Shrek 2 - Production

Production

In July 2001, it was reported that the main cast of the original Shrek were set for huge paychecks for voicing a sequel to the movie. Following a successful collaboration with the original film, Eddie Murphy had signed a two-year, first-look production deal with DreamWorks, where he also signed writer-director Todd Field to a two-year deal. The film was produced with a US$70 million budget.

The screenwriters for the first film, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, insisted the movie to be a traditional fairytale, but after disagreements with the producers, they left the project and was taken over by director Andrew Adamson. His writing of the film was inspired from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, with the help of the co-directors for the film, who had spent most of the film's production in Northern California while Adamson spent most of the time with the voice actors in Glendale, California.

DreamWorks began production of the film in 2001, which was actually before the first film was even completed. DreamWorks made sure there was something new to see in Shrek 2 by putting more human characters in the film than there were in its predecessor and improving their appearance, with the use of a few systems that dealt with hair and fur to improve its appearance and movement. The set up for all the characters was done in the first 3 years of production.

Puss in Boots required a whole new set of tools in the film to handle his fur, belt and feather plume in his hat. The character also required an upgrade in the fur shader for his introduction in the film.

According to production designer Guillaume Aretos, Shrek 2 appeared to be a lot darker than the original film; "There are a lot of medieval paintings and illustrations that we used quite a bit also. Other than that there are my own influences, which are classical paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries, but those are not as direct. In fact, nothing was absolutely direct. The design of Shrek is always a twist on reality anyway, so we tried to as much detail and interest as we could in the imagery.”