Like almost everything in computer animation, costume design is a true blend of artistry and science. Once Mussenden designed an outfit, she had the pattern made to the scale of the characters. The animation team at PDI/DreamWorks then digitized the flat patterns into the computer and virtually sewed them together to Mussenden’s specifications.
One of the challenges of a digital wardrobe is that the clothes need to move and bend with the characters wearing them. The effects team studied the way clothing compresses and wrinkles in relationship to the deformation of the body. They then put together about a dozen of the most common poses that produce wrinkles, like bending your elbow. By ascertaining where and how you would expect wrinkles to appear, and determining their parameters, the team was able to develop a program that automatically generates wrinkles in the clothes corresponding to the wearer’s movements. Mussenden’s cloth samples were key to the success of the procedure, as the animators were able to distinguish the wrinkling properties that vary from fabric to fabric. For example, velvet tends to hide creases, while satin accentuates them.
Like the film’s design elements, the music of “Shrek 2” is a blend of the classic and contemporary, combining traditional score with old and new songs from several noted recording artists and even a few legends. Adamson says, “We gave the challenge of integrating the score with songs to Harry Gregson-Williams, who was one of the composers on the first ‘Shrek,’ and once again he did a great job. We were also lucky enough to have Chris Douridas as our music supervisor, who was able to pull from a lot of different artists.”
Gregson-Williams notes, “There are quite a few songs in the movie so the score has to operate on different levels, which is fun to do. The music often has to come out of one kind of song into a very different kind of scene—perhaps a romantic moment between Shrek and Fiona, or a funny scene with Donkey and Puss In Boots. So the score is really the glue that is used to keep the story together, because the music is quite varied in this movie.”
Gregson-Williams also collaborated with Adamson, Aron Warner and others on the Fairy Godmother song, which is a send-up of those abracadabra songs we’ve all known since childhood. “It’s the quintessential ‘I’m your Fairy Godmother, here to solve your problems in a song’ song. But it keeps going and going and becomes more and more outrageous, until Fiona can’t take it anymore,” Adamson laughs. “Even in the recording studio, Jennifer Saunders would be belting out the song in character as the Fairy Godmother, and we would just be in hysterics.”
Warner says, “We have a very eclectic group of songs that really support the story. They all somewhat represent the voice of Shrek in an honest and pure way, which is how we went about picking the artists we have.”
“I’ve never worked on a movie that was easier to find people who wanted to be involved in it,” Douridas states. “A lot of the groundwork was laid with the first film. Any musician who has a kid had seen the movie 100 times, and they knew that if they participated in ‘Shrek 2,’ they would be that much cooler in their kid’s eyes. But everybody we approached wanted to be part of ‘Shrek 2.’”
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