Been thinking about how Dreamworks Animation uses the ‘Fairytale’ leitmotif from Shrek as their theme for their logo, like how Disney uses ‘When you wish upon a Star’ for their logo.
What I get from ‘When you wish upon a Star’ is that any dream you have–no matter how extreme–they can come true. Nearly every Disney film as that sort of set up for their character.
‘Fairytale’ represents how, regardless of how different Shrek is going to be from most fairytales, this is still a story that deserves to be told. In fact, maybe this is a story where its characters also deserve to have their happy ending as well. This applies to the other films as well, given how most of the main characters in Dreamworks films start off has not exactly fitting tradition or standards, but they too have their own unique tale to tell.
And I think that fits into the idea of what Dreamworks is. ‘When you wish upon a Star’ has this optimism that appeals to the child in us. ‘Fairytale’ sounds a little more mature in comparison, and thus appeals to the adult in us, but it still draws us into another world.
Not every Dreamworks film uses the motif in their logo for the beginning of each movie, but it still draws you in and makes you feel like we are about to sit through a story. And every time a film does a variation of that theme tells us what kind of story we are going to expect or draw us into the world of the character(s) we will soon follow.
