Shrek

Shrek

AKA SHREK

Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated, comedy film loosely based on the 1990 fairytale picture book of the same name by William Steig. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson in their directorial debuts, it stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow as the voices of the lead characters. The film parodies other films adapted from fairy tale storylines, primarily aimed at animated Disney films. In the story, Shrek (Myers) finds his swamp overrun by fairy tale creatures who have been banished by a corrupt Lord Farquaad (Lithgow) aspiring to be king. Shrek makes a deal with Farquaad to regain control of his swamp in return for rescuing Princess Fiona (Diaz), whom he intends to marry. With the help of Donkey (Murphy), Shrek embarks on his quest but soon falls in love with the princess, who is hiding a secret that will change his life forever.

The rights to Steig's book were purchased by Steven Spielberg in 1991. He originally planned to produce a traditionally-animated film based on the book, but John H. Williams convinced him to bring the film to the newly-founded DreamWorks in 1994. Jeffrey Katzenberg began active development of the film in 1995 immediately following the studio's purchase of the rights from Spielberg. Chris Farley was originally cast as the voice for the title character, recording nearly all of the required dialogue. After Farley died in 1997 before the work was finished, Mike Myers stepped in to voice the character, which was changed to a Scottish accent in the process. The film was intended to be motion-captured, but after poor results, the studio decided to hire Pacific Data Images to complete the final computer animation.

Shrek premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or,[5] making it the first animated film since Disney's Peter Pan (1953) to receive that honor.[6] It was widely acclaimed as an animated film that featured adult-oriented humor and themes, while catering to children at the same time. The film was theatrically released in the United States on May 16, 2001, and grossed $484.4 million worldwide against production budget of $60 million. Shrek won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. It also earned six award nominations from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), ultimately winning Best Adapted Screenplay. The film's success helped establish DreamWorks Animation as a prime competitor to Pixar in feature film computer animation, and three sequels were released—Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), and Shrek Forever After (2010)—along with two holiday specials, a spin-off film, and a stage musical that kickstarted the Shrek franchise. A planned fifth film was cancelled in 2009 prior to the fourth film's release, but it has since been revived and has entered development.[7]

Shrek, a mean and highly territorial green ogre who loves the solitude of his swamp, finds his life interrupted when countless fairytale creatures are exiled there by the fairytale-hating and vertically-challenged Lord Farquaad of Duloc. An angered Shrek decides to ask Farquaad to exile them elsewhere. He brings along a talking Donkey, who is the only fairytale creature willing to guide him to Duloc.

Meanwhile, Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man for the location of the remaining fairytale creatures. His guards rush in with something he has been searching for: the Magic Mirror. He asks the Mirror if his kingdom is the fairest of them all but is told that he is not even a king, as he isn't descended from royalty. To be one, he must marry a princess, so Farquaad resolves to marry Princess Fiona, who is locked in a castle tower guarded by a dragon. Unwilling to perform the task himself, he organizes a tournament wherein the winner gets the "privilege" of rescuing Fiona for him. Shrek and Donkey arrive during the tournament, and ignorantly defeat Farquaad's knights. Farquaad proclaims them the champions, and compels them under threat of death to rescue Fiona, promising to move the fairytale creatures from Shrek's swamp if he succeeds.

Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle to find Fiona. They are noticed by Dragon, who corners Donkey. In desperation, he sweet-talks the beast, learning that it is female. Dragon falls in love with Donkey and carries him to her chambers. Meanwhile, Shrek finds Fiona, who is appalled at his lack of romanticism and surprised he had not slain Dragon. They leave after rescuing Donkey, and Fiona is thrilled to be rescued but is quickly disappointed when Shrek reveals he is an ogre. Despite her demands that Farquaad come get her in person, Shrek forcibly carries her as he ventures back to Duloc with Donkey. The three encounter Robin Hood on their way back, where it is revealed that Fiona is an expert martial artist. Shrek and Fiona find they have a lot in common and begin to fall in love.

When the trio is almost at Duloc, Fiona takes shelter in a windmill for the evening. Donkey hears strange noises from within and investigates, finding Fiona transformed into an ogre. She explains that she was cursed during childhood to transform every night, and that only her true love's kiss will change her to "love's true form". Meanwhile, Shrek is about to confess his feelings to Fiona and overhears part of their conversation. He is heartbroken when he mistakes her comment about being an "ugly beast" as disgust toward him. At Donkey's suggestion, Fiona vows to tell Shrek about her curse, but dawn breaks and she turns back into a human. She finds that Shrek has brought Lord Farquaad to the windmill. Confused by Shrek's sudden disposition towards her, Fiona accepts Farquaad's marriage proposal and requests they be married before nightfall. The couple return to Duloc, while a hurt and angry Shrek abandons Donkey and returns to his now-vacated swamp.

An angered Donkey arrives at the swamp, where Shrek reveals that he overheard Donkey and Fiona's conversation. Donkey tells Shrek that she was talking about someone else, and urges Shrek to go after Fiona before she is married. They travel to Duloc quickly by riding Dragon, who had escaped her confines and followed Donkey.

