Glen Keane

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Glen Keane is an American animator, director, author and illustrator. As a character animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios for 38 years (1974–2012), he worked on feature films including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan and Tangled. He received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation and the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation. He was named a Disney Legend in 2013, a year after retiring from the studio.

In 2017, Keane directed Dear Basketball, an animated short film based on Kobe Bryant's retirement poem in The Players' Tribune, for which Keane and Bryant received the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 90th Academy Awards.

Early life

Keane was born in Philadelphia, the son of cartoonist Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus, and Australian-born Thelma Keane (née Carne). He grew up in Paradise Valley, Arizona next to Scottsdale, as a Catholic.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Keane's interest in art developed from observing his father's work as a cartoonist.<ref name="ghez"/> (Keane's father based his Family Circus character of Billy on Glen's younger self.) To encourage Glen to draw, his father gave him a copy of Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy, and recommended he observe body forms and practice creative approaches to life drawing.

After graduating from high school at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix in 1972,<ref name="Brophy">Template:Cite web</ref> Keane applied to the California Institute of the Arts School of Art in Santa Clarita, southwest of Palmdale, rather than accepting a football scholarship to another college. His application was accidentally sent to the Program in Experimental Animation (then called Film Graphics), where he was mentored by Jules Engel.<ref name="ghez" />

Career

Glen Keane demonstrating storyboarding, June 2015

Keane left CalArts in 1974 and joined Disney the same year, where he spent three years working with veteran animator Ollie Johnston on the characters Bernard and Penny in The Rescuers. He then animated Elliott the Dragon in Pete's Dragon, and the climactic bear showdown in The Fox and the Hound.

In 1982, inspired by the groundbreaking film Tron, Keane collaborated with animator John Lasseter (Toy Story, Toy Story 2) on a 30-second test scene of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, which was optioned for them by Disney executive Tom Wilhite.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The test integrated traditional character animation and computer-generated backgrounds (Template:YouTube), and, like Tron, was a collaboration with MAGI. It was Disney's first experiment with digitally-drawn characters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Although the project was revolutionary (and became a predecessor to the famous ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast), Disney declined to invest further in the featurette due to its cost.

In 1983, Keane left contract employment with Disney and worked as a freelance artist.<ref name="ghez">Ghez, Didier, "Interview with Glen Keane". Walt Disney Feature Animation France, Montreuil: May 2, 1997 retrieved 2008-08-10</ref> He animated the character Professor Ratigan in Disney's The Great Mouse Detective; the "Boys and Girls of Rock n' Roll" and "Getting Lucky" in The Chipmunk Adventure; and the characters Fagin, Sykes, Jenny Foxworth, and Georgette in Oliver & Company.

He became a lead character animator, one of the group of young animators mentored by "Disney's Nine Old Men". Keane animated some of Disney's most memorable characters in what has been called the "New "Golden Age" of Disney Animation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Self-published inline He designed and animated the character of Ariel in the film The Little Mermaid (1989), and the eagle Marahute in The Rescuers Down Under. He was supervising animator for the title characters of the three Disney hit features Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas. While living with his family in Paris for three years, Keane completed work on Disney's 1999 Tarzan, for which he drew the eponymous character. He returned to Disney's studio in Burbank, California as the lead animator for John Silver in Treasure Planet.

In 2003, he began work as the director of Disney's animated film Tangled (based on the Brothers Grimm story Rapunzel), released in November 2010, where Keane and his team strove to bring the style and warmth of traditional animation to computer animation. In October 2008, due to "non-life-threatening health issues", Keane stepped back as director of Tangled, but remained the film's executive producer and an animating director.<ref>Glen Keane leaving Disney's RAPUNZEL. Who's stepping up?, Disney in-house memo, Ain't It Cool News, October 9, 2008</ref>

On March 23, 2012, Keane left Walt Disney Animation Studios after 37 years there. In a letter to his coworkers, he said, "I owe so much to those great animators who mentored me–Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston –as well as to the many other wonderful people at Disney whom I have been fortunate to work with in the past nearly 38 years. I am convinced that animation really is the ultimate form of our time with endless new territories to explore. I can’t resist its siren call to step out and discover them."<ref name="cartoon">Template:Cite news</ref> He later said that one of the reasons he left Disney was his experience during the production of Tangled, which underwent several storyline and title changes. He felt that in a big studio like Disney, there were too many conflicting interests, with management pulling people "in too many different directions".<ref>How Glen Keane went from Disney to Netflix to direct - Insider</ref>

