DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation was founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, and Katzenberg had just left Disney in acrimonious circumstances — which shaped the studio's entire house style. Where Disney was sincere, DreamWorks was knowing; where Disney used orchestral score, DreamWorks used pop needle-drops; where Disney's fairy tales were reverent, Shrek was a sustained joke at their expense.
About DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation was founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, and Katzenberg had just left Disney in acrimonious circumstances — which shaped the studio's entire house style. Where Disney was sincere, DreamWorks was knowing; where Disney used orchestral score, DreamWorks used pop needle-drops; where Disney's fairy tales were reverent, Shrek was a sustained joke at their expense. That posture defined mainstream animation for a decade and was widely imitated, not always well. The studio has since moved away from it, and its strongest recent work — the How to Train Your Dragon films in particular — is sincere in exactly the way the early films refused to be.
Jeffrey Katzenberg founded the studio immediately after leaving Disney, and the early films' irreverence toward fairy tales is not a coincidence.
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Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | 1994–2000 | Antz and The Prince of Egypt; the studio finds its footing. |
| Shrek era | 2001–2010 | Knowing, referential comedy that reshapes mainstream animation. |
| Sincerity | 2010– | How to Train Your Dragon and a shift away from the house irony. |