'Piece By Piece' | Deadline Studio at TIFF 2024 - video Dailymotion

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00:00I'm Matt Cary, documentary editor at Deadline.com. We are in the Deadline studio at the Toronto

00:15International Film Festival. The film, Piece by Piece, just premiered, I tell you, right?

00:21And now it is at TIFF, and we are joined by the film's director, Morgan Neville, and by

00:26the man it's about, Pharrell Williams. Thank you for being with us.

00:29Thank you for having us.

00:30Thanks, Matt.

00:31Piece by Piece, for those who don't know, there's a real reason it's called that, but

00:34explain.

00:35Well, it's Lego.

00:36This is not your usual documentary.

00:39No, it's not a usual anything. It's been a film that's been hard to describe, and now

00:46it's up to people like you to describe it for us. But it is a film, a creative nonfiction

00:53musical, animated film looking at Pharrell's life and work, and it's been just an incredible

01:06five years of production on this film.

01:09Wow. Well, it's not a quick process to animate.

01:12It is not. Animation's not fast, but it's been an amazing experience for me as a filmmaker.

01:19It's just changed my thinking about so many different things, and the fact that I was

01:25invited into it by Pharrell, and that the conceit, which in the beginning, I didn't

01:32know how it fit, but now I can't imagine this film in any other way than Lego.

01:37Yes, I think so. And it was your idea. You really wanted, this was your vision that it

01:43should be animated. Why? How did that come to you?

01:47Well, because I didn't want to do a documentary, and the minute that I agreed to, I knew I

01:54wanted it to be in Lego, and I knew I wanted Morgan to be the storyteller, which he absolutely

02:01told the story. I mean, what he got interview-wise as a documentarian was beyond anything that

02:10I could have imagined, and I turned it over to him because I love what he's done from

02:1520 Feet from Stardom to even the new Steve Martin one. This guy's really good at it,

02:23and so you think about the Mr. Rogers doc, it was like, man, if I could have that kind

02:29of architecture with my story, then I would be willing to be non-micro and totally macro

02:38about it and let someone else put the pieces together, and that's literally what he did

02:43as a documentarian. He knows how to architect a story.

02:47Oh, absolutely. He's proven that through many extraordinary projects. What are some of your

02:53favorite moments in the film? It's really delightful. I mean, one for me is just hearing

02:59your kids, your Lego children, hearing their voices. I mean, that's really sweet, but then

03:06you see Snoop, and you see other people you work with, and they're Lego people.

03:11Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. Honestly, my children, that was a joy. My wife and my mother and

03:19my father, absolutely. I think the thing that blew me away the most, though, was being lost

03:28and having that introspective conversation out in space. That was the scene for me that

03:34was just like, wow, this is really happening. Seeing that part, I think the musical contribution

03:45and the iteration of all the music was great, and making songs for the film was awesome,

03:53too, but that space scene, and then having Carl Sagan.

03:58Oh, that's really cool.

04:00With some Carl Sagan involved. That was just, all of that for me was just like, whoa.

04:05One of the things that I think really opens up through this process is synesthesia. I

04:12hope I'm pronouncing that right. You're one of the rare people in the world who sees sound

04:18in color.

04:20Lots of people do, though. I just want to be clear. Morgan often uses this word superpower

04:26in reference to the gift that the universe has given me. I do agree that there's something

04:34extraordinary about being born with things and the universe giving you things, but synesthesia

04:42and talent are not really unique to me. There's so many musicians who have it, and so many

04:50artists that have it, and even mathematicians that have synesthesia. There's graphemic synesthesia.

04:54It's how they're able to remember the numbers and digits so well, because they appear in

05:01different colors and sizes and angles and stuff in their brains.

05:07The point of this documentary is that the different people aren't so different. There's

05:15more different people than there are regular people. In fact, it's kind of weird to be

05:22placed in a box and feel like that's what you have to be. I think that's more weird

05:26and more of an outcast and more of a misfit than being original, because the universe

05:36made you original. Every person is different. We have triplets, two identical and one fraternal.

