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  Shrek 2 Production NotesThe natural order of fairy tales is interrupted in the sequel to the Academy Award-winning blockbuster "Shrek." "Shrek 2" sends Shrek, Donkey and Princess Fiona on a whirlwind of new adventures with more fairy-tale favorites to lampoon along the way.
After battling a fire-breathing dragon and the evil Lord Farquaad to win the hand of Princess Fiona, Shrek now faces his greatest challenge: the in-laws. Shrek and Princess Fiona return from their honeymoon to an invitation to visit Fiona's parents, the king and queen of the Kingdom of Far Far Away.
With Donkey along for the ride, the newlyweds set off. All of the citizens of Far Far Away turn out to greet their returning Princess, and her parents joyfully anticipate the homecoming of their daughter and her new Prince. But no one could have prepared them for the sight of their new son-in-law, not to mention how much their little girl hadwellchanged.
Little did Shrek and Fiona know that their marriage had foiled all of her father's plans for her futureand his own. Now the king must enlist the help of a powerful Fairy Godmother, the handsome Prince Charming and that famed ogre killer Puss In Boots to put right his version of "happily ever after."
After Happily Ever After
The computer-animated comedy “Shrek” opened in 2001 to worldwide box office success and critical acclaim, culminating in an Academy Award, the first ever presented in the new category of Best Animated Feature. On the heels of that success, plans for “Shrek 2” were put into the works, but far from being a given, the sequel was contingent on a number of crucial factors, the first being the story.
Producer Aron Warner offers, “We wanted to do something very different from `Shrek,' by widening the scope. During the process, we were continually asking ourselves, `Is this funny? Is it as heartfelt? Does it have as much to say as the first movie did?'”
“We didn't want to go back and rehash the same things,” producer David Lipman adds. “We wanted to revisit this world, but have it be as fresh and exciting and fun as the original.”
Writer/director Andrew Adamson notes, “When Jeffrey Katzenberg first came to me about doing a sequel, I realized we had painted ourselves into a corner as far as your typical fairy tale goes: We'd let Shrek and Fiona get married, presumably to live happily ever after. But that ended up creating a whole new story angle for us. I started thinking about what happens after marriage, the idea being that you don't just marry your spouse, you marry their whole family.”
Meeting the parents was probably the last thing on Shrek's mind when he literally swept Princess Fiona off her feet and married her. But royal trumpets signal the end of the newlyweds' honeymoon when Shrek's new in-laws-the king and queen of Far Far Away-send a formal invitation for Princess Fiona to come home for a royal ball to celebrate her wedding to her “Prince Charming.”
Therein lay another important aspect of the story: meeting expectations…or rather not meeting them. Adamson says, “We all know that Fiona had expected to meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after. Well, her parents were expecting the same thing, so her showing up with an ogre, as an ogre, is a pretty big shock.”
 Director Kelly Asbury remarks, “`Shrek 2' explores what happens when the natural balance of fairy tales is disrupted. Fiona's parents locked her in a tower expecting a handsome prince to rescue her and break the curse that turned her into an ogre when the sun went down. They expected everything to go as planned, the way it usually happens in fairy tales. They hadn't counted on an ogre named Shrek coming along and breaking the curse in the reverse. Now their daughter is an ogress night and day because, as he's known to do in our fairy-tale world, Shrek skewed the direction of things a bit.”“Shrek” derived a lot of laughter from lampooning some of our most beloved fairy tales and the sequel is no more sparing, taking aim at fairy-tale conventions, as well as some familiar movie moments. Director Conrad Vernon says that the filmmakers had fun finding more fairy tales to spoof. “We really dug into the books to pull from different fairy tales. There were a lot we hadn't used, but the problem was that some of them are so obscure, no one has ever heard of them. So we basically stayed with familiar fairy tales, and found new ways to turn them on their ear.”
Family and Friends
New fairy tales opened the door to new characters, but “Shrek 2” could only have come about with the return of the central characters Shrek, Donkey and Princess Fiona, and, more importantly, original cast members Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz to voice them.
Executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg asserts, “It would have been unthinkable to have Shrek without Mike Myers, Donkey without Eddie Murphy, or Princess Fiona without Cameron Diaz. They were a huge part of the first film's success and making the sequel without them was simply not an option.”
