National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

DreamWorks Animation released Shrek in May 2001, marking a turning point for computer-generated feature filmmaking and signaling a confident challenge to Disney's long dominance of the animated genre. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, the film earned the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and became a defining cultural touchstone of the early 2000s, launching one of animation's most successful franchises.

This three-frame cell, titled Fiona and Shrek, captures a quiet, intimate moment between the two central characters in a darkened setting, their faces and surroundings warmed by a soft golden light rising from below. The near-continuous action across all three frames gives the strip a cinematic stillness, preserving a single suspended beat shared between Shrek and Princess Fiona on 35mm original film.