He’s ba-a-ack.
After taking a six month sabbatical from the Mouse House,
master animator Glen Keane is back. Keane – who stepped down from his
directorial position on “Rapunzel” last October due to health-related reasons –
is now back supervising animation on that project.
Master animator Glen
Keane. Photo by Nancy Stadler
Speaking to a room full of enthusiastic Comic-Con attendees (who were in Room 32AB at
the San Diego Convention Center to attend the “Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes” panel), Keane talked about how he deliberately hadn’t
picked up a pencil for half a year.
“Sometimes you just have to let the land rest,” Glen
explained. “I needed that time off so that I could then rediscover the joy and pleasure
of drawing again.”
And clearly that time off must have paid off. For – just
before he boarded the train for San Diego – Keane bought himself a brand-new
sketchbook. “I just couldn’t wait to get down to Comic-Con and start
drawing weird people.”
(L to R) Don Hahn, Eric
Goldberg, Tim Sito, Ruben Procopio and Glen Keane speak before a packed house at
Comic-Con last month. Photo by Nancy Stadler
After his appearance at that Walt Stanchfield panel, Glen
returned to the Sorcerer Mickey building in Burbank. Where he’s now reportedly helping
the “Rapunzel” production team tackle the trickiest aspect of this project. Which
is how to bring a hand-drawn sensiblity to this film’s CG characters.
You see, WDAS’s ultimate goal here is – when “Rapunzel” is
complete – that this CG production will have the look & feel of those
contemporary hand-drawn Disney fairy tales that came before it. Films like “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.”
Copyright 2009 Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved
And Keane’s reportedly right in the middle of this part of
the production. Making sure that “Rapunzel” ‘s characters have the right sort
of stylization.
Clearly the folks at WDAS must be doing something right.
Earlier this summer, select attendees at the Licensing International Expo were
shown the opening of “Rapunzel” plus multiple hair tests for the film’s title
character (Which – given that, at one point in this animated feature, Rapunzel
has hair that’s over 70 feet long – were said to be very impressive). And these
folks came away just raving about this upcoming WDAS production, anxious to cut
deals with Disney Consumer Products so that their company could then make doll
versions of the next Disney Princess that every little girl is going to want to
own.
Copyright 2009 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved
An interesting side note here: After much debate in-house at
DCP about how much hair is too much hair, it was allegedly decided that the doll
version of Rapunzel that will be sent out to stores next fall would only have seven
inches of hair. Which may not sound like much. But when you consider that your
typical Barbie is only 11.5 inches tall, 7 inches of hair is still a heck of a
lot to deal with. Especially if you’re the parent who’s stuck with trying to
untangle this stuff.
Getting to Glen now … I know that there are those who – in the
wake of Keane’s decision to step away from “Rapunzel” – tried to paint this
master animator as someone who was dealing with some pretty serious health
issues. But based on the vital, engaged
guy that I observed at Comic-Con …
Keane knocks out a quick
Beast for a fan standing out in the hallway. Photo by Nancy Stadler
… who spent more than a half hour after that Walt
Stanchfield panel talking with animation fans, drawing quick sketches of their
favorite Disney characters, looking through students’ portfolio and offering them
praise & encouragement (“This stuff is beautiful,” Keane said as he looked
through one woman’s portfolio. Holding her artwork aloft for his fellow
panelists to see, Glen remarked “We should hire this girl”) … I think that it
would be a serious mistake to think that Keane isn’t going to play a huge role
in all sorts of future projects at WDAS.
From the praise that his contemporaries heaped at Glen’s
feet as part of this Walt Stanchfield panel (i.e. Eric Goldberg remarked how he
often uses Keane’s drawings of Tarzan
as an example in his animation classes.
How – thanks to Glen’s skill as both an animator & a sculptor – you can
tell at a glance that this was a man who was raised by apes) to the way all of
those animation fans out in the hallway treated Keane like he was a rock star,
it’s clear that people are thrilled that Glen is back where he belongs. Which
is prowling the halls at Walt Disney Animation Studios, riding herd on “Rapunzel.”
Copyright 2009 Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Welcome back, Mr. Keane.
Your thoughts?