Thoughts about Glen Keane

Glen Keane is one of the legendary animators and illustrators of Walt Disney Studios. Keane was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ever since childhood, Keane was interested in art. This was because he lived with a great cartoonist, his dad, Bil Keane. Bill Keane was famous for creating the s how The Family Circus, which is a syndicated comic strip that reflected Bill Keane’s family, (Wikipedia).

From liking art, to becoming an animator, Keane was for the take to path of animation by fate.  In his younger years, Glen Keane took inspiration in his father Bil. Bil Keane, who in hand will joyfully teach him about art and illustrations. For instance, “in his early attempts to draw, his dad gave him a copy of Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy, and instructed him to analyze the body forms and the creative approach to life drawing,” (Wikipedia). After graduating high school, Glen Keane decided to apply to the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), a school established in 1961 by Walt and Roy Disney. Keane chose CalArt over a football scholarship awarded to him by another college, (Wikipedia). To Glen Keane’s luck, his application was accidentally sent to the Program in Experimental Animation (then called Film Graphics). Without him even choosing to apply to this concentration, he was accepted into this program. Keane was marked by fate to become a cartoon animator.

            Through all his years at the California Institute of the Art, Jules Engel specially influenced Glenn Keane. Jules Engel was an American filmmaker, painter, sculptor, graphic artist, set designer, animator, film director, and teacher. (Moss).

Jules Engel was involved with the type of following media: paintings, films, drawing, sculpture and prints. “He received his initial recognition in color design and choreography for the animation dance sequences in "Fantasia" at Walt Disney Studios,” (Moss.) During 1958 and 1970, until he became the founding director of the Abstract Experimental Animation on Film Department for the California Institute of the Arts, which is where he became Glen Keane’s mentor in the program. (Moss.) After Engel’s death in September 2003, according to the Center for Visual Music, “he left behind a legacy of more than thirty-three personal films and thousands of animation drawings. The Jules Engel Preservation Project was established in 2003 by Center for Visual Music (CVM) to insure archival conservation of his work.”

            Upon leaving the California Institute of the Arts in 1974, Glen Keane was accepted to start working at Walt Disney Studios, (Wikipedia). While in Disney, Keane made his debut work in 1977, by contributing on creating the movie The Rescuers, which took him three years to make, (Cobain). The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. This movie is about “mice, jittery janitor Bernard (Bob Newhart) and his co-agent, the elegant Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), set out to rescue Penny (Michelle Stacy), an orphan girl being held prisoner in the Devil's Bayou by treasure huntress Madame Medusa (Geraldine Page), “ (Wikipedia). From than on, Glen Keane started animating popular shows and movies such as Elliott the Dragon in Pete's Dragon, and also the climactic bear showdown in The Fox and the Hound, (Cobain). “Keane left Disney officially for some time, working as a freelance artist on Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective. During a lull in production at Disney he did some work on The Chipmunk Adventure. He returned to Disney to work on the characters of Fagin, Sykes and Georgette for Oliver & Company,” (Cobain). In his return to Disney, Keane rose in position to lead character animator in the company. During his time in Disney, “he was responsible for animating some of Disney's most memorable characters in what has been referred to as the "New "Golden Age" of Disney animation,” (Cobain).

            Most of Glen Keane’s famous contributions were many all-time favorite Walt Disney movies. The viewers received his movies, such as Aladdin, The Beauty and The Beast, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, among many others, with open arms. One is his praised recent works is Tangled, which is modern version of Rapunzel. The story is about “the magically long-haired Rapunzel has spent her entire life in a tower, but now that a runaway thief has stumbled upon her, she is about to discover the world for the first time, and who she really is.” (Wikipedia).

            Aside from all the great works produced by Glen Keane, he still has “endless territories to explore.” This is why he is leaving Walt Disney Studios after incredible 39 years, to expand his horizons, (Kilday).  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Glen Keane has decided that the time has come to take the next step in his personal exploration of the art of animation.

Works Cited

Cobain, . "Glen Keane." The Art of Disney Animation.. N.p., 20 June 2008. Web. 22 April. 2012. <http://artofdisneyeng.canalblog.com/archives/p10-10.html>.