“Our three main characters and the actors who play them are loved by our audience now,” says Adamson. “They are vital to the story. No one else could have stepped into those parts; it had to be Mike, Eddie and Cameron.”
Mike Myers once again brings a distinctive brogue to everyone's favorite ogre, Shrek. Adamson states, “Mike is Shrek. I can't separate the two. Mike steps into the character and it just comes out of him. Beyond his being an extraordinary actor, he is a wonderful filmmaker and storyteller, so he thinks and acts on that level, too. He knows his character as well as or better than any of us, so he was able to offer ideas that more often than not made the scene even better. It was a wonderful collaboration.”
“I've had a great experience being the voice of Shrek,” Myers says. “It's funny and well-written, which is great for me as an actor. But it's also very gratifying to me personally. Families come up to me tell me how grateful they are that Shrek exists in the world because of the message of self-acceptance. The message of `Shrek 2' is that you can make your own happily ever after.”
Returning from his honeymoon, Shrek has his own version of happily ever after that Myers says consists of “living in a swamp with his ogre wife, eating swamp rats and having occasional run-ins with angry townsfolk with torches and pitchforks.”
Blissfully in love, Princess Fiona shares his vision for their future, but first there is the little matter of introducing her new husband to her parents. Cameron Diaz, the voice of Princess Fiona, remarks, “Of course Fiona is worried about how her parents are going to accept her as an ogre, but I think that marrying Shrek gave her a great sense of herself. She spent her whole life thinking that she was going to be a princess with a fairy-tale Prince Charming, but then she made the decision to be with Shrek, who is the antithesis of that. She loves her man for who he is and that gives her great self-confidence, because if you love someone for the right reasons and you accept yourself for who you are, you can live in a swamp and you'll be happy.
 Vernon says, “Cameron gives Fiona that sense of who she is. You can hear in her voice that she is in love with Shrek, whether she is talking to him or about him.”“We are very, very lucky to have Cameron as Princess Fiona,” Warner notes. “Cameron is a combination of strength, humor and sophistication, and that's Fiona, too. They are both great women in every way.”
There is one member of the wedding party who is not about to be left out of a royal ball: Donkey, voiced by the inimitable Eddie Murphy. Never one to take a hint, Donkey invites himself along on the long, long trip to Far Far Away and is soon driving Shrek and Fiona to distraction with his incessant asking of that age-old question, “Are we there yet?”
“Unbeknownst to Donkey, he's become the third wheel, but he hasn't figured that out because he's a jackass,” Murphy laughs. “Shrek and Fiona love him, but you've got to pick your moments, you know. Comes the time when ogres need some alone time. But Donkey is such an optimist; he's always looking at the bright side of everything. He's thinking, `This is all good. It's all worked out and we are together at last.' He is a happy-go-lucky Donkey…I wouldn't have it any other way.”
Adamson states, “Eddie is an incredibly intuitive comedian. I mean, we'd sit and pitch him a sequence and he'd quietly nod and maybe smile…and then we'd start reading the scene together, and you find yourself trying to keep up, which I usually couldn't do. You never know what's going to come out of his mouth. He does more than merely read the lines or just improv; he embodies the character.”
Lipman agrees, “Eddie is pure genius. When he switches it on, he is Donkey, and every word that comes out of his mouth is precious and hysterical. It's gold.”
In “Shrek 2,” Donkey gets some unwelcome competition for the role of “annoying talking animal” in Shrek's life from that fashionable feline, Puss In Boots. The story of Puss In Boots depicts him as a clever and fearless ogre killer, which would make him a formidable adversary for Shrek. But fate turns the tables on Puss and he decides to join forces with Shrek and a very reluctant Donkey.
Adamson relates that “Puss In Boots” had been a favorite fairy tale of his as a child. “He is such a great character. In the original story, Puss In Boots is an ogre killer who helps his master gain the attention of the king, so it seemed appropriate that in this case he would go from being hired as an ogre killer to helping Shrek win the king's favor. All of those elements worked together for our story.”
The filmmakers initially thought of developing Puss In Boots as another English-type character, but that seemed far too conventional for their unconventional fairy-tale world. After deciding instead to make him their first Latin character, they had only one actor on their list to play Puss In Boots. “We pictured him as Zorro embodied in a cat, so from that moment on, Puss In Boots was Antonio Banderas,” Adamson attests.