Shrek interrupts the wedding before Farquaad can kiss Fiona. He tells her that Farquaad is not her true love and is only marrying her to become king. The sun sets, which turns Fiona into an ogre in front of everyone, causing a surprised Shrek to fully understand what he overheard. Outraged, Farquaad orders Shrek executed and Fiona detained. Dragon bursts in alongside Donkey and devours Farquaad. Shrek and Fiona profess their love and share a kiss; Fiona's curse is lifted but she is surprised to see that she is still an ogre and not beautiful. Shrek reassures her that she is. They marry in the swamp and leave on their honeymoon.

Nicolas Cage was initially offered the role of Shrek but he turned it down because he did not want to look like an ogre.[29] In 2013, Cage explained furthermore: "When you're drawn, in a way it says more about how children are going to see you than anything else, and I so care about that."[30]

Mike Myers was re-cast as Shrek after Chris Farley's death.
Chris Farley was initially hired to voice Shrek, and he had recorded nearly all of the dialogue for the character, but died before completing the project.[31] A story reel featuring a sample of Farley's recorded dialogue was leaked to the public in August 2015.[32] DreamWorks then re-cast the voice role to Mike Myers, who insisted on a complete script rewrite, to leave no traces of Farley's version of Shrek.[31] According to Myers, he wanted to voice the character "for two reasons: I wanted the opportunity to work with Jeffrey Katzenberg; and [the book is] a great story about accepting yourself for who you are."[16]

After Myers had completed providing the voice for the character, when the film was well into production, he asked to re-record all of his lines with a Scottish accent, similar to that his mother used when she told him bedtime stories and also used for his roles in other films, such as So I Married an Axe Murderer and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.[31] According to the DVD commentary, he had also tried using country and Canadian accents.[33] After hearing the alternative, Katzenberg agreed to redo scenes in the film, saying, "It was so good we took $4m worth of animation out and did it again."[34] A point Myers disputes, saying "it didn't cost the studio ‘millions of dollars,’" as rumored. "What it meant is instead of me going in for ten sessions, I went in for twenty sessions. I got paid the same.”[35] Because of Myers voicing the character, more ideas began to come. There were clearer story points, fresher gags and comedy bits.[36] "I got a letter from Spielberg thanking me so much for caring about the character," Myers said. "And he said the Scottish accent had improved the movie."[37]

Another person planned to voice a character in the film was Janeane Garofalo, who was set to star alongside Farley as Princess Fiona. However, she was fired from the project with little explanation. Years later, Garofalo stated "I was never told why [I was fired]. I assume because I sound like a man sometimes? I don't know why. Nobody told me … But, you know, the movie didn't do anything, so who cares?"[38]

Shrek was originally set up to be a live-action/CG animation hybrid with background plate miniature sets and the main characters composited into the scene as motion-captured computer graphics, using an ExpertVision Hires Falcon 10 camera system to capture and apply realistic human movement to the characters.[39] A sizable crew was hired to run a test, and after a year and a half of R & D, the test was finally screened in May 1997.[40] The results were not satisfactory, with Katzenberg stating "It looked terrible, it didn't work, it wasn't funny, and we didn't like it."[31] The studio then turned to its production partners at Pacific Data Images (PDI), who began production with the studio in 1998[41] and helped Shrek get to its final, computer-animated look.[31] At this time, Antz was still in production by the studio[31] and Effects Supervisor Ken Bielenberg was asked by Aron Warner "to start development for Shrek."[42] Similar to previous PDI films, PDI used its own proprietary software (like its own Fluid Animation System) for its animated movies. For some elements, however, it also took advantage of some of the powerhouse animation software in the market. This is particularly true with Maya, which PDI used for most of its dynamic cloth animation and for the hair of Fiona and Farquaad.[43]

"We did a lot of work on character and set-up, and then kept changing the set up while we were doing the animation," Hui noted. "In Antz, we had a facial system that gave us all the facial muscles under the skin. In Shrek, we applied that to whole body. So, if you pay attention to Shrek when he talks, you see that when he opens his jaw, he forms a double chin, because we have the fat and the muscles underneath. That kind of detail took us a long time to get right."[44] One of the most difficult parts of creating the film was making Donkey's fur flow smoothly so that it didn't look like that of a Chia Pet. This fell into the hands of the surfacing animators who used flow controls within a complex shader to provide the fur with many attributes (ability to change directions, lie flat, swirl, etc.).[27] It was then the job of the visual effects group, led by Ken Bielenberg, to make the fur react to environment conditions. Once the technology was mastered, it was able to be applied to many aspects of the Shrek movie including grass, moss, beards, eyebrows, and even threads on Shrek's tunic. Making human hair realistic was different from Donkey's fur, requiring a separate rendering system and a lot of attention from the lighting and visual effects teams.[27]

Shrek has 31 sequences, with 1,288 shots in every sequence total.[26] Aron Warner said that the creators "envisioned a magical environment that you could immerse yourself into." Shrek includes 36 separate in-film locations to make the world of the film, which DreamWorks claimed was more than any previous computer-animated feature before. In-film locations were finalized and as demonstrated by past DreamWorks animated movies, color and mood was of the utmost importance.[27