LEGO and documentary are not necessarily two words that you would find together in a pitch meeting for a film. But that’s exactly what director Morgan Neville heard when he was approached by Pharrell Williams to make Piece by Piece, and his response was an immediate yes. Not only was this a way to tell the story of an incredible artist, but diving into a new medium gave both Williams and Neville an opportunity to play in a new world outside of their comfort zones.
Told through LEGO animation, Piece by Piece follows the life of Pharrell Williams with interviews from people and artists he worked with during his career. Although Williams was not excited about the prospect of telling his story to begin with, the use of LEGOs allowed him to see himself in a more objective way. This helped Williams come up with an original song for the film, also titled “Piece by Piece”.
Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams in ‘Piece by Piece’
Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
DEADLINE: Pharrell, what made you want to tell your story now?
PHARRELL WILLIAMS: I didn’t… I’m not really interested in telling my story, and that’s because I find other people and their stories far more interesting than my own. Not that I didn’t like it or care for it of course, it’s the reason I’m here, but I wasn’t interested. But being able to work with Morgan, and then do it in LEGO, presented this really interesting degree of distance where I could look at myself more objectively. And maybe because I was being objectified, being LEGO-fied, it was like, “Oh, OK, interesting. Now I can kind of see what other people see.”
When you hear yourself on a voicemail or in a recording, it doesn’t sound the way it sounds to you. It sounds like your voice but different, and that’s because what we hear in our heads is within the cavity of our skulls. We have an internal version that we hear of our voice, but what we hear projected is what gets recorded. And it always sounds different. I have all those hang-ups that you would not think I would have as a musician, as an “artist” or “performer”, but I do have those issues. And I was not interested. But this presented a new way for me to do it.
MORGAN NEVILLE: Thinking back on our first conversations five and a half years ago, I remember you talking about your 50th birthday coming up and there was some sense of this is a way to impart a certain amount of what you’ve accumulated creatively in your life. And I wonder if your 50th birthday approaching was part of that thinking?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think when I was mentioning my 50th, it was more like at that point I was bought into it. By the time I got to you, I already had a vision of how I wanted to do it, but before that, I didn’t want to do it at all. So, I would say seeing Morgan’s work paired with being able to do it in LEGO are the two factors that got me over the hump and got me interested in doing it.
DEADLINE: And Morgan, five and a half years ago, you’re presented with this opportunity to tell the story of Pharrell Williams through LEGOs. What is your reaction to that when that comes to you?
NEVILLE: I mean, my reaction was instantaneously yes, because as much as it was to be any of those things to tell Pharrell’s story or to do a LEGO movie, it was an invitation to play. And that is always exciting because I think at this point in my career, that’s what I’m looking for – a big swing at doing something that hasn’t been done. That was exciting, even though I didn’t know if it would work. The project could have died many times, but the opposite happened and it just kept gathering steam as we went.
Pharrell Williams in ‘Piece by Piece’
Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
DEADLINE: In terms of how you incorporated the music with the visual style of LEGOs, there’s a very interesting representation of synesthesia that we get to see. Tell me about creating that.
NEVILLE: I mean, if you’re doing an animated movie about a musician and they can see sound in a way, it’s like a gift because it lets you use what animation can do that you couldn’t do in any other form. For me, it was one of the ideas in the very beginning that we started talking about, as a way of expressing something that Pharrell sees in his mind’s eye, not with our eyes, and I loved that idea. The first scene we worked on was when he is listening to a Stevie Wonder record as a boy, and suddenly the color coming out is that synesthesia. But what’s amazing is I asked Pharrell about many, many songs and he could always tell me what they look like. That was really a gift for us to be able to do that.
WILLIAMS: The animators did a really good job of interpreting it and objectifying it. It was like, “OK, yeah, this feels right.”
NEVILLE: Even the beats that become physical representations, we tried to make those feel authentic, whatever that means to how Pharrell saw them even though nobody else knows. Pharrell looked at every beat that we designed to make sure they felt right for what he sees in his head.
DEADLINE: And tell me about writing “Piece by Piece”, the original song for the film.
WILLIAMS: There were two versions. There was 1.0 and then there was 2.0, and I think 1.0 was after the animatic and just seeing myself as a thing and not as the person, again, objectified. But then 2.0 came because I felt like the first one didn’t check enough boxes. The first box was just the urgency, and it just didn’t feel urgent to me.
NEVILLE: So, when Pharrell sent the second version, I said, “Wait, there’s a second version?” And he is like, “Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s the same BPM.” And it actually worked incredibly well, and it is much better, even though I like the first version. The second version is awesome.
WILLIAMS: I second that. The first one is interesting and colorful, but this one is… the one that you’ve heard goes from dark to light. There’s such a transition that goes from minor chords in the verses to major in the choruses. It just goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth… I think that’s very representative of my life. I have lots of ebbs and flows. For some people, something that is dark can be heavy, or not necessarily the best experience, but I learned so much when I’m going through ebbs, and there are a lot of lessons in there for me. And by the way, there are lessons in the sunlight. There’re lessons when it’s light and bright, I learned a lot of lessons there too.