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Directed by: Kelly Asbury & Lorna Cook
Written by: John Fusco
Music by: Hans Zimmer (score) and Bryan
Adams (songs)
Production Started On:
February 22, 1999
Released on: May 24th, 2002 (pushed back
from its original November 22, 2001 slot)
Running Time:
Budget: $
Box-Office: $ in the U.S., $ million worldwide
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Cavalry
Colonel... Gene Hackman
James Cromwell
Daniel Studi
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A
near-silent film set in America's Western Frontier in the 1800s, Spirits
is the rousing tale of a wild and rambunctious mustang stallion named Spirit
and his journey through the untamed American West. Along the way he falls
in love with a beautiful paint mare named Rain, develops a remarkable friendship
with a young Lakota brave, and becomes one of the greatest unsung heroes
of the Old West. Through the eyes of Spirit, we follow the
story of the westward movement, as the mustang runs free across
the American countryside and sees his life changed by the slow but inexorable
push of civilization in the wild. The film first introduces Spirit in the
freedom of the wild, only to have him caught by the cavalry and trained
to be a war horse.
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A 2D/CG
composite coming from DreamWork's Glendale animation house, Katzenberg
calls Spirits "the return" to traditional animation's roots. He
went on to say that this is the project that he is currently most excited
about.
Though
official title is Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, it was also
named for a long time Spirit of the West, and went by the simpler
working title of Spirit.
The
movie features photo-realistic horses set against panoramic vistas and
very little dialogue. The whole story will be told from the viewpoint
of the horse, with his thoughts heard as narrative.
It will
be the first animated film in Cinemascope (panoramic view).
On April 3, 2000, Steven Spielberg managed to get a look at some footage
and was apparently leaping for joy over what he saw.
DreamWorks
bought a Kiger Stallion named "Donner" from a rancher for $50,000 (which
is considered to be a high price). Donner will be used as the model for
the horse, Spirit in this film. Kiger Stallions are noteworthy because
they are a wild breed with traits that can be traced back to the breeds
brought over by the Spaniards in the 16th and 17th centuries. Donner was
most likely chosen so that DreamWorks can work off a horse that is most
like what a wild horse in the 18th century, like Spirit, might've looked
like.
James
Baxter (already responsible for Belle, Rafiki, Quasimodo, Tulio and Moses
in the burning bush scene) will be animating the title character in Spirit.
The movie
was described by a first reviewer, in early July 2001, as "stylized without
being overly cartoony", with "some of the most beautiful horses ever seen
in animation." It supposedly feels more like an epic western
than a cartoon.
Though
horses do not talk -they "just whine and make horse noise"-, a Narrator
is the "voice" of Spirit.
A teaser
for Spirit will premiere on the Shrek
DVD, tentatively scheduled for an October 2001 release.
A first trailer was shown at Siggraph in August 2001, at a panel about
the use of Linux at Dreamworks -who are using Linux exclusively for this
production. "It starts out with music (in a John Williams' style)
and a horse standing on a cliff, the clouds are in the shape of horses.
Then
it pans over with an eagle/hawk flying over, follows the eagle/hawk through
the clouds, over the plains, into the canyons (Grand?) and the narrator
starts speaking, pans over the river in the canyon, then over onto some
mesas and finally to the herd of horses running . That's it for any context.
The narrator (first person/horse) says how many stories have been told
of how the West was won (or came to be) but never a story from the horse's
point of view. 'I remember when the horses ran free.... this is that story.'
"
Head
of technology Ed Leonard says, "To dramatically reduce costs was one of
the big motivating factors in moving animators to Linux. But, it is our
animators' productivity that really counts. Telling the story well, not
the underlying technology, is what matters to us. Microsoft software continues
to play a key role in our overall business, but Linux is particularly well
suited to animation production pipelines.''
Dreamworks
supposedly contacted both Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon to write music
for this film, and Robert Redford to narrate it.
Bryan
Adams announced in an official update to fanclub members in December 2001
that he would be "the voice of the main character, a horse, in
Spirit:
Stallion Of The Cimarron." The Canadian singer made a trip to Los Angeles
over the summer and in early October 2001 to record his voice overs for
the movie. He also wrote songs with Mutt Lange and Gretchen Peters to name
a few, for the May 2002 soundtrack that is expected to contain at least
11 of them.
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