The Case of Shrek (2001)
Hey, Cassettes, and welcome back to the Black Case Diaries! We’re three old ogres learning everything we can about movies and TV and hopefully teaching you in the process *introduce yourself*.
Animation April is BACK and this week we are covering a movie that not only made a major impact when it was released, but that has risen to peak meme status. Shrek blew audiences away with its unapologetic lampooning of classic fairy tales and storybook tropes. From musical Disney princesses to beloved nursery rhymes, nothing was safe from this film’s hilarious commentary.
Shrek took computer animation to another level, rebuking the highly acclaimed and classic storytelling methods of major animation studios like Disney and PIXAR, and producing a full-length animated comedy featuring realistic human characters. The film refuses to take itself seriously, which makes even its most dated visuals feel timeless.
So come join us in the swamp as we uncover the story behind Shrek!
Dreamworks
Before we jump right into Shrek, let’s talk a little bit about Dreamworks!
Shrek was only the 5th film created by the animation division of Dreamworks SKG. Though the first four films (Antz, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, and Chicken Run*) all had varied levels of success, Shrek became somewhat of a cultural phenomenon.
*Chicken Run was created by Aardman, but Dreamworks secured the rights.
Dreamworks was the result of a collaboration between David Geffin, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Steven Spielberg. The studio was originally founded in 1994 after Katzenberg severed ties with Walt Disney Animation and Spielberg was dealing with the commercial failure of his short-lived animation studio, Amblimation. The three men each had their own division; Spielberg oversaw live-action filmmaking, Katzenberg led the animation division, and Geffin was in charge of music production.
Dreamworks was the first new studio to be created in 60 years, so its founding generated a lot of hype. It became clear almost immediately that their animated films were intended to be edgier rivals to Disney animation. While Disney tried to avoid PG content, Dreamworks embraced it. The most obvious example of this is their first animated feature, Antz. The CG insect movie premiered just weeks ahead of PIXAR’s A Bug’s Life. It was visually and thematically darker and starred Woody Allen. Although the film beat A Bug’s Life in the race to the theater, Antz lost at the box office.
In the early 2000s, Disney entered its post-renaissance era. As their films started to underperform, other studios had a chance to shine. Dreamworks released Shrek in April of 2001, and it seemed that Dreamwork's animation had finally found its footing.
Summary
Once upon a time, an ogre named Shrek lived in a remote swamp in isolation. However, one day it was destroyed by an invasion of obnoxious fairy tale characters. The terrible Lord Farquaad exiled them all from their land and they had nowhere else to go. In an effort to save his swamp, Shrek strikes a pact with Farquaad and sets out to save Princess Fiona so that she might become Farquaad's bride. However, in this storybook land, nothing and no one is what it seems.
Making of
Shrek is based on a children’s picture book by William Steig. Steig was a former cartoonist for the New Yorker that began writing and illustrating books later in life. He was in his 80s when he published Shrek in 1990. The book follows an ugly green monster and his quest to fulfill a witch’s prophecy: that he will wed a princess even uglier than him.
Producer John H Williams discovered the book while reading with his children. His kindergartner was able to recite parts of it after reading it only twice. So, Dreamworks decided to make an animated adaptation.
Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S.H. Schulman wrote the screenplay for Shrek. The film was an adaptation in name, but not in plot. The original book featured a donkey, a knight, and a princess, but no other recognizable fairytale characters. The writing team decided that Shrek was an ogre, whereas his species is unnamed in the book. The film however maintained the important theme of self–acceptance and the love between Shrek and the princess. The book says of them, “Like fire and smoke, these two belong together;” a sentiment that the film captures well.
The story saw a lot of changes over the course of the filmmaking process. For example, originally Shrek wanted to be a knight, despite discouragement from his parents. He met Donkey while saving him from a witch who had enchanted him so that he could speak. In the final product, there is no explanation as to why Donkey can talk, but that’s okay because other animals in the universe can also speak.
When Shrek decides to talk to Lord Farquaad about giving the other characters their land back, it’s because he doesn’t want them bothering him in his swamp. In an earlier draft, it was because his home was burnt down. But the creators realized it was funnier that Shrek stands up to the Lord simply because he doesn’t want to share his swamp.
Shrek the character also went through a lot of major changes. There were about 50 different character designs for Shrek before deciding on his final model.
SNL actor/comedian Chris Farley was originally cast to play the main character. It’s rumored that Farley had completed roughly 85% of the film’s dialogue before his death in 1997. His version of Shrek was sensitive and soft-spoken. His brother later commented on the performance, saying it was much closer to Farley’s natural speaking voice and demeanor.
Dreamworks chose another SNL alum to replace Farley in the title role: Mike Myers. Myers spent a lot of time in the studio refining Shrek’s voice. At first, he chose to record without the now-famous Scottish accent. But after seeing some animation samples, Myers asked if he could re-record. He gave the character an accent reminiscent of his parent’s voices. The animators tweaked the character’s design to match his new way of speaking.
