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Spirit: Stallion of the CimarronReviewed by Madelyn Miller (with a little help from a four-year old)They some things are best seen through the eyes of a child.
Maybe to a child, a movie is best seen through the eyes of your favorite stuffed animal.
I could tell you that the animation was spectacular, the story endearing and the visuals arresting, but you might be more interested in what Nathaniel thought. He said the scariest part was when they had the fire. And the best part was at the end when Spirit got his freedom. I would certainly agree with those comments. At four, Nathaniel wasn’t too interested in the most romantic part of the film, but I would have to say even that was very sweet. I would recommend this movie to anyone of any age. Bring your youngest friend and a stuffed animal.
Academy Award® winner Matt Damon (“Good Will Hunting”) provides first-person narration for the title character. “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” also features the voice talents of Academy Award® nominee James Cromwell (“Babe”), who plays a Cavalry Colonel determined to break this defiant mustang; and Native American actor Daniel Studi, who is the voice of Little Creek. The traditionally animated feature film is directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook and produced by Mireille Soria and Jeffrey Katzenberg from a screenplay by John Fusco. The music is by Academy Award®-winning composer Hans Zimmer (“The Lion King”), with songs by Grammy winner and three-time Oscar® nominee Bryan Adams (“The Mirror Has Two Faces,” “Don Juan DeMarco,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”). ABOUT THE PRODUCTION BREAKING TRADITION DreamWorks Pictures’ newest animated feature, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” goes to show that what is regarded these days as traditional animation is anything but traditional. The advent of the computer in animation has revolutionized the genre, perhaps most notably with the inauguration of entirely computer animated films, like last year’s Academy Award®-winning “Shrek.” However, the computer has also had an ever-increasing impact on 2D—or what is known as traditional—animation. The proof of this is the surprising fact that, for all its painterly qualities, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is DreamWorks’ most technologically complex animated film of any kind to date. Nevertheless, while the mouse may have become one of the animators’ most important tools, producer Jeffrey Katzenberg is quick to point out that no computer can, or should, ever replace the hands-on artistry that sets traditional animation apart. The thing that is unique to traditional animation is what happens when an artist, an animator, gives life to a character with his or her own hand,” Katzenberg offers. “There is nothing else like it in the world. It’s like the difference between getting an email and a hand-written note; it’s personal…it’s intimate. It’s a direct creation of life with a pencil on a piece of paper. Computers can’t do that…not yet.” That being said, Katzenberg adds, “The computer is not the nemesis of traditional animation. What I wanted to do with this film was to take hand-drawn animation and marry it together with state-of-the-art technology to create a film that is the best of both worlds. I’ve been looking for a word that describes it. I consider it to be almost a reinvention of traditional animation, so I’ve been calling it ‘tradigital.’” “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is by no means the first traditionally animated film to incorporate 3D, or computer animated, elements. However, the film represents such a wholesale marriage of these two techniques, that some of the production team have referred to it as a hybrid form of animation. Specifically with regard to character animation in a 2D film, computer rendering had primarily been relegated to background “extras.” Here, even the lead characters, including Spirit, are sometimes computer animated depending on the needs of the shot. In fact, there are perfectly seamless transitions from computer to traditional animation involving a single character in a single scene that no one but a seasoned animator would be able to discern, and even they would be hard-pressed. The primary example of this comes early in the film, as we see the adult Spirit running with his herd. As they run, we are watching 3D animation of not only the herd, but also of Spirit himself. However, as Spirit separates from his herd and comes up to the crest of the hill, the camera zooms in to circle around him, and we witness, but don’t see, an absolutely imperceptible 2D takeover of the shot. Then, as the camera moves back, there is another takeover, this time 3D, that is equally seamless. That is only one of many examples of the synergistic artistry of computer and traditional animation in “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.” Whether 2D or 3D, horses are notoriously difficult to draw and even more so to animate, which speaks to why “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is the first animated film to feature a horse as its central character. Adding to the challenge, the horses in the film do not talk. “We wanted to break all the rules, beginning with the fact that the movie is told through the eyes of a horse, and the horse doesn’t talk. No animals in the movie talk,” Katzenberg points out. The decision to have the horses not speak was made early in the production. Director Kelly Asbury recalls, “We realized that the minute you