He stumbled onto the screen in 2001, sarcastic yet lovable, with a donkey sidekick in tow. Then in spring 2007 Shrek returned in DreamWorks Animation's animated film, Shrek the Third. The film has been lauded for astonishing improvements in animation, from the ogre's far from lovely green complexion to the stunning, complex scenery of the land of Far, Far Away. Through a longtime alliance with DreamWorks, HP technology inspired artists and helped in the creation of the film.
Back in 2001, when DreamWorks was creating the first Shrek movie, the company needed IT infrastructure to help produce their groundbreaking work. HP provided the filmmaker with state-of-the-art technology, which DreamWorks has credited for helping them innovate technically, creatively and financially on several feature films.
"We have enabled DreamWorks to surpass the high standards of computer-generated filmmaking that it set with the first two Shrek films and create its most visually compelling story yet," said Shane Robison, chief strategy and technology officer at HP.
Making it real |
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In making Shrek the Third, DreamWorks used more than 150 HP workstations (primarily xw9300 models) featuring two AMD Dual Core Opteron 275 processors and 4 GB of RAM. These workstations perform as much as 50 percent faster than their predecessors for some applications, allowing the film's artists to work on multiple shots simultaneously.
To render all those incredible visual effects that make the movie magical — realistic facial expressions, fluid character movements, sweeping views of scenery — DreamWorks used a render farm, a group of computers working closely together. Featuring HP's DL145G2 servers, this was the largest and most powerful render farm ever used in a DreamWorks production. Overall, the movie required more than 20 million render hours — four times as many as the original Shrek required six years earlier.
Inventing HP DreamColor |
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Early in 2007, HP introduced HP DreamColor Technologies, which was initially developed to help DreamWorks improve the color process for Shrek the Third. DreamWorks used HP technology to print character and set design, color beat boards and storyboards during production.
"HP DreamColor Technology was born out of all of the practical things we do to manage color consistency in the creation of our films," said Ed Leonard, chief technology officer at DreamWorks. "If an artist creates a background, that artist has specific intention with mood and color in every subtlety of hue, luminance and saturation. Everything about the color is important to us."
DreamWorks' story department used HP printers and scanners in hundreds of pitches. The HP systems made it faster, easier and more reliable for the entire studio to handle the high volume of printing and scanning that went into the production process. The resulting HP DreamColor Technologies are now being incorporated into various products to help serve the graphic arts market.
Virtual face time |
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Another product of HP's collaboration with DreamWorks is the HP Halo Collaboration Studios, a sophisticated virtual conferencing system. When teams from DreamWorks' two studios — one in Glendale, California, and the other in Redwood City — needed to meet face-to-face, they used Halo studios and Remote Graphics Software to collaborate on the same display. This way, the team was able to share valuable resources and talents at each site to review storyboard and visual development pitches, as well as participate in artistic collaboration meetings.
The green carpet |
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The combined efforts of DreamWorks and HP culminated on May 6 when Shrek the Third premiered in Los Angeles, California.
HP consumer campaign manager Renee Bartocci attended this Hollywood event, complete with all the big stars of the movie. Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas all took a walk down the traditional carpet — which was green this time, of course.
"It was fun to be the first ones to see it, besides the studio folks," Bartocci said. "And it's great that HP is partnered with a company that creates films for families. It's also good for HP to be affiliated with a wholesome, creative and technologically savvy consumer business."
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