The benefit of hiring seasoned comedians for a comedic animated film is that they can ad-lib lines as needed. Mike Myers was great at running with the gross gags in the film, but Eddie Murphy’s comedic ability really shined through his character, Donkey.
When Eddie Murphy was cast, the filmmakers still weren’t sure how they wanted him to portray Donkey. He essentially created the character, delivering lines better than the directors even expected. When Murphy would sing as Donkey, he was asked not to sing as well as he could. There was originally a lot more singing in the earlier drafts, but when the directors and producers felt like they were getting tired of the songs, it was time to cut some of them out.
Cameron Diaz gave her voice to Princess Fiona. This was her first time playing an animated character. Diaz had appeared in several comedy films before Shrek, and her career was just getting started. She won a Kid’s Choice Award that year for Fiona’s burp in the movie!
The animators used footage of the actors recording their lines to make the movements of their animated counterparts match. This was especially true of Lord Farquaad, played by John Lithgow. Lithgow has a naturally booming voice, so the directors asked him to take deep breaths before delivering his lines so that Farquaad would have a less intimidating voice.
There are about 30 specific fairy tale and fantasy creatures featured in Shrek, with about 1000 characters invading Shrek’s swamp at the beginning of the movie.
Crew members were able to voice characters because the filmmakers were so impressed with their performance for the storyboards and pitches. Characters like The Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, The Magic Mirror, and the Gingerbread Man were all people that worked on the film.
Originally Shrek was not going to be completely animated. The plan was for there to be CG characters against live-action backdrops with models and miniatures. Once the studio decided to go with complete CG animation, the animators still used the completed models as references for set pieces.
Although Dreamworks wasn’t the first studio to create a full-length computer-animated film, they were incredibly innovative. Shrek was the first CG animated film to heavily feature human characters. Dreamworks was able to achieve this partly due to their purchase of another computer animation production company, Pacific Data Images (PDI), in 2000.
Princess Fiona was one of the most difficult characters to animate because she was human, meaning that the audience would know if she moved in an unnatural way. At one point, she was too photo-realistic and not stylized enough to fit into the Shrek universe. So, they had to dial her back and make her more cartoonish.
The facial expressions for all human characters were created using a complex new facial animation system developed at PDI. Special tools, referred to as “Shapers,” were used to achieve movements. This was done by applying interacting layers of bone, muscle, fat, skin, hair, and clothing.
The character technical directors Lucia Modesto and Luca Prasso oversaw the character formation. First, they form the character’s skull and cover it with computer-generated facial muscles. They then layered the skin and programmed the faces to respond to muscle movements. Hundreds of controls, similar to human nerves, were wired into the faces so that animators would be able to create perfect lip synchronization. However, with the different ranges of size for the characters, each character had its own specific adjustments.
To give Princess Fiona’s complexion the translucent quality of real skin, animators used a “Shader.” A Shader determines how an animated surface will react to light by manipulating its shading. This part of the animation process also determines the textural qualities of an object.
The lighting department had a difficult time balancing the concentration of light on Fiona’s face. Too much concentration made her look shiny like plastic, so they had to balance that with broader light that simulated her top layer of skin.
A Hollywood makeup artist taught the lighting and surfacing team what makeup techniques they should use to touch up Fiona’s face. This is somewhat reminiscent of when Disney color artists used their own makeup to give Snow White a life-like look.
One of the biggest keys to bringing a character to life is through their eyes. The iris of each eye was animated to react to the amount of light in a shot. Artificial lights were used to create the gleam that we all have in our eyes as they reflect the light around us.
Creating Donkey’s fur also proved to be a complex process. The animators and lighting department found that computer-animated fur tended to appear straight out of a character as if they'd been shocked by lightning, meaning that it didn’t look like fur at all. Surfacing animators set the direction and layering of the fur so that it would lay flat and overlap. Visual effects artists were the ones that figured out how to have the hair react to the environment. Think about how a character’s hair might look when it’s wet versus when it’s dry. Neglecting details like this would take the audience out of the movie. Even if a character is animated, the audience needs to believe that they are real in their own universe on the other side of the screen. The technology was used for any hair elements in the film, including the frays on Shrek’s tunic.
Human hair, like Fiona’s braid, was done using a different rendering system. Because her hair moved as one clump, it needed to react differently to its environment. It also inherited the movements of her head.
In all animation, large crowds are difficult to create. If you look closely enough, you will see that many of your favorite animated films and shows recycle character designs to fill bleachers/stadiums. In one scene, Shrek participates in a gladiator-esque tournament with approximately 1,000 spectators. During the climax of the film, when Fiona nearly marries Lord Farquaad, there are about 1500 guests in the church.
Character designers created assorted body parts and features that could be combined in 450 different ways. There were 93 motions that these characters could perform, like walking, clapping, and cheering. They were randomly assigned so that every “extra” had some individuality.