have a horse speak, it’s a comedy. You just can’t take a talking horse seriously; it was comical no matter what we did. So, the choice was to make the animals more natural and allow them to act through the animation.” Despite there being no spoken dialogue between the animals in the movie, and not much more on the part of the few human characters, there was still a screenplay, written by John Fusco. Producer Mireille Soria remarks, “John was ideal for this project because not only has he written movies about the Old West, but he also owns mustangs and is an honorary member of the Oglala-Lakota Tribe.” Soria goes on to explain that, with his background and knowledge of the subject at hand, Fusco took an unusual approach. “He did an outline first, which is perfectly normal, but he then wrote a novella instead of a script, which really worked to capture the majesty of the Old West and the theme of what freedom is about. It had a more poetic feeling than a script, and his descriptions were very informative to the artists. So, even though he wasn’t writing much dialogue, per se, John was integral to the process.” John Fusco relates that until he got the call from DreamWorks, he had never had much of an interest in writing for animation. “Then they gave me this one sentence to describe ‘Spirit’: ‘It’s the story of the American West, told from the point of view of the horse.’ I said, ‘When do I start?’” That simple sentence sparked a revelation for the writer. “We’ve heard stories of how the West was won or lost, depending on the human perspective. But, undoubtedly, one of the most pivotal players in the drama that was the American West was the horse, and it’s never been told through their eyes. It was an inspiration and a challenge.” Fusco, who was further inspired by the 22 mustangs living on his New England farm, continues, “From that basic description, I took Spirit on a journey from his life on the open plains to captivity with the Cavalry to the world of the Native Americans. This horse brings us through some of the salient changes in the Old West leading to the coming of the railroad and what was considered really to be the last free days of the frontier. But it has themes that resonate today—particularly at this time in our history—about never letting anyone break your spirit.” Director Lorna Cook agrees, “I always thought this movie had themes that were strong, regardless of time or place. But now, more than ever, the value of freedom and our connections to home and those we love… What could be more important?” HORSE SENSE The first, and perhaps most daunting challenge in making the film came with the title: “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron”—a stallion being, by definition, a horse. “Horses are among the most beloved and beautiful creatures on the planet,” Katzenberg says, “and I think there is a connection that we as human beings have had with horses, going back thousands of years. For all of those reasons, I loved the idea of an animated movie about horses, but I know that there is no animal more difficult to animate.” There are several elements that have primarily kept horses off the drawing boards of animators. They have a long, inflexible spine, a defined musculature seen in their every movement, and a wide range of gaits. Their faces pose another kind of challenge, characterized by an elongated muzzle, with the eyes set high and wide, and the mouth set low. Understanding the problems, Katzenberg knew that when he told the animation team “horses,” he was throwing down the gauntlet. But he also knew who would be the first to pick it up. “If you were to name the greatest animators working today, James Baxter would be one of them,” Katzenberg states. “I went to him and said, ‘James, I want to give you a challenge.’ Right from the start, he was so enthusiastic about the idea. He led the charge and rallied the rest of the animators, who, together, set an extraordinary benchmark for what could be achieved.” The supervising animator for the character of Spirit, Baxter admits that his initial enthusiasm was somewhat tempered by the reality of the task ahead. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever undertaken on a picture. I literally spent the first few weeks with my door shut, telling everyone, ‘Go away; I’ve got to concentrate.’ It was quite daunting because when I first started to draw horses, I suddenly realized how little I knew.” What the animators didn’t know, they were about to learn. The entire animation team began an intensive crash course in equine anatomy, movement, locomotion and behavior. With the Los Angeles Equestrian Center conveniently located within a mile of the DreamWorks animation campus, the animators spent hours upon hours studying and sketching real horses. Much of the time was spent observing a magnificent buckskin-colored mustang stallion, which served as the real-life model for Spirit. The animators also benefited enormously from the expertise of two of the horse world’s most respected authorities, Dr. Deb Bennett and Dr. Stuart Sumida, who served as the film’s horse consultants. The consultants engaged the animators in a multi-pronged training program, teaching them about horses from the inside out. The lectures might have left the animators wondering if what had appeared challenging was closer to impossible. Aside from the fact that horses have that long, rigid spine, other parts of their anatomy are almost always moving, from the long neck that bends and swings, to the tail that flicks and swishes, to the ears that pivot to capture sound, to the lips that