Morgan Neville, the director behind Piece By Piece, was equally caught off guard when the producer-turned-pop superstar initially pitched him the idea but told Zavvi that he thinks there’s far more weight behind the decision than many people are giving the film credit for.
He explained: “I loved the idea the moment I first heard it, but I had no idea what it would mean or if it would even be possible – I just loved that it sounded audacious and a little bit crazy. I played with LEGO growing up, just like most people did, and I feel like many people still have a childlike association with it.
“It was an important toy for Pharrell growing up because it’s a tool for creativity and invention and using it for this documentary turned it into a metaphor for the art of creating music. Using LEGO brings out that childlike quality in both the film and Pharrell himself, even though this story has a lot of mature themes.”
Neville’s initial aim with the documentary was to try and make sense of a figure who loomed so large in the culture – whether as a producer, songwriter or a star in his own right – who he knew very little about beyond his deliberately elusive stage persona. He’s been everywhere for more than 20 years, but what actually motivates him as an artist?
“When I think of Pharrell, I think of someone who has all these different guises, who speaks about his art like a preacher from space, but I couldn’t quite figure out how he got like that. He’s a producer before he’s an artist in his own right, so he feels more like the Wizard Of Oz, someone who can travel between different worlds rather than just be defined in a single way, which I find really compelling as a character; a creative person with a bigger vision beyond himself.
“However, I didn’t understand what the creative thread between all these creative endeavours was. When I first met him, the big revelation was finding out how important his childhood was, and it became clear that his creativity is rooted in maintaining this almost childlike innocence.
“Children are the most creative people, and Pharrell talks a lot about how it’s crucial as an artist to hang on to that childlike idea that anything is possible before the world beats it out of you. He’s more in touch with the possibilities of creating art than most of us, as he never takes no for an answer.”
Kids may not be nagging their parents to take them to see music documentaries, but as Pharrell’s story is getting the LEGO treatment, it was essential that the movie would be suitable for young audiences. This is part of why Neville sees Piece By Piece less as a documentary, and more as a broader, inspirational crowd pleaser.
He explained: “When I first met Pharrell, he had triplets who had just turned two years old, and they’re seven now. Another one of the reasons he wanted to make the movie in LEGO was because he wanted to share his story in a way his children would understand.
“It’s been interesting, because I know a lot of kids who have watched the film don’t even know who Pharrell is, and they’ve completely responded to it. It’s why I don’t think it even counts as a documentary; it has those elements, but in my mind it’s an animated musical fantasy.
“The word “documentary” makes a movie sound like hard work for people, that they must care about the subject to watch it. This is a story about a creative person navigating the world – it can work for people who don’t want to watch a movie about Pharrell.”
However, the need to make the film child-friendly meant that there were obstacles in place from the beginning. Not only do several of Pharrell’s best-known productions have lyrics that require a “Parental Advisory” CD sticker, but the documentary footage which has been translated into LEGO form also had several unsuitable moments.
“We knew from the start we’d have to use radio edits of the songs, as those lyrics get very R rated, and it was agreed at the beginning that kids should be able to see it”, Neville explains. “But there’s a scene with Snoop Dogg which made both LEGO and the MPAA very uncomfortable, as the footage is entirely clouded in weed smoke.
“I joked that we should just animate someone holding a can that says “PG Spray” to explain that to kids, and that’s what we ended up doing – and it’s my favourite joke in the whole film. I love being able to play at the edge of the line; I can’t believe I got to make a movie that also features the first ever LEGO drug deal!”
Neville has included some animated sequences in his previous documentaries, but this is the first time he’s ever dove head-first into the medium as a way of telling a complete story. And while there are plenty of inventive, fantastical moments, his main aim was to stay as true to the wealth of interview and archive footage at his fingertips, which yes, does include a LEGO recreation of Snoop’s Drop It Like It’s Hot music video.
“I felt like I went to film school for animation just by making this movie”, Neville continued. “I knew animation was difficult from previous experience, but now I’ve properly lived it, and the amount of detail work and amount of control needed is the exact opposite of documentary filmmaking.
“In documentary, there’s texture and chaos in all the footage you get, but in animation, you’re working with a blank canvas, and it’s much harder to fabricate the weirdness and idiosyncrasies of real life. A quarter of this film is direct translation from real footage, and moments like Pharrell and (fellow Neptunes member) Chad singing in the back of the car offer a kind of randomness you could only get in real life; there’s a simple joy to it you could never script.
“I feel like this movie gets to balance reality and fantasy like that. Yes, we’ve got video footage of them in the studio, but we also get to send Pharrell to outer space!”
Famous faces, ranging from Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar to Gwen Stefani and Timbaland, spoke to Neville, but none of them were told they were going to get a LEGO transformation.
“They were only told it was an animated documentary, and because the process of making it took so long, it took a while to get back and show everybody how they were rendered in LEGO. Luckily, everybody loved it – the only changes anybody asked for were for their LEGO avatars to wear clothes like they’d personally wear for an interview, but that was the only thing.
“It was a really smooth process, no rock star egos!”
Neville is now hard at work in the editing suite on his next documentary, Man On The Run, which recounts Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles career. The filmmaker clearly has a passion for music – McCartney is, naturally, one of the few figures he’s ever been completely starstruck by – but what is his secret to making a good rock doc?
“For me, it’s all about exploring what makes a specific musician unique; how they did something completely differently, which usually comes from the way in which they see the world. In the case of Piece By Piece, I found that Pharrell’s creative process links back to growing up as the kid in the projects who didn’t fit in – he wanted to show the world he created multitudes, which we all do, but in music you tend to be defined by one genre.
“This was a kid who loved Nirvana and marching band music as much as he loved pop and hip-hop, and could never take inspiration from just a single source. His career is the story of someone doing something that seemed weird, until everybody got it – he never changed, but the world did, and grew to understand where he was coming from, which is a great story I wanted to focus on.”
Piece By Piece is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 8th November.Shop all things LEGO
