Making a documentary somewhat resembles a construction project: it takes gathering materials (reality footage, archive, interviews, animation, motion graphics, as the case may be) and fastening them together into a coherent narrative. A bit like constructing a Lego set, you might say.
That analogy gets taken to its logical extreme in Piece by Piece, a documentary about songwriter-music producer-performer-fashion designer Pharrell Williams, directed by Oscar winner Morgan Neville. The film, which made its international premiere in Toronto after bowing in Telluride, is composed entirely of Lego animation, from the first frame to the last. There’s never been a nonfiction film like it.
“I didn’t want to do a documentary. And the minute that I agreed to, I knew I wanted it to be in Lego and I knew I wanted Morgan to be the storyteller,” Williams said as he stopped by Deadline’s Studio at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I turned it over to him. I love what he’s done from 20 Feet from Stardom to even the new Steve Martin [doc]. This guy’s like really good at it.”
For Piece by Piece, some assembly was required, to say the least.
“It’s been just an incredible five years of production on this film,” Neville said. “In the beginning I didn’t know how it fit, but now I can’t imagine this film in any other way than Lego.”
Pharrell Williams and Morgan Neville of ‘Piece By Piec’ in the Deadline Studio held at the Bisha Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival 2024 on September 9, 2024.
Michael Buckner for Deadline
Neville recorded interviews with Pharrell, his family members, and key Williams’ collaborators like Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Pusha-T, and Chad Hugo. Then he and the production team transformed all the interviewees – including Neville himself – into Lego characters. Williams told us which Lego-fied people in his life gave him the biggest kick.
“Honestly, my children. That was a joy,” he said. “My wife and my mother and my father, absolutely.”
One sequence in the film particularly resonated with him, he said; it comes about two-thirds of the way into the story, after Pharrell has achieved great success, both with the Neptunes and as a solo artist. Despite fulfilling his dreams, he suddenly feels somewhat adrift creatively. He reorients himself by communing with the cosmos, receiving wise counsel from a certain physicist who was known for waxing rhapsodic about “billions and billions of stars.”
“That was the scene for me that was just like, ‘Wow! This is really happening,’” Pharrell said. “I think the musical contribution and the iteration of all the music was great, and making songs for the film was awesome too, but that space scene and then having Carl Sagan, the likes of Carl Sagan involved — that was just, all of that for me was just like, whoa!”
Piece by Piece will be released theatrically by Focus Features on October 11. Watch the full conversation with Williams and Neville above.