CHRONICLES OF THE PAST - "Shrek"

Cast of Shrek

I remember when I got the call to sing on this upcoming film with a funny name. When I went down to the studio to sing there were a couple of my singing buddies, Oren Waters and Fred White. Hans Zimmer was doing the film score. At the time Dreamworks had been working on this film for quite some time, part of the reason was they had started the film with Chris Farley as Shrek but then sad to say he died. After his death then Mike Meyers was called in to play Shrek. At this point a lot of the film had been done with Chris and of course things needed to be re-done.

We knew it was going to be  great film, they showed us some of the scenes and we laughed, we were supposed to be working. This was definitely a first and a twist on fairy tales. Fred, Oren & myself sang on "I Believe" which was the last song on the film.

Of course when the film was released in May / 2001 it was a block buster hit. There were instant Shrek fans all over the place. Everyone was talking about this film. Even though the film was a fairy tale with a twist the adults enjoyed the humor of the film

What was interesting about this particular film project was we were called back to do some more work on the film after it was released. This had never happened before. Since the film was doing so well in the theatres they wanted to put in a bonus scene for the ending. If you've ever seen the DVD at the end of the film that's where there's a party at the end with a mixture of quite a few songs, Like 'Who Let The Dogs Out', 'So Happy Together', and 'Dance To The Music', amongst others. We were sent the lyrics beforehand but we had to wait until we got to the studio to hear the arrangement. The arrangement was great how all of these songs were intermingled together.

Of course since the 1st Shrek film Dreamworks went on to do 3 sequels which have all done well. I only had the privilege of singing on the original Shrek, but enjoyed it immensely. We literally just had fun with this recording session, and to be called back to work on a film while it was still in the theaters was a first. All in all I consider it a blessing to be part of yet another great film classic.

Until next time- Phillip