Piece by Piece: How Pharrell Williams co-designed his LEGO® set – and Morgan Neville filmed his life story in LEGO animation

If you had “Pharrell Williams LEGO® set and feature movie” in your 2024 bingo card... well, bingo.

That’s right. Thirteen-time Grammy winner, visionary recording artist, producer, songwriter, Louis Vuitton creative director... Pharrell can now add ‘LEGO set co-creator’ to his long list of creative ventures. Here’s all you need to know about his new set and animated biopic, directed by Academy Award® winner Morgan Neville – and shot entirely LEGO brick style.

A black-and-gold space shuttle? We’re SO on board

Here at the LEGO Group, we’re big on co-play and co-creation – so our LEGO design team and Pharrell worked together over many months, coming up with literally hundreds (!) of possibilities and narrowing them down to a winning idea: a sleek, all-black space shuttle with a gleaming golden canopy, soaring over the Moon on a vibrant jet-stream of colors.

Why a space shuttle? Pharrell tells us of the meaning behind the choice:

“When I was a child, my perception of reality was based on a 20-mile radius. And at the center of it was Atlantis Apartments. We lived in the crash zone of the Air Force Base, where the Blue Angels would fly all the time. So, my reference for looking up was always jets. And when you think beyond – what typically flies the highest, if you will, is space shuttles.”

“I was raised at a time when mankind was obsessed with the heavens, technology, and ultimately rocket systems. Growing up, the space shuttle was the thing that we saw as something which could take you beyond not only where you were, but, like, to the Moon.”

An instant collector’s piece: shimmering recolors and 30+ new minifigure heads

The 966 LEGO pieces that make up the set give shape to a build-and-display model unlike any other the LEGO Group has ever made: not only is it co-created in partnership with a global creative superstar, but it also includes several brand-new color-piece combos (‘recolors’ is what LEGO designers call them) created specifically for this project, turning it into an instant collector’s piece.

“The most notable recolor is the windscreen canopy, made in drum-lacquered gold color for the first time ever. It’s one of the largest elements we have ever applied this lacquering process to, and it certainly stands out as a focal point to the whole model,” says George Gilliatt, LEGO designer.

The set is made up of three parts, each with its own meaningful character: the glistening black-and-gold shuttle symbolizes your limitless potential, taking off and taking you along anywhere you can imagine. The colors of the jet-stream, bright and vibrant, symbolize the imagination, creativity and the power of play to fuel your way.

And finally, an abacus of ‘Phriends’ – framing no fewer than 49 decorated minifigure heads, over 30 of which were especially created for this set, so anyone and everyone can travel along with the Pharrell Williams and Helen Lasichanh’s minifigures included in the set.

Pharrell: It’s a ‘welcome mat’ for all

Here’s Pharrell explaining the meaning behind the abacus:

“The abacus was a beautiful opportunity for the LEGO Group and me to help open the doors for all humans – not just one kind. The minute that you put those bricks in your hand, and you decide to build with those pieces, you can make them into specifically anything you want. But you should feel welcome. So, the abacus created this really beautiful opportunity for us to make sure this [set] felt like a welcome mat.”

And then there’s that angle. How did the design team manage to create the set’s perfect tilt without, you know, it coming down to Earth – or the bottom of your shelf?

“The most exciting building challenge with this model was how to build the jet-stream at an angle to create the dynamic look of the final model,” explains George Gilliatt. “Many different techniques were trialed, including making the entire bottom of the model out of slope bricks, but in the end, we settled for creating some triangles out LEGO Technic™ triangles that happened to perfectly match the angles of some of our slope bricks – which allows the jet stream to protrude seamlessly out of the cloud base.”

Grab the popcorn – we’re off to the movies

But Pharrell’s connection with the LEGO brick goes beyond this set. He made headlines when, early in 2024, he announced that Piece by Piece, his upcoming animated biopic movie, would be shot in LEGO animation. Then the star-studded trailer dropped and broke the internet, and now the world is lining up to flock to the theaters after it hits the screens of the Telluride Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.

We spoke to director Morgan Neville, the Academy Award winner and creative powerhouse behind some of the most innovative and moving documentaries of our time, about what it was like to be presented with that creative challenge:

“I’ve spent the past five years working on Piece by Piece, which was the most unlikely movie that I could have done, which is the thing that got me really excited about it. At the beginning, Pharrell’s agent called me and said, ‘Pharrell wants to talk to you about an idea, but I’m not allowed to tell you what it is.’ And so, I thought, ‘Hmm, interesting!’

Then, when we met, he told me that people had been interested in making documentaries about him for a long time, but he wasn’t very interested in making a traditional documentary, and he thought I could make a documentary about him and then remake it in LEGO animation. And that was the jumping-off point.”

“Everyone who saw it, got it”

It’s a scene that plays out in the trailer, with animated-Pharrell pitching his plan to Neville, and animated-Morgan doing a bit of a double take. Was everyone onboard right away?

“First, we told the LEGO movie team of our idea, and they said they loved it. And then, as a proof of concept, we built a scene – it’s in the trailer a bit – where Pharrell is listening to records as a kid and colors start coming out of the stereo because he has synesthesia where he literally, in real life, you know, sees color when he hears sounds. And we showed it to Focus Features and they were instantly like, ‘oh, we love this.’ Everyone who saw it, got it.”

Color, creative experimentation, and a unique superpower

Still, switching from filming human subjects to thinking visually in bricks sounds like a big creative jump, doesn’t it?

“I grew up being a huge LEGO fan, with a giant tub of bricks you’d grab and just start making stuff, and I knew one thing that LEGO bricks have that seemed to really fit the story is – they have color,” says Neville. “And color is a huge part of this story, because of Pharrell’s synesthesia, where, as I said, he sees color when he hears sound.

So, color becomes a metaphor for his own superpower, which is his unique creativity.

We worked with the animation team to bring in someone to specifically design the synesthesia, and what that would look like. And it’s made with LEGO pieces. So, working in LEGO animation was liberating, not constricting.”

A movie about Pharrell Williams that’s also a movie about all of us

“I feel that this is a movie about creativity. It’s a movie about someone who is unique, and grows up unique and sees the world differently, and tries to get the world to pay attention to that uniqueness. And it takes him a long time to do it – but when it happens, suddenly everybody clues into it.

And part of a creative journey is trying not to lose touch with your voice inside when the world has so many opinions about your creativity. I think, for all its specificity with Pharrell, I actually think the movie is very universal in that way.”

And we couldn’t agree more.

The epic LEGO Icons Over the Moon with Pharrell Williams set is available on September 20th, 2024, and the movie Piece by Piece will be in movie theaters on October 11th, 2024 (US only). We can hardly wait.

The image and name of Pharrell Williams are used with permission. All rights reserved.