Talent show · Canale 5 · Fascino PGT · since 2009

Italia's Got Talent.

For the talent show with Maria De Filippi, Gerry Scotti and Rudy Zerbi — hosted first by Annicchiarico and then by Vanessa Incontrada — we sculpted the giant LEGO bricks and the monumental SIP telephone for Anna Volpe's act, «the area-code talent».

Story

One act

The LEGO bricks
and the home phone.

Italia's Got Talent is the Italian version of the Got Talent format (Simon Cowell, FremantleMedia / Syco, first UK edition 2007). The Italian pilot aired 12 December 2009 on Canale 5, with the first regular season starting 12 April 2010. Hosted by Simone Annicchiarico, with Maria De Filippi, Gerry Scotti and Rudy Zerbi on the judging panel. Production company: Fascino PGT by Maria De Filippi under licence from Grundy Italia.

Production design is by Mario Catalano, direction by Roberto Cenci. For the set we were asked to build a series of out-of-scale signature objects: monumental pieces that act as a visual backdrop during the contestants' performances and the judges' banter. Two things were needed: a colourful installation for wide shots and a vintage object charged with collective memory.

In our workshops we built a large pyramid of giant LEGO bricks in polychrome — orange, pink, magenta, red, green, blue — arranged in an ascending staircase like a three-dimensional Pop Art piece. In parallel we sculpted the SIP «Bigrigio» landline phone, the light-grey rotary-dial model that lived in every Italian home between 1968 and 1980 — first in raw white polystyrene, then finished in polychrome with the definitive grey of the handset and the numbers on the dial.

The SIP phone is the piece tied to a contestant who became a cult figure on the show: Anna Volpe, known to audiences as «the area-code talent». Her ability is surreal: name any Italian town — Roccafluvione, Pizzighettone, Borgo San Martino — and she instantly answers with its telephone area code. Every Anna Volpe performance needed its fetish set piece: the giant Bigrigio front and centre. When she passed the auditions and moved forward in the talent's run, the producers came back to us: the phone had to be repainted in a different colour from the initial performance, so that each episode would carry its own visual identity.

Set of giant scenographic LEGO bricks sculpted in our workshops for Italia's Got Talent: on the left a large orange LEGO brick laid horizontally on a painter's easel, on the right an ascending-staircase pyramid of polychrome bricks — a blue brick at the bottom, then green, then orange, then red, with pink and magenta on top; in the background the archive of classical statues in our workshop — **The LEGO pyramid.** Six colours in an ascending staircase

SIP Bigrigio landline phone sculpted in raw white polystyrene in our workshop: classic 1970s Italian phone shape with a square base and handset on top, stylised central rotary dial with concentric grooves, set on a workbench with the workshop walls in the background — **Bigrigio in polystyrene.** The raw mould before the final paint pass

The same SIP Bigrigio phone finished in polychrome: light-grey base, anthracite-black handset, white dial with numbers from 0 to 9, black spiral cord trailing onto the workshop floor, a small crucifix on the wall above the phone — **Bigrigio finished.** Anthracite handset, white numbered dial, spiral cord

The SIP phone repainted in a new colour for Anna Volpe's next performance on Italia's Got Talent's stage, after she passed the auditions: same Bigrigio shape but with a different colour palette than the original finished model, photographed on site in our workshops — **The new colour.** Whenever Anna Volpe goes through, we repaint the phone for her next performance

Behind the scenes

Memory objects,
at television scale.

A talent show lives on the contestants' one-of-a-kind acts. The scenography must not steal the scene — but it must create the recognisable visual context the audience associates with the show. The LEGOs and the Bigrigio are two memory objects blown up to television scale.

The modular LEGO mould

The LEGO bricks are modules sculpted in expanded polystyrene with cylindrical pegs on top (the "studs") and cavities below. From a single model we cast every brick in every colour — six chromatic combinations chosen by PD Mario Catalano. The shape is exactly LEGO: proportions respected, stud radii perfect, because instant recognition is the whole point.

The SIP «Bigrigio» phone

The Bigrigio (or «Bigrigia») is the phone produced by SIP/Italtel between 1968 and 1980: a fetish object of Italian collective memory. For the sculpting we start from real reference photos — the same technique as the hyperrealistic food for Occhio alla spesa: every detail studied so as not to betray the original object. The rotary dial carries the exact numbers of the SIP dial, the grey is the exact Pantone grey.

Comic-book colours

For the bricks the palette is the official LEGO one: orange #FFA500, magenta #E50083, red #DD1A21, green #00863F, blue #00549A, rose #FF8C9E. Saturated acrylic paint in flat fields, over a white base, a glossy finish that bounces studio lights like real plastic. Three or four coats over the polystyrene to get the toy-like brightness.

6 colours

official LEGO palette replicated in saturated acrylic paint

1968-80

the historical period of the original SIP Bigrigio phone

Cenci

direction by Roberto Cenci, the same as on Braccio e la Mente

Second life

From the 2009 pilot
to thirteen seasons.

Italia's Got Talent had a long run: from the pilot episode of 12 December 2009 on Canale 5, four Mediaset seasons (2010-2013), then the move to Sky Uno in 2014 where it aired with the new format until 2023, with thirteen seasons in total. The show is one of the longest-running talent formats in Italian television.

The out-of-scale signature object techniques developed here — polychrome modular bricks, philological reconstruction of vintage objects — entered our repertoire for other TV shows: the oversize props of Il braccio e la mente, the ACME archetypes of the Looney Tunes, the biomorphic sculptures for prime-time sets.

Tech sheet

All production data

Type: Oversize scenographic props for a television talent show · Canale 5 prime time
Show: Italia's Got Talent · talent show · pilot episode 12 December 2009 · first regular season from 12 April 2010 · on Sky Uno from 2014
Format: Italian adaptation of the Got Talent format (Simon Cowell, FremantleMedia/Syco, first UK edition 2007)
Production company: Fascino PGT by Maria De Filippi · under licence from Grundy Italia / FremantleMedia
Host (first edition): Simone Annicchiarico
Subsequent hosts: Vanessa Incontrada (Mediaset era, from the 3rd edition) · later Lodovica Comello (Sky era)
Historic jury: Maria De Filippi · Gerry Scotti · Rudy Zerbi
Contestant tied to the SIP phone: Anna Volpe · «the area-code talent» — the lady with the ability to instantly match every Italian town with its telephone area code. For her performances we built the giant Bigrigio; every time she advanced to the next round the producers asked us to repaint it in a different colour.
Production design: Mario Catalano
Direction: Roberto Cenci (the same as on Braccio e la Mente and Chi ha incastrato Peter Pan)
Lighting: Franco Fratus
Pilot location: Auditorium Massimo · Rome
Pieces built: Pyramid of giant LEGO bricks in polychrome (six colours: orange, magenta, red, green, blue, pink) arranged in an ascending staircase · Monumental SIP «Bigrigio» landline phone with rotary dial in 1970s Italian style
Techniques: Expanded polystyrene sculpted with a modular mould for the LEGOs · saturated polychrome acrylic paint in flat fields (official LEGO palette) · philological sculpting of the Bigrigio from reference photos · polychrome glaze finishing
Our role: Building the oversize scenographic props · sculpting, polychrome finishing, delivery to the studio
Second life: The show aired until 2023 (13 seasons in total) · our pieces are part of the first episodes of the Canale 5 format

Italia's Got Talent.

The modular LEGO mould

The SIP «Bigrigio» phone

Comic-book colours

From the 2009 pilotto thirteen seasons.

From the 2009 pilot
to thirteen seasons.