I am a master model builder

here at Legoland California Resort.

I've been working at Legoland California

for eight years now and I absolutely love it.

I can't think of doing anything else.

I love my work, I love physically building Lego,

I love the actual job.

[upbeat inspirational music]

We wear steel-toed boots here at Legoland

because you don't wanna step on any Lego.

Yeah, there's a funny joke that we always hear,

parents always come in all the time asking,

"Do you step on them?" I'm like,

"Well, we do step on them,

but we have shoes on here so it doesn't hurt."

[PJ chuckles]

Lego has passed the test of time

because it's so diverse.

It does everything.

If you're mathematical, it's all math,

you're counting everything.

I don't have odd bricks so I have to make odd

out of one odd piece and even pieces,

it's all math, but it's all artistic, also.

You're like, wait, 'I have to make a round object

out of square brick, how do I do that'?

So it's left and right brain,

and people that can do both love it even more.

But it's also creative in a way

where you can tell 10 different people, 'build a duck,'

and you're gonna have 10 different ducks,

but each duck is gonna look like a duck.

So when we get a project or a building,

the first thing to do is we have to know the size.

We need the footprint.

So what's, what's that going to be?

Once we have that, then we have the basic idea

of where to start from, how big it's gonna be,

how tall is it gonna be, how creative is it gonna be?

So depending on the model that we have,

is how we prep for that model.

You can see behind me all different shelves of colors

and brick that we do have, they are sorted by piece.

So that's what we standardly carry in the shop itself.

We also have an entire warehouse in the back of the park.

Lego now makes 62 colors.

There's over a hundred colors in the history,

and there's over 17,000 elements that they make.

Each color doesn't come in every piece

and every piece doesn't have every color.

So you want to get down to the basics first.

So the very most basic thing is you have plate and brick.

Three plates, as you can see right there, equals one brick.

So that's the most basic thing that everyone should know,

or could know, that's the easiest thing to learn.

So once you have that down,

you could learn that four plates and a tile

will actually be the exact math of two studs.

And that is an example of our snotted.

Snotted means the studs are not on top.

So now you're viewing that Lego from a side way

instead of a direct up and down way.

So once you know that three plates yield a brick

and that four plates and a tile are two studs,

you can get real complicated and you can start building

things like our snotted letters.

And our slotted letters,

we can do the whole alphabet and numbers

and that's the most basic, smallest, we can do each letter.

Then if you look throughout Legoland, Miniland, California,

you will see all sorts of snotted and studs out and studs up

signs out there, especially using this basic technique.

So these are all considered elements.

So you can see all these pieces have studs in the top,

but also on the side.

And once you have all the elements figured out,

you have a whole 'nother group of amazing pieces,

which could be anything in the world.

We've got sloped, we've got angles, we've got wedges,

we've got Minifig accessories, we've got rounded pieces,

we have the actual mini figs, boxes and containers, angles,

support structures, designed pieces.

The possibilities are endless,

except for the limits of the actual colors and the piece.

'Cause remember, you never cut Lego,

and you never paint Lego.

I think one of the greatest things about working here and

the most fun, is that it's never the same thing.

There's many different paths a model could start on.

It can be from higher ups, 'This is what we want here.

This is exactly the size and the parameters we want'.

And from there might be, 'Okay, you design it or

we're going to have it designed by another team,

and then you guys are going to build it and install it.'

Sometimes, it's 'Okay, we want something like this here,

and what are your ideas'?

And we can a hundred percent creativity go for it.

Sometimes, just walk around the park and look at something

and say, 'Wow, that needs a rehab. let's go fix it up'.

And then we can either copy build it and just do exactly

as is, or maybe like, 'Oh, there's new colors.

There's new parts.

It's an older model, let's redesign it.

Let's change the color, or make some new pieces,

or make it a little more new age'.

[Lego snaps]

[Legos clink together]

[Lego snaps]

[Legos clink together]

[Lego snaps]

So I am working on a brick-built Lego model.

This one is a future project coming up,

a Lego dinosaur.