05:52The identical couldn't be any more different, so I know. They were literally born one minute

05:58apart. I just think that this film really does a really good job of reminding everybody

06:06that you were awkward in some sort of way, and for you to be who you are as much as you

06:12can. If you're being that, then you're going to walk that way, and you're going to talk

06:19that way. Give the rest of the world context, but don't wait for their approval. Just be

06:27who you're going to be, and then you'll see the people who have supported you the entire

06:31time.

06:33Yeah, I think there is a risk of that. We see people who have accomplished enormous

06:37things, as you have, and we see them as extraordinary, and there's a reason for that. But it is a

06:42distancing kind of thing, like, well, I'm never going to be that. That's inspiring.

06:47Well yeah, but also, please don't measure it by the success or commerciality of what

06:56your dream is. No matter how big, how small, as long as you can do it for you, it's never

07:01too late, whether you're eight years old or you're 80 years old, to start working on

07:06your dream. You just got to do it piece by piece. That's the point. This is the story

07:10that this man has architected.

07:13In terms of synesthesia, though, and I guess Duke Ellington had that, and Billy Eilish,

07:18the physicist Richard Feynman, so it's interesting. People have been blessed with that capacity.

07:25But that is one example where visually you could really bring that to life.

07:29Yeah, I mean, that was one of the exciting things we were able to do. I mean, there's

07:33so many things for somebody who's made more traditional documentaries, where you can visualize

07:40something, communicate things visually, but also you can time travel in a different way.

07:44So something we started thinking about in the beginning is, if you're listening to a

07:50song that Pharrell wrote, that you can kind of be there at the moment of creation, in

07:56a way, and from us getting demos to stems to kind of trying to recreate and be there

08:05next to somebody when they're thinking of something for the first time. So that ability

08:10was really liberating for me, I think, as a storyteller. It was just that ability to

08:17kind of be next to somebody, as opposed to have that distance, which documentary often

08:22has.

08:23Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think there were subtle recreations of a sort that you wouldn't

08:29normally get in a documentary, unless it was very obvious, in a way. But they were seamless.

08:35You didn't realize. But you were living his experience in a way that was really quite

08:38unusual, I think, for a documentary. Piece by Piece is not only a film, also a new single.

08:46So you wrote that, and it's just dropped on YouTube and already racking up the views.

08:52I mean, now it joins a collection of incredible songs. I mean, Blurred Lines is one of the

08:57incredible jams of all time. Whoa, thank you. I mean, it's just amazing. But to be able

09:04to write the music for the film, as well, must have been an interesting assignment,

09:09in a sense.

09:10Yes, sir. It was such a pleasure. And working with Morgan the entire time on what we needed,

09:19what our intentions were, what the purpose is. And again, this is like a living, breathing

09:28documentary. It breathes on its own. It told us what it wanted to be. Because we started

09:44out thinking documentary. But I think the story has also taken on the identity of it

09:55has a passport for... It's a citizen in the documentary world, but it has a passport for

10:03biopic. It has a passport for musical. It has a passport for, obviously, animation.

10:08Yeah, right?

10:09What I think was so interesting, particularly about the music, too, is that I think we knew

10:16from the beginning that there was a piece of music we would probably want at the end

10:20of the film. And so as the film was coming together, I assembled a cut and I showed it

10:27to you. And then that feedback loop of you seeing me seeing your story, and then you

10:34reflecting that back into how you were thinking about how you wanted to sing about your story,

10:38became interesting. And you ended up writing a handful of songs for the film in the end.

10:43But that was a whole new process, too, more like you would do in a musical.

10:47Yeah, it's amazing. And audiences are going to get to see this very soon outside of Toronto

10:52and Telluride. It's going to be released next month, right?

10:56October 11th. Yeah, in theaters everywhere.

10:58All right. We will wait for that and congratulate you. In the meantime,

11:02your international premiere at Toronto, Pharrell Williams and the director of Piece by Piece,

11:08Morgan Neville, thank you so much for being with us.

11:10Thank you. Thanks for having us.

'Piece By Piece' | Deadline Studio at TIFF 2024

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