Vicky Jenson

Victoria "Vicky" Jenson (born 1960) is a film director of both live-action and animated films, and has been deemed "one of Hollywood's most inspiring female Directors". She has directed projects for DreamWorks Animation and The Walt Disney Company, and is most notable for having directed Shrek, the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, giving rise to one of Hollywood's largest film franchises. Other directing credits include Shark Tale, Post Grad, and a stage production of the play, Time Stands Still, by Donald Margulies.

Quotes

• On ‘Shrek’ we didn't try to figure out how to make adolescents laugh. You have to use yourself as the best judge and use your own instincts. We figured if we laughed at it, chances are good someone else would too.
  • Quoted by Hillary Atkin in "Vicky Jenson: Filmmaker", Variety (November 14, 2001).

• I came into DreamWorks looking to direct. I was hoping to go through story as a way toward directing, because that’s how it worked at Disney, story people became heads of story, and heads of story became directors. And they said, ‘Right now we don’t have a lot of story, but we have visual development,’ and I said, ‘Good, I paint!’
  • Quoted by Michael Mallory in "Firsts Among Equals", Animation Magazine (March 6th, 2014).

• For a long time, the movie [Shrek] didn’t know what it wanted to be. One problem was unavoidable: Chris Farley had died, and the story had been geared around him, so when he went, the story kind of went with him. It went through an upheaval while they tried to find the right tone for it. I think they were really close to shelving the project when a few of us came into story to try and find a tone that we could work with. When Kelly Asbury moved on to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron I became head of story, along with Randy Cartwright. Along with Andrew Adamson, who stayed on as director, we started pulling little pieces together out of what remained, and part of the way through, Jeffrey [Katzenberg] decided that I should be directing. A few months later, we started production.
  • Quoted by Michael Mallory in "Firsts Among Equals", Animation Magazine (March 6th, 2014). Chris Farley was the original voice of Shrek.

• Here we are, sitting in tuxedos and evening gowns, wearing borrowed jewels, and everyone's watching Shrek take a poot in the water.
  • Quoted by Darryn King in "Pixar's 'Inside Out' and 'The Little Prince' Will Premiere at Cannes", Cartoon Brew (April 17, 2015); Jenson is describing her experience of premiering Shrek at the Cannes Film Festival.