Nicole LaPorte, once of Daily Variety and now of Daily Beast, dishes behind-the-scenes tidbits about DreamWorks and its founders:
... Then came Shrek, a fractious production that ran through multiple writers and directors until first-time Kiwi director Andrew Adamson, a PDI special-effects director, finally took over.
From the start, Adamson refused to be intimidated by Katzenberg, and battled with him over such outrageous ideas as sexual jokes and adding Guns ‘n Roses to the soundtrack. Adamson was able to persuade Katzenberg to move in a more irreverent direction.
It also helped that the movie was in production in the Bay Area, at PDI. Katzenberg supervised, but was not all over the animators 24/7. Shrek finally grossed $484-million worldwide and launched a series of hugely lucrative sequels, enabling DreamWorks Animation to eventually go public. ...
This makes a delicious story, and fragments of it may even be true.
But the problems I have ... at least with the paragraph above ... is that
1) Adamson's co-director Vicky Jenson is left out of the equation (along with the directors that came before both of them)
2) Staffers told me at the time that "Jeffrey was putting jokes in and pulling jokes out, right up to release ..." and
3) How do you explain all those hit movies that came after Shrek, lots of them without Adamson's participation, but certainly with Jeffrey K. involved in the process up to his elbows?
And of course there were all those Disney cartoon hits that came before, small features like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King. Andy wasn't on the premises for any of those, as far as I can remember.
I happened to have lunch last week with a story artist who's worked with Katzenberg off and on for decades. He said:
"Jeffrey always gives good notes. Lion King was a mess for a long time when it was in production. I've always thought that Jeffrey was the one most responsible for pulling it together ..."
I don't have any particular inclination to be Katzenberg's apologist. But I do have a strong impulse to get a more complete story out there. I've observed J.K. in action for a loong time, and there are too many people I respect who think he has real creative chops for me to believe that the success of DreamWorks, or Disney Animation before it, was a lucky fluke.
It's nice to have the ball bounce the right way, but for long-term success, you also have to know how to dribble.
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For a while he seemed hell bent on trying to be a history maker in animation for the sake of fame. for example, does anyone else remember when Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was being made, it had toon rendering in it, and Katzenberg was saying something like "It uses this new technology to get 3D to look like 2D, and I call it 'Tradigital'", but in fact toon rendering had been in use since the early 90's.
The Prince of Egypt was underwhelming? Says so. Last time, I checked, it was very successful at a time when non-Disney animated films didn't exactly light up the box office.
Prince of Egypt was only moderately successful. Dreamworks was clearly gunning to have a huge hit straight out of the gate, as well as a few Oscar nominations.
The pretentious subject matter and tone indicated that Jeffrey was seeking to get another "Best Picture" nomination, and win it this time.
But he forgot to make the movie entertaining. Beautiful, epic, and serious-minded, but not particularly entertaining.
And the term "tradigital" was around before jk uttered it.
Prince of egypt wasn't very pretty. It was dull, dark, boring, and derivative. They left the "motion" out of the "picture," and were so concerned with not "being Disney,' but not deciding what they wanted to be. And after all these years, it's almost made it's money back.
DW has made a lot of movies--most of them sincere efforts, but insincere content or characters. By the numbers film making, which assured them a place in the history of mediocrity. Their later films were more financially profitable, but that didn't (and still doesn't) translate into ancilliary sales.
HTTYD was, by far, their best film. Sincere, honest, and although visually disjointed and inconsistant, it proved that the emotional content far outweighs all the bells and whistles. Too bad bluth never figured that one out.
Prince of Egypt was only moderately successful. Dreamworks was clearly gunning to have a huge hit straight out of the gate, as well as a few Oscar nominations.
The pretentious subject matter and tone indicated that Jeffrey was seeking to get another "Best Picture" nomination, and win it this time.
PoE was held up by the audience as as "the one GOOD Dreamworks (2-D)" for years, and--like the Dragon of its day--the audience rubbed it as an example in the face of all the studio's other movies for breaking many of Katzenberg's other Disney-formula cliche's he'd brought to DW. (A realistic, sympathetic villain, for ex.?...Who sneaked that one in??)
As for "pretentious", that one was Spielberg's: He'd wanted to get DW's animation label off the ground with as much somber-epic Lion King envy as possible, and like most first Spielberg flagships, he picked his own Ten Commandments-fan roots to try and go down as giving us...the first really Jewish animated movie! :) (Not counting the last time he tried to with Don Bluth and "An American Tail".)
I remember talking with another proto-Ballonatic fan in the day, who would stubbornly claim that, Spirit and Sinbad aside, DW could do no wrong solely because they were the studio who had once made Egypt and might do so again. Logic did no good to point out that it might have been the contribution of individual directors and not the studio itself...And I've often wondered where that fan is, so I could tell them where Brenda Chapman is working today.
...and the lunch is still free.
For example, does anyone else remember when Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was being made, it had toon rendering in it, and Katzenberg was saying something like "It uses this new technology to get 3D to look like 2D, and I call it 'Tradigital'", but in fact toon rendering had been in use since the early 90's.
Ironically, that led to the same statement that shut down the ink-and-paints:
To this day, JK protests his historical demonizing that he hadn't actually said "2-D is Dead!" in '03--He'd been trying to scapegoat excuses why both Sinbad had flopped the year after Spirit, and backpedaled that the "Tradigital" mix of elements must have "confused the audience", and that if he'd had the chance to go with one uniform style, they "might have responded better" if he'd gone with all-CGI.
Several panicking, misquoted media headlines later, Eisner emptied the Orlando Disney studio. :(
I thought "Spirit" was a solid film, though it only did okay in box office gross.
I remember the crew bad-mouthing it for two years ... until the final months prior to release when many Dreamworkers said to me: "Heey. It's gotten a LOT better."
I have to agree. The prince of egypt was a completely underwhelming film. More a series of scenes than a movie, with weak animation, and an attempt at "importance" that signaled Jeffery's ego had gotten even bigger than anyone thought.
Up until Kung Fu Panda, Prince of Egypt was probably Dreamworks best film. Now they have Panda and Dragon.
I remember the crew bad-mouthing Spirit for two years ... until the final months prior to release when many Dreamworkers said to me: "Heey. It's gotten a LOT better."
I remember it was one of the final nails in the coffin of DW's 90's-JK somber-Lion-King style that the studio was at sea trying to sell old-style Oscar-serious Spirit to a new generation that was getting a taste of more folksy and cross-age Pixar feel-goods:
One week after its BO plunge, the only--ONLY--scene studio marketing allowed to be featured in much of the promotion was the cute lil' Injun toddler pulling the "horsie"'s cheeks, which had been the only light moment of air in the entire 90 minutes. 2-D wasn't "dead", but JK's old-school 90's-melodrama shtick wasn't feeling too healthy.
Back then, a DreamWorks animator said, "Why is the hand-drawn stuff so much like live-action 'Masterpiece Theater' and the CG stuff so cartoony?"
Because porn always leads the marketplace. Pretentious works of art became supplanted by low brow 3D work. Note how 3D work has now matured into more serious subject and tone. So look for the new porn to lead the new market when the serious 3D work begins to pat itself on the back too much.
i was at dreamworks during the shrek birth, death, rebirth, death, reincarnation and then to skreen.
word had it 19 producers had their hands on the film over the course of its gestation...apparently with a final cost of $190 million.
the rest is history
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