pre-conceived of. And it’s really awesome.
So I hope they continue to love what the guys are building.
VK: And if you had to explain the show to an alien who had no idea what it was about, how would you describe it?
HB: This is the conversation I’m having with the alien?
VK: Yes.
HB: How self absorbed. “Hey mate, I appreciate you have travelled across the galaxy, and I am interested in the technology of the ship, but can I just tell you what I’m doing at the moment for my job?”
VK: Let’s assume that they’ve asked, and it’s not you bringing it up. You’ve covered off all other things – all other things.
HB: Okay, so it’s like, “I’ll tell you about what I do if you tell me about what you do”? This is his deal?
I would say, it’s a creativity competition, but, a lot of the time, the prize is… Well, okay. Sorry, I’m still a bit star stick meeting the alien.
It really is a competition about ideas, and not just about who can have the best idea, but who can have the best idea for that particular challenge. Because you need to have an idea that works, that’s going to look awesome at the end, but that you can a) pull off and b) pull off in the amount of time that you’ve got available. So it’s really an ideas battle against the clock.
Wait, does he know what Lego is?
VK: No.
HB: It’s a cool, interlocking brick system that I invented, and I’m sort of the President of the planet, so he’s done the right thing by coming to me.
VK: I know on your Hamish & Andy podcast, if you run into a listener, and they ask for $1, you have to give it to them. And if you don’t have $1, you have to give them a trinket. Should you have to give me a trinket right now, what would it be?
HB: You know it would be a Lego.
You know, I have, this is a scoop. I had dinner last night, and I ran into a podcaster, a lovely young lady. She was like “I’ve got to get it for my boyfriend. I’ve got to get a dollar”. I didn’t have a dollar, but I did have a mini figure that my son had been playing with at dinner, but it was one I’d stolen from here.
VK: So, you stole it from your son?
HB: Well she was like “You can’t give me your son’s Lego”. I was like “It’s not really his, to be honest, it’s Channel Nine’s”.
“You can have these. He’s not going to know. And I’m back there tomorrow.”
VK: So you’re just constantly putting it in your pockets?
HB: Last season I would try and make something every day to bring home from the set, but I was running out of ideas. My wife would be the first to tell you that some of them were pretty weak. Towards the end, she’d be like “Well I think you just phoned in today”.
[But] it’s a tradition. I’d be like “No, I made you a Negroni. You know how we always drink Negronis?” But it was like five Lego bricks stuck together with one red brick at the bottom. Like, some were bad.
So, because we could feel that the in-joke Lego builds were running out, now I just steal mini figures. Because you can’t have too many. Or can you? I’ll find out. Well I’ve gone one less now. I gave it to someone at the restaurant.
AJ: And the way we’re going to try and keep things harder for Hamish is wardrobe’s going to start sewing up his pockets.
VK: He’ll have to get more inventive, suddenly he won’t be able to talk properly because he’s got Lego shoved in his cheeks…
HB: That’s why if you see me on the show with a big plaster cast, you’ll know it’s fake and I’m just showing Lego down the side.
AJ: It will be interesting to see what you come up with.
HB: I actually think I want to wear a lot of top hats this season. “Well guys, another day, another build, and I hope you don’t mind the sombrero. The studio lights are a bit bright for me”.
VK: Any final words on this season, and what we can expect?
HB: I think it’s safe to say of course the worry coming into this year was, well, we all loved last year so much, there’s always that annoying thing in TV or any creative industry, where you’re like “Yes, we did a fun thing”, and then you’re like “Damn it. Now we’ve got to do it again”.
And so, there’s been a great sense of excitement and probably relief is the wrong word, but relief is in there too, but like all these characters on the show, they’re all so different but awesome in their own right. You know, new ways of tackling things, new funny personalities, new great dynamics between the teams. And they come up with just awesome ideas.
So it never gets tired watching them create, bring ideas. That’s the fun thing about Lego You’re really creating something from nothing. There’s nothing, and then 10 hours later, there’s something, and it’s 100% in their hands and in their minds. So it’s a really fun thing to watch. And they’re ferocious, it’s like a crazy skill that I still haven’t got my head around. Every time I try and build something in the Brick Pit, I’m reminded that people out there have got whole worlds full of detail from no instructions.
VK: And you’re building a Negroni…
HB: And I’m building a six-brick Negroni to be met with disdain from my wife.
Blake gives this season a thumbs up
We built a Christmas train to go around the Christmas tree, and you spend the whole time going “Oh, that’s a good idea. Oh what a great way to connect pieces”. And then I’m just sitting there going “And the contestants are doing this with no instructions. It’s taken me hours to build a train”.
Or I know if I saw it on the show, you can fall into the habit of just going “Yea, great. That’s a train. Easy”. But it’s an amazing feat to be able to build that.
It will be fun to see how this build goes too. This was yet again another one where they were like, “Arrr well we weren’t expecting to have to to do this”.
Vivienne Kelly travelled to the Lego Masters set as a guest of Nine