Kilday, Gregg. "Veteran Animator Glen Keane Is Leaving Walt Disney Animation." Hollywood Reporter. 23 March 2012: n. page. Web. 1 May. 2012. <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/glen-keane-leaving-walt-disney-animation-303857>.

Moss, Tobey. "Jules Engel." Tobey Moss Gallery. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 April 2012. <http://www.tobeycmossgallery.com>.

Legendary Animator Glen Keane Leaves Disney

In what many saw as a shock, veteran Disney animator Glen Keane, one of the so-called celebrity animators from Disney’s “Second Renaissance” in the early 1990s, designing and animating immortal characters like Ariel from “The Little Mermaid,” the Beast from “Beauty and the Beast,” and Aladdin from “Aladdin,” left the studio on Friday. Keane had been with the studio for almost thirty-seven years (he briefly departed from the studio to do freelance work but was still contracted almost exclusively for Disney). In his letter of resignation (posted at Cartoon Brew), Keane said, “I am convinced that animation really is the ultimate art form of our time with endless new territories to explore. I can’t resist its siren call to step out and discover them.”

Keane is the son of Bil Keane, creator of “The Family Circus” cartoon strip. Keane joined Disney in 1974 after leaving Cal Arts, and was mentored by Ollie Johnston, one of Walt Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men (the core group of male animators responsible for the studio’s most enduring animated classics). In the early ‘80s, he also collaborated with another young Disney upstart named John Lasseter on a brief test scene for an adaptation ofMaurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” that combined traditional animation with then-cutting-edge computer graphics. In the ‘80s Keane paid his dues, doing solid if uninspired work on things like “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” and the disastrous “Black Cauldron.” When the studio found its footing once more towards the end of the decade with small steps like “The Great Mouse Detective” (Keane animated Vincent Price’s villainous Ratigan) and “Oliver & Company,” Keane was there.

But it wasn’t until the Second Renaissance period, beginning with “The Little Mermaid,” that Keane became a superstar. The characters he animated during this time – not only the aforementioned Ariel, Beast, and Aladdin, but also the title characters in both “Pocahontas” and “Tarzan,” and you’ve got a body of work that is absolutely astounding. This was largely the era when the Jeffrey Katzenberg PR-machine was churning at full blast, and Keane gamely appeared on television shows, showing people how to sketch The Beast, and showing up for red carpet and corporate events.

When Disney Animation lost ground to Pixar and DreamWorks Animation and all but shuttered its traditional animation department, Keane was adrift. He worked on the “Mickey’s PhilharMagic” attraction at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and his experience, animating Ariel not in 2D animation but in full-on computer animation, inspired him to try his hand at directing. That film, “Rapunzel,” was a tortured and overlong process, with Keane’s goal of creating a moving Renaissance painting seen as too daunting and experimental, with little of the emphasis placed on the fundamental aspects of character storytelling. After Pixar was absorbed by Disney and its creative principles transferred over to the main studio, Keane’s old collaborator Lasseter removed Keane from directing duties, keeping him on as the lead animator of Rapunzel but jettisoning much of the artistic and technological development Keane and his team had been working on, as well as changing the title to "Tangled." (The studio blamed some vague, “non-life threatening health issues” on Keane’s removal.)

It’s telling that Keane cited animation’s “endless new territories” in his resignation letter, as Keane was a tireless innovator. Beyond the work he did with Lasseter on the “Where the Wild Things Are” short, he also pioneered a process called “Deep Canvas” for “Tarzan,” which gave 3D depth to 2D images, and the work he had done on “Rapunzel” was supposedly jaw dropping (“Tangled” is a lovely little film but stylistically anonymous). While the studio (and many animation fans) try to paint the Lasseter-run Feature Animation division as being all gumdrops and fairy dust, it’s been a contentious atmosphere from the start, with many longtime animators either outright fired (like Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, who went to DreamWorks and made the masterpiece “How to Train Your Dragon”) or feeling neglected to the point of resignation (Andreas Deja, who animated Lilo from “Lilo & Stitch,” and Scar from “The Lion King,” left recently too). Keane, and many other animators, seem to be saying that some experimentation needs to factor into the decision making process, instead of what’s going to make a really cool ride at Disneyland.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Keane was “not currently attached to any future project at Disney,” although Keane’s legacy at the studio will remain vital for decades to come (if not longer). A new ride featuring Keane’s Ariel will open in a revitalized version of Fantasyland at Walt Disney World this year (alongside an interactive restaurant that centers around the Beast), with “The Little Mermaid” heading back into theaters (in 3D no less) in September of 2013. We’re certain that wherever Keane ends up, and really the possibilities are endless at this point, he will be back to creating something truly magical.