Brick-built means basically there's none of these

specialty pieces and specialty elements.

It's mostly just the brick and plate.

And majority is going to be studs up as you're building.

So we start from the ground floor and go up.

I am working off a file off of this one that was designed.

We do it layer by layer.

One of the things to remember,

is that if there's brick and plate,

three plates equal one brick.

So you could do every single layer to plate,

but they'll take a lot of time.

So we do it by brick-by-brick, if possible,

and fill in the gaps with the plate to save time,

save space, and product.

This particular dinosaur took about two,

two and a half days.

Started earlier this week.

Should take about a week, I'd say.

So when he's finished,

he'll be about that big.

[Lego drops on table]

We have a system,

we want to build the strongest possible models.

They gotta withstand kids, elements, weather, animals.

So we have a structure called North South East West.

So what that is, is every other layer changes.

So one layer's will be East/West,

one's going to be North/South,

and you want to crisscross every single layer.

We have to modify that obviously,

you can't do it every single piece perfectly,

but we do that to the best we can do to make

the strongest model.

So while I'm looking at it, and thinking about it,

I'm like, okay, this way, this way, this way,

this model is this, this brick can go this way,

this brick an go this way, and then, okay, next layer.

North and South, okay, this can go this way,

they can go this way, but that's got a modified this way.

And do you put a two by plate first or two one by plates?

So, literally every brick is a different situation.

So you have to think about, what's gonna be the quickest,

strongest, best way to build the model.

If you were to continually stack brick on top of each other,

one direction,

and just kind of get your, get the best smile,

you want it to look really cool.

And if it's really neat design,

it's not going to be all that strong,

'cause it could break in many different ways

in different positions,

but if you have stuff crisscrossed,

and now you have less seams going up,

it'd be much, much stronger.

So, the less seams you have,

the stronger your model's gonna be.

Every single brick that we use is from a set.

Once a month, we actually get an order list,

an Excel sheet, from Lego,

and it actually has every single line of every single color

in every single part that they have.

So that way, any model out there in the park,

could in theory,

be built by anybody in the public.

So they could see it, and they could build it.

So it's not, nothing special,

nothing made up specifically for us,

it's all possibly with enough sets and enough money,

that you can build any of these sets also.

I love coming to work and just building,

Thinking about it's great,

and I like thinking about it also,

but when I'm just building,

I just zone out.

I don't pay attention to anything.

All I can think about is the numbers and the build,

and 'Let's do this, let's do that,

And would this be a better way to do it,

or would that be a better way?

And I can go this way now, or that way,

and add this or do this'.

And all of a sudden, I know eight hours went by.

I'm like, 'I can't go home yet.

I'm not finished with the building yet.

I want to keep building'.

And the second is just seeing the kids' reaction.

Like kids and families in general,

reactions to the cool models.

You see kids inspired, and adults are in awe,

they're like, 'Wait, that's Lego? That's amazing'.

So it's really cool to see reactions when they come

to the park.

So our tool kit is pretty basic.

It's our hands,

because that's what we need to put everything together.

We do have a rubber mallet, [mallet pounds Legos]

and that's for at the end of every level,

making sure everything's hit down all the way proper.

You can push out as much as you want with your hands,

but you're always gonna miss the studs.

So the hammer is key, and we do have a pair of special

Lego pliers with little teeth at the end.

And that way you could grab by the stud

if you need to remove something much easier

than you can with your fingers.

And two homemade tools that we get to make,

is our stud and plate and brick counter.

So stud one, is studs up vertical,

and it shows you the length-wise,

how many studs are going to be,

just by marking each different colored tile

that you put on top.

Or a plate and brick one, which is also studs up,

but counts it vertically, instead of horizontally.

And that way you can see exactly how many bricks and plates

it is.

So when we're building a model,

and designing a model for the parks.

We have to think about things like,

'Do we want this to move? Do we want it to light up?

Do we want any animation to it'?

[upbeat music]

We have an entire animation team that helps,

in that department alone.

So on top of just the team that builds the models,

now we have the animation team that makes them move