Making his animation debut, Antonio Banderas leapt at the chance to play Puss In Boots, or, as Banderas refers to him, “El Gato con Botas in Spanish. He is a character I have known since I was maybe three, but I never thought I would have the chance to play him. It was also great fun to have a little laugh at the expense of my Zorro character.”
“Antonio gave Puss In Boots a Zorro personality times ten,” Vernon says. “He definitely embraced his character. He was practically climbing the walls in the recording studio. He was whipping around, hissing and spitting and marking his territory,” the director laughs. “It was amazing, because we thought we made that character over the top, but Antonio took it to the next level and made it his own, which was fantastic.”
It is not unusual for a fairy-tale character to act larger than life, but in the case of Puss In Boots this is especially true. Banderas explains, “Puss has a tremendous sense of honor and a very strong personality, but his body doesn't exactly correspond to how he presents himself to the world. He's really an adorable, little kitty cat-you just want to cuddle him-and that contrast makes him very appealing to anybody…except Donkey.”
It turns out that Puss In Boots had not come upon Shrek and Donkey by chance. He had been dispatched by Princess Fiona's father, King Harold, for the king's own ends, unbeknownst to Queen Lillian and Fiona.
As befits royalty, Queen Lillian and King Harold are portrayed by two legendary actors: Julie Andrews and John Cleese. “They have both influenced so many people, and you realize why when they step in front of the microphone. The characters just pour out of them,” says Vernon.
Asbury notes, “John Cleese is the king of Far Far Away. He loves his daughter, but he has other issues to deal with, and an ogre coming into the picture doesn't fit in with his plans. Julie Andrews is the ultimate fairy-tale queen, who just wants her daughter to be happy. She is much more accepting than the king is. We wanted that warmth and patience and all that we know and love about Julie to come through in the queen.”
Rarely in animation do actors work together, usually recording their lines individually with a director feeding them their cues. So it was a particular thrill for the filmmakers to have Julie Andrews and John Cleese on the recording stage at the same time for some of their scenes. “It was really fun recording John and Julie together, because they obviously know their stuff and were able to play off of each other a lot,” Adamson comments. “As a director, working with performers of that calibre makes it very easy. You just give them the basic idea and they give you everything you need and more.”
Vernon observes that having Andrews and Cleese together added another dimension to the royal couple. “It totally fleshed out the king and queen's relationship. The way they talk and react to each other, you really feel that these two have been married for a long time.”
Both Andrews and Cleese also relished the chance to work together. “It's much better than working singly,” Andrews offers. “When you work alone, you have no idea what the other actor is doing, so it was just heavenly to work with John. The most challenging thing for me about animation is that you are only working with your voice so you wonder if you're over the top. Are you being too animated when you should be being real? It's sometimes hard to thread that needle, but it's fun and rather freeing in a way.”
Cleese says, “The lovely thing about doing animation is that it's like radio, which is where I started, all those years ago. It's my favorite medium because you don't have to memorize lines and you don't really have to shave unless you want to. It's all about getting the performance right and trying things to see what's fun, instead of people coming in and saying, `I'm afraid that light up there isn't quite right.'”
Jennifer Saunders, who is the voice of “Shrek 2's” very atypical Fairy Godmother, couldn't agree more. “Animation is great because you don't have the pressure of what you look like. It's a perfect career move as you get to be an older actress. If you're resisting the odd nip and tuck here and there, animation is the way to go,” she laughs.
The Fairy Godmother arrives in the movie as one might expect-floating down in a bubble and breaking into song. But that's not the only bubble she is going to burst. As it turns out, Fiona's Fairy Godmother is Prince Charming's ambitious, meddling mother, who only waves her magic wand to make her own wishes come true.
“The whole thing about `Shrek' is that it's a parody of other fairy tales, so she couldn't be the nice, happy, sweet Fairy Godmother,” Saunders states. “She's a bit of a showbiz celebrity Fairy Godmother. She is simply determined that her son should marry Princess Fiona, but Shrek has gotten in the way of her devious plans. She's quite an arch character, which I like. It feels familiar.”
