Shrek 2: Special Effects Interview

I recently interviewed Derek Flood, who contributed his knowledge of special effects to "Shrek 2."

Bell: How long have you been involved in special effects?

Flood: I've been working in the industry for around 12 years now, both on feature films like Shrek2 and Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" as well as for high end commercial stuff like Burger King and whatnot.

Bell: What was your special visual effects contribution for "Shrek 2?"

Flood: I worked in the surfacing department. In CG surfacing involves painting the outsides of objects and characters as well as determining their material properties so wood looks like wood, and skin looks like skin, and so on, instead of it all looking like painted plastic.

One of the main things I did for Shrek2 was the surfacing for the entire forest sequence where Shrek and Donkey are ambushed by Puss-n-Boots. It was a ground breakingly detailed environment for CG - I had to make surfaces for every conceivable thing you would find in a forest for about a 3 mile radius - from moss covered boulders and giant redwood trees down to oak leaves, acorns, pebbles, and moss. It took months to do, but I was rather pleased with the end results.

Bell: Any memorable moments?

Flood: I also did the surfacing for a lot of secondary characters in the film. In the scene where the King comes into the haunted bar for instance I did almost all of the characters in there - the cyclops doorman, the arm wrestling trees, captain hook playing the piano, the martini sipping frog who hits on the King, and the "Ugly Step Sister" voiced by Larry King who I think was probably the first transvestite to appear in a cartoon. So I guess Larry King in drag was kind of memorable :)

Bell: What are you working on now?

Flood: After working on Shrek2 I decided it was time to tell my own stories, so I took a year and made my own independent short animated film called "Emelia" which I just completed. "Emelia" is a quirky tale of redemption about a five-year-old goth girl and the world as seen though her eyes.

Bell: Where can we see Emelia?

Flood: Right now it is touring to festivals around the world, so you can catch it there, and I am also working on releasing it on DVD. I made a website for it with trailers, pretty pictures, and lots of behind the scenes goodies that people can check out here:

http://www.sharktacos.com/Emelia/

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I would like to thank Derek Flood for allowing me to interview him.