Back in 1998, Dreamworks was the first animation studio to use software to simulate water. Before that, CG fluid effects were drawn using graphics programs. Dreamworks/PDI applied their award-winning Fluid Animation System (FLU) to simulate fluids, fire, and fabric.
FLU allowed animators to create reactions between different states of matter, like a liquid coming into contact with a solid object like glass. They could also use it to choose the direction that the liquid flowed, and they could manage different types of liquids and how they would react together.
The special effects team, led by Ken Bielenberg, did a real-life test to see how Shrek’s mud bath at the beginning of the film would look. Bielenberg said, "We took one of the guys, put him in a yellow slicker, and dumped mud all over him. Besides being fun, it gave us a good reference to see how mud behaves."
For the background greenery and foliage, the effects department created a digital greenhouse to create more than 28,000 trees. They employed the same FLU system to make sure that the leaves and greenery moved with the wind.
Producer Andrew Adamson and his team are proud of the effects that they achieved. He said, "All the effects are there to bring a richness and a reality to our world that's invaluable when you're trying to create an illusion of life. "
Dreamworks has its own signature style which includes pop culture references in its movies. These seem hilariously out of place in a fairytale world, making Shrek stand out even more. The various quotes and songs not only referenced other films but also poked fun at Disney Animation.
"Shrek" is a traditional fairy tale in certain ways. It features a hero, a stunning princess, and a cunning villain. But, unlike traditional fairy tales, the protagonist is an ugly, irritable ogre and the princess is not who she seems to be.
To even further turn the fairy tale trope on its head, the filmmakers even considered changing the story so that Fiona was born an Ogre but was under a “pretty” curse.
The movie makes several references to classic films, mainly Disney. For example, Disney's Peter Pan when Tinker Bell falls on Donkey and he declares, "I can fly," and others nearby respond, "He can fly, he can fly." Donkey adds, "You could have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain't never seen a Donkey fly!" which is a parody of a line used in the film Dumbo. Another is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is directly referenced in multiple places including a scene where Fiona is singing to a bluebird.
Disney is not the only place that Shrek pulls references from. There is a reference to the film Babe when Shrek says, "That'll do, Donkey, that'll do," as he and Donkey cross the bridge to the castle. An extended allusion to The Matrix can be found in the scene where Princess Fiona battles Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The gingerbread man also makes a reference to Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol, when at the end of the film he says “God bless us, everyone!”
Even beyond other films, a parody of the popular American television program The Dating Game involving Cinderella and Snow White appears in the scene where the Magic Mirror gives Lord Farquaad the choice of marrying three princesses. Even Lord Farquaad's theme-park-esque castle Duloc is a dig at Disneyland. In fact, the sequence with the singing puppets parodies the well-known "It's a Small World" musical ride.
The little figurines say “Duloc is a perfect place,” and all of the people in Duloc are helplessly under the rule of Lord Farquaad. Although it couldn’t be proven, it seems that this could reflect Jeffrey Katzenberg’s disdain for Michael Eisner, the ruler of Disney at the time.
In one scene, Shrek arrives in Duloc and participates in a tournament. Originally the plan was to have Shrek do the traditional jousting against the knights, but an animator suggested it be like WWE wrestling. The team had already started the animation but felt that it was worth it to rework it as the wrestling idea.
Shrek wasn’t the first successful animated film from Dreamworks, but it certainly was the most successful yet. It showed that the studio could finally compete with Disney, which was struggling at the box office.
Shrek premiered at the Cannes (KEN) Film Festival, being the first animated film in almost 50 years to do so!
Shrek opened on around 6,000 screens across over 3,000 theaters. It earned over $42.3 million on its opening weekend and went on to gross over $484.4 million worldwide.
The film has an 88% on rotten tomatoes from over 200 reviews. The consensus says, “While simultaneously embracing and subverting fairy tales, the irreverent Shrek also manages to tweak Disney's nose, provide a moral message to children, and offer viewers a funny, fast-paced ride.”
Shrek won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 74th Academy Awards. It beat Monsters, Inc. and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Shrek was also the first animated film to be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Eddie Murphy also made history by being the first actor to be nominated for a BAFTA for a voice-over role. In addition, the film was nominated for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Best Film Music and went on to win the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was nominated for a dozen Annie Awards from ASIFA-Hollywood and won eight Annies, including Best Animated Feature and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing in an Animated Feature Production.
When Shrek hit theaters, Dreamworks animation was still new. Although the filmmakers hoped for a hit, no one could have imagined the cultural phenomenon that was about to take over. Shrek would become a major franchise, leading to three sequels and two spin-offs (and counting.) The movie was the perfect blend of gross humor for the kids and adult jokes for the older members of the audience. The story was nowhere near as polished as a PIXAR film, and it lacked the emotional punch that PIXAR tends to pack. But it was an underdog film from a studio in search of a hit. It made the decision to take the kind of character that’s usually relegated to caves and swamps and bring him out into the daylight. Shrek is a movie that teaches us to love ourselves, no matter how others see us. I guess what we’re saying is that Shrek, like onions, has layers.