Shrek Commentary

Shrek commentary with Producer Aron Warner, Directors Vicky Jenson and Andrew Adamson.

Transcript

 * (VOICING HUMMING THEME)
 * ARON WARNER: Hi, I'm Aron Warner, I'm one of the producers on the film.
 * VICKY JENSON: Hi, I'm Vicky Jenson, I'm one of the directors on the film.
 * ANDREW ADAMSON: And I'm Andrew Adamson, the other director on the film, and if you're watching this, you're probably one of those people that likes people sitting behind you in the movies talking, so it's your own fault that you have to listen to us for the next hour and a half.
 * WARNER: We won't kick your chair, though.
 * ADAMSON: Now, this is actually the opening of the movie, which is usually the bit at the start, and we actually were looking for a very classic kind of fairy-tale opening, and we actually ended up we have these brainstorming sessions where we'll all kind of sit around a table and try and come up with ideas, and we kind of came to this conclusion of wanting to open like a traditional fairy tale and having a storybook, and I think it was Aron... I think all of the ideas in this movie were Aron's.
 * WARNER: Pretty much.
 * Shrek: ...brave knights had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison. But none prevailed.
 * JENSON: I love the graphics of that book. Julia Woolf was one of our artists in the department and, oh, she was just wonderful. I love that book.
 * Shrek: ...true love and true love's first kiss.
 * (music stops)
 * Shrek: (laughs) Like that's ever gonna to happen. What the load of.
 * (toilet flushes)
 * Smash Mouth: Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool...
 * JENSON: At one point we thought about having the DreamWorks logo on the front of the outhouse 'cause, actually, you know, the half-moon just seems so perfect, but, well, we got voted down. (CHUCKLES) I still like the idea. See, we're kind of close.
 * ADAMSON: And this is actually, um, this whole sequence was actually quite an effects-intensive sequence. It had some of actually the most difficult things right at the start of the movie, mud, water...
 * JENSON: Yeah, I think in the additional material you'll probably see some of the effects guys wearing a yellow slicker, pouring mud over each other to see how it looks when you take a shower in mud.
 * ADAMSON: Actually, all the difficult things mud, water, and nudity were in this sequence.
 * JENSON: Yes. His bits and pieces are nicely hidden, à la Austin Powers.
 * ADAMSON: Yes, I had a number of our effects artists jumping into a swimming pool, which was a lot of fun to watch.
 * WARNER: But they didn't fart, though.
 * JENSON: They didn't poot.
 * WARNER: I've got to say, when we screened this film in Cannes, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, as soon as Shrek jumped in the water and farted, I know I put my head in my hands. I think we all did.
 * JENSON: Here we are sitting in tuxedoes and evening gowns, wearing borrowed jewels, and everyone's watching Shrek take a poot in the water.
 * WARNER: Did you ever give those back, by the way, the jewels?
 * ADAMSON: No one lent me any jewels!
 * JENSON: I had a bodyguard watching me, so I had to get rid of the jewels at the end of the night. They were a little gaudy, anyway took the outfit into kind of an Eva Gabor direction. Oh, I love the eyeball scene! It was fun, actually. This was important to establish Shrek not only as an ogre who didn't want anybody hanging around his swamp, and eating gross stuff, but you had to like him, so it was fun to watch him just have fun with his day.