Tangled

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Nathan Greno Byron Howard
Produced by	Roy Conli John Lasseter Glen Keane
Screenplay by	Dan Fogelman
Based on	Rapunzel by Brothers Grimm
Narrated by	Zachary Levi
Starring	Mandy Moore Zachary Levi Donna Murphy
Music by	Alan Menken
Editing by	Tim Mertens
Studio	Walt Disney Animation Studios
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	November 24, 2010
Running time	100 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$260 million[2][3]
Box office	$590,721,936[3

For other uses, see Tangled (disambiguation).

	]

Tangled is a 2010 American computer animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. It is the 50th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The film features the voices ofMandy Moore, Zachary Levi and Donna Murphy and is loosely based on the German fairy tale "Rapunzel" in the collection of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm.^[4] The film tells the story of a lost princess with long magical hair who yearns to leave her secluded tower. Against her mother's wishes, she enlists the aid of a bandit thief to take her out into the world which she has never seen.

The film was originally titled and marketed as Rapunzel until it was changed to Tangled shortly before its release.Tangled spent six years in production at a cost that has been estimated at $260 million^[2] which, if accurate (and adjusted for inflation), would make it the most expensive animated film ever made and the second most expensive movie of all time. The film employed a unique artistic style by blending features of both computer-generated imagery(CGI) and traditional animation together, while utilizing non-photorealistic rendering to create the impression of a painting. Composer Alan Menken, who had worked on prior Disney animated features, returned to score Tangled.

Tangled premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on November 14, 2010, and went into general release on November 24. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, Tangled earned $590 million in worldwide box-office revenue, $200 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada. The film was well received by critics and audiences alike.Tangled was nominated for a number of awards, including Best Original Song at the 83rd Academy Awards. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 29, 2011; an animated short sequel, Tangled Ever After, was released in 2012

Plot

A drop of sunlight falls to the ground and grows into a flower. An old woman named Gothel finds it and uses it to keep herself young by singing to it. Centuries later, a kingdom has developed, ruled by a king and queen. The Queen becomes ill during pregnancy, and the couple's loving subjects search for the legendary flower. The queen is eventually fed the flower, is healed, and gives birth to a daughter, whom they name Rapunzel. Rapunzel's golden hair, it is found, has absorbed the abilities of the flower. Gothel discovers this and tries to steal a lock of Rapunzel's hair. However, she finds that, once cut, the hair turns its normal brown and loses its power. So she kidnaps Rapunzel and hides her in a tower, saving the powers of the flower for herself, and raising her as her own child. Every year, on Rapunzel's birthday, her parents and their subjects release thousands of sky lanterns, in the hope that the lost princess will return. Rapunzel has seen these over the years from her high tower. Nearing her 18th birthday, she asks Gothel to take her outside to see the source of the annual floating lights as her present, but Gothel refuses.

Meanwhile, the charismatic Flynn Rider and accomplices steal the tiara of the lost princess. During the ensuing chase, Maximus, horse of the Captain of the Guards, is separated from his rider and continues the search for Flynn alone. Flynn outwits his accomplices, takes the tiara, and stumbles upon Rapunzel's tower. He climbs up it and in but is knocked unconscious by a frightened Rapunzel, who hides him in a wardrobe. When Gothel returns, Rapunzel tries to show her the captive but is fiercely barked down by Gothel. Gothel tells her she is never leaving the tower. But the forlorn but sharp Rapunzel instead asks for Gothel a special paint for her birthday found three days journey away. Gothel leaves and Rapunzel takes Flynn out of her closet and ties him to a chair. When revived, she tells him that she will give him the tiara if he takes her to see the lights. Flynn takes her to the Snuggly Duckling Inn, which is full of Gaul thugs, in hopes of scaring her into giving up her quest, but the thugs are charmed by Rapunzel, who encourages them to follow their dreams.