“Jennifer was somebody we really wanted to work with from the beginning,” Warner says. “Once we cast her, we started to build the character around what we knew of her, from `Absolutely Fabulous' mostly. But she took it and ran with it. She's a great ad-libber, incredibly smart and just able to hone in on the character. It was a great experience working with her; she was always able to give us the best and funniest performance.”
Despite the fact that Fiona is already married to Shrek, the Fairy Godmother has no intention of allowing such a small detail to ruin her plans for her son to rule the kingdom of Far Far Away. After all, her son, Charming, is every bit the dashing prince of every princess' dreams…even if he does say so himself.
Rupert Everett, who gives voice to Prince Charming, offers, “He believes the dream of Prince Charming. He thinks he's handsome, sexy, athletic, brave-a person who could be refused by no one really. He is all about image and hair products and living in a world where beauty and success are truly only skin deep. He wants to marry Princess Fiona, who is married already, but no matter.”
Asbury says, “Charming is a spoiled brat who wants what he wants. He is the height of egotism, but at the same time, he's a mama's boy. Rupert Everett did a great job with his voice. He made him come across as a much funnier character than any of us had first pictured.”
“We didn't think we'd need Prince Charming to be particularly funny because he takes himself so seriously,” Adamson expounds. “But I hadn't realized what a wonderful comedian Rupert is. He was able to have Charming take himself seriously, but in a very comedic way, which was interesting to see.”
The voice cast also includes some fun cameos, including Larry King as an ugly stepsister tending bar at the Poison Apple, and Joan Rivers spoofing herself as she announces the arrival of such fairy-tale luminaries as Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, and Hansel & Gretel, on the red carpet for the royal ball. Other storybook favorites from “Shrek” are reuniting for the sequel, including the Gingerbread Man, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs and the Three Blind Mice.
Although actors usually work individually on an animated film, their performances are entirely collaborative because they could not be completed without the artistry of the animators. “Basically, all animators are actors,” Adamson states. “The visual side of the performance comes from the animators, so they are responsible for bridging that gap between the actors' vocal work and what appears on the screen.”
Raman Hui, Tim Cheung and James Baxter, the supervising animators on “Shrek 2,” studied the footage of the recording sessions to glean inspiration from the voice cast in animating their characters. Some of the animators even took acting classes in order to learn some of the same methods actors use to express emotions in their characters.
Over the past decade, 3D computer animation has gone from being a novelty to becoming the mainstream form of feature film animation. In turn, many traditional animators, including James Baxter, have traded in their pencils for a mouse. Baxter notes, “The main difference is that we are manipulating an already created model, so you don't have the challenge of drawing one individual character from beginning to end. But in terms of performance and acting, we use the same skills as we did in 2D animation. The computer is really just another tool, it just happens not to be a pencil.”
Computers also make it possible to increase the cast many thousandfold, and with each new computer-animated film, these virtual “extras” become more sophisticated and more complex. In “Shrek 2,” the biggest crowd scene involved almost 6,000 of Far Far Away's subjects who have turned out to greet their returning princess and her husband.
As in “Shrek,” a digital dollhouse of men, women and children was rendered in the computer, beginning with generic versions of each. By varying elements such as the physiques, the hair and the clothing, the archetypes could be multiplied into a myriad of different figures. The animators could also choose from a library of actions, called cycles, to assign to different characters, including clapping, waving, walking, and so on.
What sets “Shrek 2's” crowds apart is the development of the dynamic crowd character, or DCC, which has additional controls, allowing them to focus on and react to the action. As most effects are intended to be, the DCC system would be more conspicuous by its absence. A regular cycle would have all the crowd characters looking at the same point in space, which is unnatural. By adding a “look at” control, the animators can make the crowds appear actually to be watching the action from their individual vantage points. The crowds can even be made to split their points of interest, with some looking at Fiona, while the rest are watching Shrek.
Visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg explains, “We wanted the crowds to react dynamically to what's going on in the scene. For instance, you could have a character walking along, and as Shrek goes by, he is startled. He needs to react to that-do a double take or turn his body and track along with Shrek. That is the main advantage of the dynamic crowd character.”
In addition, the DCC gives the animators control over foot orientation and position, which means they can adjust the characters to the terrain beneath their feet and keep them balanced. The animators can also change the speed of the action cycles or even combine cycles. All of these features add some semblance of individuality to the film's thousands of background characters.
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