Free spirits: DreamWorks animators and artists used 3D tools to enhance a painterly 2D cel animation--or was it the other way around?

On May 24, DreamWorks Pictures, the studio that brought the world Chicken Run and Shrek, will release a film that takes animation on a new high-stakes ride. More than four years in the making by 300 artists, animators, and technicians, that film, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, tells the story of a wild mustang in the Old West, the leader of a herd of horses who fights for freedom--his freedom and that of his herd.

Here's the risk: Unlike last year's box office busting animated features, Spirit is not a comedy and it isn't a 3D animation. Filmed in wide-screen Cinemascope, Spirit tells a dramatic story using traditional 2D animation, but with a 3D twist. ...