serve as their “hands.” Putting it all in motion, the animation team was educated about the varying gaits of a horse, beginning with a walk and accelerating to a trot, a canter, and a full gallop. More than just the speed, they had to learn the individual components of each gait, not to mention the emotions behind them. For example, the frolicking gallop of a horse at play is entirely different from a gallop instigated by fear. To depict motion, animators often use a technique called “squash and stretch.” “In cartoon terms, it is when you deform an object, squashing it down or stretching it out, depending on how it’s moving,” Baxter explains. “The more ‘cartoony’ the project, the more extreme you can get with it, but the more realistic the project, the more subtle it has to be. We did use squash and stretch on the horses, but it’s very contained and in very specific parts of their bodies—it’s in the shoulders, it’s in the fetlocks… It is there, but it’s subtle and hidden.” To Drs. Bennett and Sumida, it was especially important to pass on to the animators a healthy respect for the intelligence and complex emotional lives of horses. “Horses are actually really smart and very curious and they have the range of emotions and feelings that you would expect of any intelligent animal,” Sumida says. “Horses are also extremely honest,” Bennett adds. “What I mean by that is they do have ways of transmitting what is going on inside and how they are about to react, so it was important that the animators be able to ‘read’ a horse and then put that information on the screen.” That ability was key to James Baxter and the team working on the character of Spirit, who is in virtually every scene in the movie and whose emotions run the gamut from the joy of freedom, to the desperation of capture, to his defiance of being broken. Baxter notes that Spirit’s name was his first inspiration. “We set out to create a horse that felt indomitable. He’s extremely proud and very brave, and his desire for freedom overcomes everything. At the heart of the character is a spirit that cannot be broken.” Though the supporting equine cast had considerably less screen time, conveying their thoughts and emotions was equally challenging for William Salazar, the supervising animator for the character of Rain, the paint mare who becomes Spirit’s love interest; and Sylvain DeBoissy, the supervising animator for Spirit’s mother, Esperanza, and the rest of the Cimarron herd. Every thought and feeling held by Rain, Esperanza and the other horses had to be communicated entirely through body language and facial expressions. Kristof Serrand, the artistic supervisor for all of the character animation in the film, comments, “When you have an actor’s voice to work with, you have a starting point for your character. But when your character doesn’t talk, you have to do everything in pantomime, which is a huge challenge, and even more so when you can’t at least use hands for expression. Horses don’t have hands, they have hooves, so even our gestures were limited.” For any character, but especially for one who doesn’t speak, an animator also relies heavily on eyes and eyebrows to express emotions. However, horses don’t have what we would call eyebrows and their eyes are located to the sides of their head, so you don’t typically look into both eyes at the same time. Taking a little bit of equine creative license, the animators moved the horses’ eyes slightly forward and gave them more white around the irises, as well as defined eyebrows. Nevertheless, when the consultants finally got to see the animated horses on the screen, they could not have been more pleased. “They got it right,” Bennett confirms. The same attention to detail was applied to things heard, but not seen. The horse sounds heard in “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” are authentic. Editor Nick Fletcher and sound designer Tim Chau visited stables to record a wide variety of neighs, whinnies and other horse sounds, which would allow them to give the lead horses distinct voices. They then looked to director Lorna Cook to match those sounds to the right character in the right context. “Lorna Cook has had so much experience with horses, it was almost like she had an innate understanding of what they were saying,” Fletcher says. “She would tell us which sounds to use where, and we in turn gave that information to the animators, so they could animate to those sounds.” Cook responds, “We knew we had to replace conventional dialogue with its equine counterpart, so it was important to find the appropriate tone to articulate what the horses were saying without words as we understand them.” |
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TM
And
as much as I loved SPIRIT, I loved watching my 4-year old companion’s
expressions even more. NATHANIEL CHARLES KRASOVITSKY was the right kid to
take to a horse movie. He brought his own stuffed horse with him, so “Harry”
could see the horse movie, too.
This movie is bound to be a classic, the Bambi, or Lady
and the Tramp of this generation. Nathaniel pronounced it as good as his
favorite movie, Peter Pan.
“Spirit:
Stallion of the Cimarron” follows the adventures of a wild and rambunctious
mustang stallion as he journeys through the untamed American frontier.
Encountering man for the first time, Spirit defies being broken, even as he
develops a remarkable friendship with a young Lakota brave named Little
Creek. The courageous young stallion also finds love with a beautiful paint
mare named Rain on his way to becoming one of the greatest unsung heroes of
the Old West.