Shrek (found "I Feel Good" animation test of CGI-animated film; 1995)

A screenshot of the test.

Status: Found

Date found: 23 Nov 2023

Shrek is a 2001 computer-animated film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, based on the book of the same name. However, production for the film dates back to around 1995, when Chris Farley was originally cast as Shrek. Around this time, DreamWorks made an animation test featuring an early version of Shrek.^[1]

Plot

Shrek enters a gated city at night singing "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown. He comes across a Mugger tied to a rope, who sings along with Shrek. Shrek proceeds to play with him, stretches the Mugger on his rope, and sends him soaring into the night sky.

Availability

Very little information was known about the topic, and all that remained of the actual animation test were still images. In April 2017, YouTuber "unclesporkums" uploaded a storyboard version of the animation test. He later re-uploaded it in September 2017 because he found more storyboards of the animatic. Since voices were absent from the original upload, he decided to voice over the missing lines by himself. The upload can be watched down below and is roughly 2 minutes and 23 seconds long. Considering the storyboards' existence, it’s likely that the actual animation is either somewhere in the DreamWorks Archives or in the hands of a collector.

On July 30th, 2022, LMW user DingleManBoy (aka DoofusManBoy on YouTube) found a sped-up clip of the tape in HD quality on a demo reel of a previous animator for DreamWorks' pre-production stage of Shrek (1996-1998). It was uploaded to YouTube and slowed down/zoomed so that every frame was visible (31 frames total). It is partially covered by another film and has no audio.

On August 14th, 2022, YouTube user TheSecretLifeOfAliens uploaded two snippets of the test, a snippet with just Shrek, and a snippet with both Shrek and the Mugger, without the original audio. The footage comes from demo reels by another DreamWorks animator.

On August 17th, 2022, a video containing early models for Shrek and the Mugger was found on the Hester Studios website. It's unknown if they were used in the final test.

On November 23rd, 2023, the full test (with audio) was uploaded onto YouTube by the test's production designer, Barry Jackson (The Zoom Art Studio on YouTube). For a brief period, the original upload was set to private, but it has since been made public again.

On January 2nd, 2024, Brian Drucker found more high resolution test images on his old hard drive.