TORONTO (AP) — When Pharrell Williams and Morgan Neville determined to embark on a film about Williams’ life however animated in Lego items, they knew there can be tradition shocks. But making “Piece by Piece” nonetheless led to some locations that neither Williams, Neville or Lego might foresee.
“We did have extensive conversations about how wide a back of a bikini bottom would be on a minifig in a ‘Rump Shaker’ video,” says Neville, chuckling. “We had many discussions about things I thought I would never be talking about as a filmmaker.”
“Piece by Piece” didn't include any easy-to-assemble directions. It’s half music biopic, half documentary, half household movie. It is, like many issues about Williams’ hit-making life, radiant with uplift, beats and idiosyncrasy.
“Society likes to put us in boxes, pun intended,” Williams says, talking alongside Neville. “Here was a moment where this guy’s view of my life and the way he saw it strung together was incredibly liberating for me. While I’ve never seen myself in a box, this helps other people now to, as well.”
“Piece by Piece,” which Focus Features releases in theaters Friday, begins, like many documentaries, with the director, Neville, sitting down with a digicam crew targeted on their topic, Williams. But on this case, Williams — and all the things else, together with a bearded, bespectacled Neville — are Lego.
“What if we told my life with Legos?” Williams asks within the movie. “That’ll never happen,” replies Neville.
Pharrell Williams and director Morgan Neville — as minifigs — in a scene from “Piece By Piece.” (Focus Features through AP)
What follows is one thing like a conventional documentary full with colourful recounting of previous struggles and triumphs, from his upbringing in Virginia Beach to his string of chart-topping hits, instructed by Williams’ voiceover and quite a lot of speaking heads. It was recorded that means in interviews, both on digicam, Zoom or telephone, after which animated into Lego type. Here, lastly, is an opportunity to see Busta Rhymes as a Lego, together with many others, together with Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliott.
“The first meeting we had was with Lego because if they had said no, there would have been no film,” says Neville, the director of documentaries together with “20 Feet From Stardom,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and “Steve!” “To their credit, they not only said yes, but I think understood the kind of growth it would force them into.”
For Lego, the Danish toy firm, making “Piece by Piece” was its greatest gamble since moving into characteristic movies with 2014’s “The Lego Movie.” Neville approached the corporate’s head of worldwide leisure, Jill Wilfert with a pitch for what can be Lego’s first foray right into a documentary not about itself. Wilfert was instantly responsive.
“The whole idea behind Lego is its endless creativity and limitless possibility, and Pharrell really kind of embodies that,” she says.
As proof of idea, Neville put collectively a 90-second video of Williams reflecting on his upbringing and the inspiration of artists like Stevie Wonder. (A vinyl of “Songs in the Key of Life” is one other a kind of belongings you by no means anticipated to see as a Lego.)
“I came away from that saying, ‘This is totally going to work,’” Neville says. “And everybody we showed it to got it. They were like: I want to see this movie.”
Still, Neville and Williams knew the Lego strategy would imply working inside PG parameters. Some issues about Williams’ life — like being younger and well-known whereas working within the higher echelons of pop and hip-hop — wouldn’t slot in a family-friendly film. Williams says the film “paraphrases” his life.
“There were definitely some areas that weren’t within my expectations of where we might go,” Wilfert says. “We had a lot of good dialogue throughout the whole process. Morgan and Pharrell, there was mutual respect because we are a brand that people have high expectations of and expect certain things of. So we did work with them on areas that we felt did make sense and didn’t make sense.”
It additionally pushed Lego in different methods. Williams is especially proud that the film led to Lego increasing its out there pores and skin tones and hair textures. Williams’ Lego self — which he carried proudly to the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of “Piece by Piece” — was particularly designed to match his personal pores and skin tone.
“You name the type of human being, we fought hard for their existence and acknowledgement,” says Williams. “Lego obliged and I think the brand is better because of it.”
One of the film’s most intelligent designs is illustrating tracks that Williams crafts himself or in collaboration, like Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” or Pharrell’s personal “Happy.” Each is rendered as a novel little glowing set of Legos pieced collectively.
Other, much less completely satisfied features of Williams’ life don’t make the reduce. You received’t see something about the “Blurred Lines” lawsuit, during which Marvin Gaye’s property sued for copyright infringement and received. Nor is there something within the movie about Williams’ current authorized squabbles together with his Neptunes co-founder Chad Hugo. Earlier this 12 months, Hugo filed a trademark opposition over the duo’s title, claiming Williams’ “fraudulently” sought management of it. Representatives for Williams have disagreed, saying Williams “reached out on multiple occasions to share in the ownership.”
“Piece By Piece,” although, does embrace a constructive portrayal of Hugo, significantly in Williams’ early days in Virginia Beach, when the 2 started making music collectively.
“There’s nothing bittersweet. I’m so grateful for my experiences. Chad is an integral part of the beginning, the genesis of my pursuit in music and being there,” Williams says. “I met him in the second grade in band class, and the memories that we have of making music together, I would not be sitting here if it weren’t for us meeting.”
Williams, who's Men’s Creative Director for Louis Vuitton, is gifted in the case of model administration. He launched his debut solo album, “In My Mind,” in 2006 and way back stepped into the highlight, himself. But he has, by his personal acknowledgement, remained a producer at coronary heart. Not all the things about “Piece by Piece” was simple for him.
“A lot of that was vulnerable for me,” Williams says. “I’m, like, crying two times in the story. I hadn’t considered he might ask questions that would trigger emotion. I’m such a produced person. I’ve produced myself so much.”
It’s a sentiment that Neville, as a protean documentarian used to adapting to the fashion and angle of his topics, can relate to.
“Pharrell as a producer is often holding up a mirror to artists to get them to see themselves. My job is to hold up a mirror to him to get him to see himself,” Neville says. “I feel like, in an odd way, we have the same job.”
When Neville interviewed different musicians for the movie, he instructed them that they’d be animated. But he didn’t say how. It was solely later they came upon they’d be Lego minifigs.
“Everyone was so shocked and so elated,” says Williams. “I feel like it released the inner child in all of them. Some of them look at life that way, anyways. Other ones, even the tough guys, were like, ‘Oh, man, this is so cool.’”
Capturing Williams’ life in a playful, even childlike means will certainly assist some youthful viewers hook up with his story. Becoming a world-famous multi-hyphenate might sound out of attain to most, however “Piece by Piece” makes it look, nearly, like a snap.
“There’s a universality that Lego brings out,” Neville says. “I feel like this whole film is an experiment in the tension between the specificity of real life and documentary and the imagination and universality of imagination.”