Mother Gothel sees Maximus riderless and worries someone will find Rapunzel. She returns to the tower to find Rapunzel gone. Meanwhile, the guards invade the tavern, but Rapunzel and Flynn Rider have escaped. The pursuit ends at a dam, which Maximus causes to collapse; Flynn and Rapunzel are trapped in a flooding cave. Believing he's about to die, Flynn admits his true name: Eugene Fitzherbert. Rapunzel admits she has hair that glows when she sings. Using her hairlight, they find a way out. Later, when Flynn goes to gather firewood, Gothel meets Rapunzel insisting that Flynn does not care for her and merely wants the tiara. Gothel gives Rapunzel the tiara, suggesting that she test Flynn by giving it to him.

The next morning, Maximus confronts Flynn but Rapunzel befriends the horse and convinces him to help them instead. They arrive at the kingdom and Flynn takes Rapunzel to see the lanterns. There, Rapunzel gives Flynn back the tiara. Flynn spies his old accomplices and leaves Rapunzel waiting as he gives them the tiara back, realizing that he no longer cares about its monetary value. However, the brothers tie him up on a boat and sail him across the lake. They reveal Flynn's betrayal to Rapunzel as they attempt to kidnap her for her hair's power, but Gothel rescues her and they return to the tower. Later, Flynn is arrested and sentenced to death. Maximus brings the inn thugs to rescue Flynn, and Maximus and Flynn race back to the tower. From various clues she found during her adventure, Rapunzel realizes she is the lost princess and attempts to flee the tower. Flynn escapes and returns to the tower, climbing up Rapunzel's hair only to find her chained to the wall and gagged. Gothel stabs him from behind and prepares to take a struggling Rapunzel to a new hiding place. Rapunzel tells Gothel that she will not stop resisting unless she can heal Flynn. Knowing that Rapunzel keeps her word, Gothel agrees, but before Rapunzel heals him, Flynn uses a shard of broken mirror to cut her hair which subsequently turns brown and loses its power. Because of this, Gothel rapidly begins to age. Rapunzel's pet chameleon Pascal, uses the hair to make Gothel fall off the tower and she turns into dust before landing on the ground.

Rapunzel tries to heal the dying Flynn, who with his last breath declares his love for her. Rapunzel cries. One teardrop, filled with her power lands on his cheek and revives him. Back at the kingdom, the royal family has a tearful reunion and the King and Queen welcome Flynn into the family. The Gaul thugs each fulfill their individual dreams, and Maximus becomes a respected official on the Royal Guard. Flynn then closes the film, telling the audience that he and Rapunzel eventually get engaged and married.

[edit]Cast and characters

• Mandy Moore as Rapunzel
• Zachary Levi as Eugene "Flynn Rider" Fitzherbert
• Donna Murphy as Mother Gothel
• Brad Garrett as Hook-Hand Thug
• Ron Perlman as the Stabbington Brothers
• Jeffrey Tambor as Big Nose Thug
• Richard Kiel as Vladamir
• M. C. Gainey as Captain of the Guard
• Paul F. Tompkins as Short Thug
• Tom Kenny as Guard
• Tim Brooke-Taylor as Old Man
• Maurice Dean Wint as Paulo
• Frank Welker as Pascal and Maximus
• Delaney Rose Stein as Young Rapunzel

Non-speaking animal characters include Pascal, Rapunzel's pet chameleon, and Maximus, the horse of the head of the palace guard who are voiced by Frank Welker. Also featured in non-speaking roles are Rapunzel's parents, the King and Queen, and Ulf, the Mime Thug.

Moore, Levi and Murphy respectively replaced the originally-announced voice actors Kristin Chenoweth, Dan Fogler and Grey DeLisle.

[edit]Production

Tangled was in development for six years and cost more than $260 million to produce.^[2] It had originally been announced in April 2007 that Annie-nominated animator and story artist Dean Wellins would be co-directing the film alongside Glen Keane.^[5] On October 9, 2008, it was reported that Keane and Wellins had stepped down as directors, and were replaced by the team of Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, director and storyboard director, respectively, of Disney's 2008 animated feature Bolt. Keane stayed on as an executive producer and animation supervisor, while Wellins moved on to developing other short and feature films.^[6]