In December 2013, it was announced that Keane joined Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects Group to help its engineers create interactive hand-drawn animation.<ref>Disney legend Glen Keane joins Spotlight Stories Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>It’s Official: Glen Keane Joins Motorola to Direct Interactive Hand-Drawn Short Film</ref> He released his first animated short, Duet, at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco on June 25, 2014. It is the first hand-drawn cartoon made at 60 frames per second,<ref>Veteran Animator Glen Keane on His ‘Duet’ With Google</ref> and the third in a series of shorts, called the Spotlight Stories, designed to explore spatial awareness and the sensory inputs of a mobile device to create distinctive storytelling experiences.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> When Google sold its Motorola subsidiary in early 2014, Keane and his group remained there.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2015, it was revealed that Keane and 16 other prominent artists and filmmakers had been hired by the Paris Opera to work on their 3rd Stage project. Keane is the creator of the animated short Nephtali (a reference to Jacob's blessings and Psalm 42), on which he collaborated with choreographer and ballet dancer Marion Barbeau.<ref>Glen Keane Creates ‘Nephtali' Short for the Paris Opera</ref>

In addition to his work as an animator, Keane has written and illustrated a series of children's books based on Bible parables, featuring the characters Adam Raccoon and King Aren the Lion. Keane directed the Chinese animated film Over the Moon, about a girl who builds a rocket and flies to the moon to meet a legendary moon goddess. Written by Audrey Wells, produced by Pearl Studio, and animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks, it was released on Netflix on October 23, 2020.<ref name="Moon">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Pearl Studio Enters the World Stage with Full Slate of Features at Annecy Studio Focus Session</ref>

At the 2018 Academy Awards, Keane shared the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with Kobe Bryant for Dear Basketball, which was based on a poem Bryant wrote on his retirement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On May 26, 2018 Keane received the 2017 Reuben Award for the Cartoonist of the Year <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Personal life

In 1975, during the production of his debut film, Keane married Linda Hesselroth. They are the parents of author and illustrator Claire Keane and animator Max Keane.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Keane has been cited as an artist with aphantasia, a condition characterized by an inability to form mental images.<ref name=aphan>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He is a Christian.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Filmography

Year Title Credits Characters Notes
1973 My Favorite Martians Layout Artist TV series by Filmation
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Lassie's Rescue Rangers
Mission: Magic!
1977 The Rescuers Character Animator Bernard, Miss Bianca and Penny
Pete's Dragon Elliott the Dragon
1979 A Family Circus Christmas (TV Movie short) Animator / Models
1981 The Fox and the Hound Supervising Animator The Bear, Vixey, Tod, Copper, The Badger, The Porcupine, and Tod's Mother
1983 Mickey's Christmas Carol (Short) Animator
1986 The Great Mouse Detective Supervising Animator Professor Ratigan
1987 The Chipmunk Adventure Animator / Storyboard Artist
1988 Oliver & Company Character Designer / Supervising Animator Sykes, Georgette, Fagin and Jenny Foxworth
1989 The Little Mermaid Ariel
1990 The Rescuers Down Under Storyboard Artist / Supervising Animator / Character Designer / Visual Development Artist Marahute
1991 Beauty and the Beast Supervising Animator Beast
1992 Aladdin Aladdin
1995 Pocahontas Story / Supervising Animator / Visual Development Artist / Character Designer Pocahontas
1999 Tarzan Story / Supervising Animator Tarzan
2002 Treasure Planet Supervising Animator Captain Long John Silver
2003 Mickey's PhilharMagic (Short) Animator Ariel
2008 Bolt Special Thanks
2010 Tangled Executive Producer / Animation Supervisor / Character Designer / Supervising Animator Rapunzel
2011 Adam and Dog (Short) Film Consultant
2012 Paperman (Short) Character Designer Meg
Wreck-It Ralph Additional Visual Development Artist
2014 Duet (Short) Director / Animator
2016 Invasion! (Short) Special Thanks
2017 Dear Basketball (Short) Director / Animator Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
2020 Over the Moon Director / Executive Producer / Character Designer / Story Artist / Voice Actor (Space Dog and Rail Worker #3) Feature directorial debut<ref name=Moon />

Publications

References

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• Original illustrations from his children's books at AdamRaccoon.com

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