A comparison of the animated films “Shrek” and Snow White 1937. Two years before the start of World War Two. Technology wasn’t even starting to advance when they made the first animated feature film, Snow White. It cost 1. 4 million dollars which today is a lot of money. The film was made by a company called “Disney” and it took over 750 artists to work on it. It was developed and made on single cell animation drawn by hand and traced onto an acetate or celluloid. Each shot moves at 24 frames per second, over a million drawings were needed.
Almost 65 years later, England had defeated Germany in World War Two, England had lifted the World Cup in football in 1966 and in a new Millennium, a new type of animated film was born. Released in May 2001 and cost a “whopping” 70 million dollars, “Shrek” was made. The computer animated film took three years to make and took over 275 people to work on it and they weren’t just artists but new jobs had come into animation like computer animators and software developers. The computer generated images give the film its realistic 3D effect and special software was used to add dimension to cloth and hair.
Special tools called shapers were used to achieve facial and body movements and to help determine where the light would fall which added to the realistic effect. Everybody likes a traditional fairytale with a beautiful princess being rescued and swept off her feet and “Snow White” is typical of this. However, “Shrek” subverts the traditional stereotypes of fairytales, sometimes going back into the traditional fairytale genre. “Snow White” starts with a big story book that introduces the feature and so does “Shrek” with some differences. “Shrek” often parodies the traditional fairytale.
“Shrek” doesn’t always parody the fairytale it still adheres to some of the typical fairytale traditions. “Snow White” has a very predictable storyline compared to “Shrek” which is unpredictable. Subversion of the fairytale conventions is evident also in the film characterization. Evil and wicked is what most people’s interpretation of a villain is. “Shrek”, however, is again very different. Instead of being tall with evil eyes and wicked like the stepmother in “Snow White”, Farquad is short and cowardly, he can’t rescue the princess for himself.
He isn’t as sadistic as the villain in “Snow White. ” This is shown when Farquad is interrogating the gingerbread man and instead of being evil and killing it he just dipped his legs into milk and threatens to pull its gum drop buttons off. The villain in “Snow White,” however, is a lot more evil than Farquad; she plans to get a woodcutter to kill Snow White and bring back the heart. The villain hates and is jealous of Snow White, she also has special powers. She has the traditional witch-like features with black hair and pale skin and has a raven bird which is a symbol of death.
