The animated film ‘Shrek’ was a massive success when it was released, winning a coveted Oscar and producing huge box office sales. It is clear when you are watching the film that the animators have considered different ‘groups’ of people in the audience, children, adults, men, women etc. and ensured that they have something that will appeal to them in the way of humour, music, language, characterisation and representation of popular culture. The sexual politics and innovative animation techniques used in the film also add to its appeal.

The characterisation in the film is very clever, making certain characters immediately appear likeable, and others stand out as obvious ‘villains’. The key character in the film, Shrek, seems anti-social and actively separates himself from other people; ‘There’s just me and my swamp. The first thing I’m gonna do is build a ten-foot wall around my land’. However, he says to Donkey ‘People take one look at me and go, “Ah! Help! A big, stupid, ugly ogre!”. They judge me before they even know me. That’s why I’m better off alone,’ this helps the au

Princess Fiona’s character addresses a lot of sexual politics in the film. She begins as the typical fairytale princess, waiting for Prince Charming; this is seen as an old-fashioned, ‘out-of-date’ type of woman. However, as the film progresses Fiona opens up and we find the she is in fact fiercely independent, resourceful and feisty. An example of her resourcefulness is when she uses the eggs from the birds nest in the ‘singing scene’ to make breakfast for Shrek and Donkey. Fiona’s true character that develops throughout the film is much more similar to the idea of the ‘modern woman’, who is independent and capable, and will appeal to most girls and women. She also addresses the issue of body image. It is a fact that women in today’s society are very conscious of their appearance, and Fiona’s horror at her appearance in her ogre form highlights this. Fiona demonstrates that the old ideas of gender roles are unrealistic and inconvenient in the modern world.

One of the main things that makes the film ‘Shrek’ stand out is the innovative animation techniques used in the film. There are many different stages to the animation process. The creators would have begun by sketching out many different basic ideas for each character. When they had chosen the most suitable one the sketch would have been turned into a clay model that could be adjusted, and copied onto a computer. Once on the computer the basic character could be programmed to do certain movements, and finally the details would be added to make it appear more real. Using these techniques the animators were able to make the characters appear a lot more life-like and human (even the non-human characters suck as Shrek and Donkey). Despite being an animal, Donkey displays facial movements similar to those of humans when he speaks. These are achieved by using digital enhancement. A person is asked to recreate the actions of the characters while sensors all over their body pick up movement and the data collected is used to build ‘muscles’ on a computerised skeleton and recreate human movement. The animators would also have studied the movement of Donkeys in order to make him believable as the animal. By making the characters appear more human the animators help the audience to relate and respond to the characters. They seem more engaging, and simple movements such as dropping the mouth of the character to make them appear sad can cause the audience to sympathise or empathise with a character. The lighting in the film would also have been created digitally to make the background and objects in the scenes look as life-like as the characters. Different lighting would have been required for the forest and the Dragon’s castle, for example, to make them appear to be believable locations. Along side the latest digital technology, the animators also used the basic idea of using camera angles to produce the film. You become aware of camera angles at moments such as the one when Shrek and Donkey are looking at the stars and Donkey’s head appears at the top of the screen. This makes the audience feel that they are looking through Shrek’s eyes. Camera angles are used a lot in the ‘action movie sequences of the film’, for instance, when Fiona, Shrek and Donkey are running away from the

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