The film was directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook (in their feature directional debuts) from a screenplay by John Fusco, who produced the film alongside Mireille Soria. In contrast to the way animals are portrayed in an anthropomorphic style in other animated features, Spirit and his fellow horses communicate with each other through non-linguistic sounds and body language like real horses. The film follows Spirit, a Kiger mustang stallion, who is captured during the American Indian Wars by the United States Cavalry he is freed by a Native American man named Little Creek who attempts to lead him back into the Lakota village. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is an animation movie produced by DreamWorks Animation and directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook in 2002.
