Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.
Who knew playing with Legos could pay off?
The 128-acre Legoland family theme park in Carlsbad, Calif., is looking for a new master model builder to join its seven-member team. The fifth stop in the nine-city national search was at the Art Institute of Las Vegas on Thursday.
Six applicants were given a bucket of 2,000 Lego bricks and had 45 minutes to create. The theme Thursday was Las Vegas.
After dumping their buckets out, the competitors carefully constructed miniature Luxor pyramids, MGM lions, showgirls and slot machines out of the miniature plastic bricks.
The scene was repeated several times throughout the day.
Judges seemed particularly impressed with one contestant's recreation of the entire Las Vegas Strip.
"This guy made the Strip. It has the Luxor pyramid and sphinx, New York-New York, and basically a skyline," said Pat DeMaria, head of the building team and a master model builder. "You can see he made a giant Elvis with a guitar."
The detail was impressive, DeMaria said.
"The guitar that Elvis is carrying in this model is rounded around the edges," he said. "It's creative and it shows that he has the ability to make something appear round from flat blocks."
The theme inspired other difficult designs as well.
"We've had a lot of Stratosphere models," he said. "We also had one guy make a really great model of the Harley-Davidson Cafe with the motorcycle coming out of the building."
The models were judged and photographed. The time limit allows judges to see how creative the contestants could be under a tight deadline, Legoland spokeswoman Stacy Slingerland said.
The 45 minutes goes by quickly for the builders, DeMaria said.
Applicants who make the cut will be asked back for a second interview. Two or three contestants from each city will be invited to Legoland to compete in the finals on Jan. 23.
"We haven't had any problem finding talent," DeMaria said. "The problem is sorting through all the great ones."
The three "great ones" from the Las Vegas competition were announced Thursday evening. Las Vegan Cory Sanders was chosen for his model of the Las Vegas welcome sign with a showgirl standing in front of it. Jeremy Monson of Sacramento was picked for his re-creation of the Rio hotel and Derek Schin of Santa Maria, Calif. was chosen for his model of a slot machine, Slingerland said.
The fact that the finalists are all men is not surprising because the majority of the competitors in all cities have so far been males between 18 and 40 years of age, she said.
Only two of the 13 finalists so far are women.
No matter their professional background, the "master model builders" all have one thing in common: They have all been Lego fans for life, Slingerland said.
Professional Lego model builders make $30,000 to maintain the more than 5,000 models composed of more than 30 million regulation Lego bricks, and they get to dream up new creations, Lego California spokesmen said.
The master builders have developed a celebrity status among park guests, and frequently answer a barrage of questions and share building tips with visitors, spokesmen said.
A website, LEGOMasterBuilder.com, tracks the progress of the Master Model Builder Search and includes photos of the winning models from each city.
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