Shrek: From the Swamp to the Screen

by John Hopkins

Based on a children's book by William Steig (who died this past October), Shrek (and its upcoming sequel, Shrek II), are offbeat fairy-tale adventures about a big green ogre, his chattering sidekick Donkey, a feisty princess named Fiona, and a power-hungry ruler named Lord Farquaad. In this book, the four main characters have a chance to tell all - about the trials and tribulations of making the movies, the clash of egos, the scenes that didn't work - in their own words. But the human participants (writers, directors, animators, production designers) have their say too, describing the painstaking process of inventing and animating an imaginary world from scratch. The book will have both an entertaining narrative and a trove of facts and trivia, presented with a wealth of illustrations documenting the films from conception to the screen.

Genres: Art

176 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2004

Reviews

[Violetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not to be confused with Shrek: The Art of the Quest, Shrek: From the Swamp to the Screen deals exclusively with the movies Shrek and Shrek 2, detailing the entire development cycle of these blockbuster films.

If a person were to watch a behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of Shrek, this book would be an excellent narrator. It may come across text-heavy to some readers, if they are going into it expecting perhaps a more "traditional" art book. However, anyone interested in the CGI production process will be enlightened as well as entertained by this book. There are pages dedicated to story boarding, modeling, character setup, lighting, layout, character design, architecture, and 3-D processes, all interspersed with amusing commentary from the artists and funny quotes and trivia from the characters.

In short, it is a gorgeous book that was well-researched and would be an asset to any library.

[Jaimie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fully expected to like this book almost as much as I loved the movie Shrek (a penultimate favourite of mine in the comedy genre), but unfortunately I finished it feeling a bit of disappointment. The author does a fantastic job of getting into the details of digital CGI animation and the challenges of using the medium for a full-length feature film, but these details also really bogged down any kind of celebration of the film in general as they overshadowed the humour, joy, and huge amount of creativity that went into the finished product. Expected topics like character development, story origins, and artwork (ie the most interesting parts of film books for general readers) were glossed over in favour of technical specifics and raw computer generated imagery. Sure, the fact that Shrek was one of the first films to really utilize CGI in a crucial way is important, but that doesn’t make for a very enjoyable read for fans of the film.