[edit]Title change

When first put into production, the film was promoted as having the title Rapunzel Unbraided, which was later changed to Rapunzel.^[7] Disney's previous animated feature The Princess and the Frog in 2009, while being well-received by various critics^[8] and taking in nearly $270 million worldwide, was not as successful as Disney had hoped.^[9] Disney expressed the belief that the film's emphasis on princesses may have discouraged young boys from seeing the film.^[9]In order to market the film to both sexes, Disney changed the film's name from Rapunzel to Tangled while also emphasizing Flynn Rider, the film's prominent male character.^[9] Disney was criticized for altering the classic title as amarketing strategy. Floyd Norman, a former Disney and Pixar animator and story artist, said, "The idea of changing the title of a classic like Rapunzel to Tangled is beyond stupid. I'm convinced they'll gain nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately trying to find an audience."^[10] Justin Chang of Variety compared it to changing the title of The Little Mermaid to Beached.^[11] On November 24, 2010, the day of the film's release, directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard disputed reports that the title change was a marketing decision. They said they changed the title from Rapunzel to Tangled because Rapunzel is not the only main character in the film. They went on to say that you can't call Toy Story "Buzz Lightyear," and they really needed a title that represented what the film is, and that it’s a duo, and it stars Rapunzel and Flynn Rider.^[12]

Animation

The film was made using computer-generated imagery (CGI), although Tangled was modeled on the traditional look of oil paintings on canvas. The Rococo paintings of French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard, particularly The Swing, were used as references for the film's artistic style, a style described by Keane as "romantic and lush."^[13] To create the impression of a painting, non-photorealistic rendering has been used.

Glen Keane wanted the film to look and feel like a traditional hand-drawn Disney film in 3D, and held a seminar called "The Best of Both Worlds", where he, with 50 Disney CGI artists and traditional artists, focused on the pros and cons of each style.^[14] Due to limitations in computer technology, many basic principles of animation used in traditionally animated movies had been absent from earlier CGI films; but technological advancements have made it easier to blend the two, combining the strengths of each style. Keane stated repeatedly he was trying to make the computer "bend its knee to the artist" instead of having the computer dictate the artistic style and look of the film. By making the computer become as "pliable as the pencil," Keane's vision of a "three dimensional drawing" seemed within reach, with the artist controlling the technology. Many of the techniques and tools that were required to give the film the quality Keane demanded did not exist when the project was started, and Disney Animation Studios had to create them on their own.^[13] Keane said, "There’s no photoreal hair. I want luscious hair, and we are inventing new ways of doing that. I want to bring the warmth and intuitive feel of hand-drawn to CGI."^[15]

One of the main goals of the animators was to create movement that mimicked the soft fluidity of the hand-drawn art found in older Disney animated films. Keane credited Disney 3D animator Kyle Strawitz with helping to combine CGI with the traditional hand-drawn style. "He took the house from Snow White and built it and painted it so it looked like a flat painting that suddenly started to move, and it had dimension and kept all of the soft, round curves of the brushstrokes of watercolor. Kyle helped us get that Fragonard look of that girl on the swing… We are using subsurface scattering and global illumination and all of the latest techniques to pull off convincing human characters and rich environments."^[13]

Existing CGI technology continued to present difficulties: in particular, animating hair turned out to be a challenge. Senior software engineer Kelly Ward spent six years writing programs to make it move the way they wanted.^[16] As late as January 2010, the directors were still not sure if the Rapunzel character's length of hair was going to work. These problems were finally solved in March:^[17] An improved version of a hair simulation program named Dynamic Wires, originally developed for Bolt, was eventually used. To make hair float believably in water, and to surmount other similar challenges, discrete differential geometry was used to produce the desired effects, freeing the animators from executing these specific tasks directly, which would have taken days instead of minutes.^[18]

Rather than focusing on realism, the 3D team used an aesthetic approach. Robert Newman, the film’s stereoscopic supervisor said that "We’re using depth more artistically than ever before, and we’re not as concerned with the literal transcription of depth between camera and projector as we are the interpretation of it." To do this, they used a new technique called multi-rigging, which is made up by multiple pairs of virtual cameras. Each pair is used individually on each separate element that adds depth to a scene, like background, foreground and characters, without adjusting for the relation with the other pairs. When sandwiched together later in production, the result was something that would be visually impossible in the real world, but which created an appealing look to the movie.^[19]