The greatest fairy tale never told

Once upon a time in a far away swamp, there lived an ornery ogre named Shrek whose precious solitude is suddenly shattered by an invasion of annoying fairy-tale characters. There are blind mice in his food, a big, bad wolf in his bed, three little homeless pigs and more, all banished from their kingdom by the evil Lord Farquaad …

Long before the filmmakers could dream of making "Shrek", they had to first read it.

The film has its origins in a short illustrated book of the same name by award-winning children's author William Steig.

Steig's story of an ogre who sets out into the world to find adventure first came to the attention of producer John H. Williams via a very close source.

"Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my then kindergartner, in collaboration with his pre-school bother," says Williams. "Upon our second reading of the book, the kindergartner started quoting large segments of the book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was outrageous, irreverent, iconoclastic, gross, and just a lot of fun, He was a great movie character in search of a movie."

Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who had previously worked with Katzenberg and Warner on "Antz", collaborated with Joe Stillman and Roger S.H. Schulman to adapt the story into an animated action adventure, told with humour and heart, under the direction of Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson.

"The heart of the story is found in what could be called - in the language of all fables - the moral of the story, " says Jenson. "The story is about self-acceptance and that things aren't always as they appear. We definitely turn the concept of beauty on its ear, which I think is a very powerful theme."

"We set out to create a joyful, fun expression of all things we'd like to see and, really, to make ourselves laugh," says Warner. "I Think humour is universal when it's good, and there's a lott of stuff to laugh at in this film, depending on what you know and remember about the world of fairy tales. We hit on elements that have been so much a part of all our lives, and we had the right actors in the right place at the right time. It just all came together."

"We basically took every fairy tale in the book and turned it on its side. Nothing is sacred; every fairy tale gets roasted. These characters are ripe for a parody because they're part of the cosmic consciousness, so to speak," says Warner.

In addition to breaking the mold of fairy-tale conventions, Shrek also showcases some amazing breakthroughs in what have been referred to as the "Holy Grails" of computer animation.

"The computer has been revolutionary in animation - not evolutionary, revolutionary," says Dreamwork's Katzenberg. "That's what's exciting about computer animation. With today's digital tools, if we can dream it, we can make it."

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SHREK THE THIRD

SHREK FOREVER AFTER

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THE ART OF SEQUELS

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