Glen Keane Left Disney

[Sotiris]

For many years now, animation fans have known that Glen Keane has harboured ambitions to realise one movie in particular. Here’s how he expressed his enthusiasm in a 1997 interview:

Q: Can you tell us more about that project ?

Glen Keane: I have not completely focused on really what I want to do, except that it would be involving much more of a figurative approach to drawing.

I would like to do it probably in a style with charcoal and possibly using the computer too to keep the hand-drawn look, instead of using the computer to make it look like nobody touched it. I would like to use the computer to duplicate the effect of smudging with your thumb, similar to the scene in Pocahontas where she is being formed by the wind. I animated that scene in charcoal, then we put colour into it. It had a very ethereal tactile feel to it that I would like to keep. I would like to try and do a film that way, a short piece.

Q: So it's more the technique that you would use than the subject itself that interests you ?

Glen Keane: Oh no. The subject of my personal project is very important, that's why I have not done it. It is to animate to the 9th symphony of Beethoven. I have been wanting to animate to Beethoven's 9th since I heard it. But it's such an incredibly amazing piece of music that I think I am intimidated by it.

Q: Why do you want to achieve that project ?

Glen Keane: It is just something that I have to do. There is something inside of me that has to come out, that will someday happen.

Glen Keane had initially pitched Ode to Joy, from Beethoven’s 9th, as a section for Fantasia 2000, but it was rejected in favour of using Beethoven’s 5th in the film’s opening.

Keane was first talking about leaving Disney a good year or so before his resignation letter arrived, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he spent some of that time developing and pitching this project to the studio. Could it be that the catalyst for his eventual departure was Disney’s decision not to give Beethoven’s 9th the thumbs up?

Disney blogger Jim Hill has this weekend mentioned, in passing, some unnamed and unsourced “reports” that Keane has indeed left the studio to work on this particular film. I read this reference on Hill’s site yesterday, and set about digging.

The “buzz” is definitely that Keane has decided the time is right, and he’d like to move forward on the film. If Keane has another studio backing him, nobody could tell me which one, but those who had some understanding said that Keane wasn’t “necessarily” looking for the film to be executed in “traditional” hand drawn animation. There are some very carefully chosen words going around. Hopefully we’ll see some of the facts nailed down soon.

Source: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/04/14/ ... hovens-th/

[SWillie!]

Curiouser and curiouser.

Do we think this is at a point where it's time to start a thread for "Glen Keane's Beethoven's 9th Symphony"?

[DisneyDude2010]

http://www.toynews-online.biz/features/ ... a-princess

Do you think that’s what will keep them going for another generation?
I think it’s really important that we have a new generation of artists that will make those same kind of choices that we made back then.
Like now, I’m one of the older guys at Disney and I try to encourage them to not do the same thing I did, but instead take something from your own life and put it into your work. Make it real, make it personal. You’ve got to keep making the characters fresh, not derivative.

This was published today, Could Glenn still be at Disney?

[Sotiris]

This was published today; could Glenn still be at Disney?

No. The interview was probably taken before he resigned and just got published now.

[Sotiris]

Keane confided to me a year ago at DreamWorks’ annual Oscar brunch — of all places (they were trying to woo him) — that he probably should’ve left Disney to make Rapunzel as an indie. He liked the idea of doing something smaller and uncompromising in 2D. Maybe that’s just what he’ll do now that he’s on his own. Or continue down the path of creating a better hybrid.

Source: http://www.billdesowitz.com/?p=4940

[SpringHeelJack]

So! He wanted to use the Disney Essence and the studio didn't want him to and- ugh, I can't even stomach joking about it anymore.

[Disney Duster]

Knew it. Toldja it was the un-Disney Tangled that did it for him.

Aside from that, whatever happened to his daughter, Claire Keane, reportedly doing a project for Disney, or like being part of development for one, was it a feature, or a short, is it still happening?

[Sotiris]

Aside from that, whatever happened to his daughter, Claire Keane, reportedly doing a project for Disney, or like being part of development for one, was it a feature, or a short, is it still happening?

Claire Keane is currently working as a visual development artist on Frozen.

[DisneyDude2010]

Knew it. Toldja it was the un-Disney Tangled that did it for him.

It says "probably should have"

[Disney Duster]

Knew it. Toldja it was the un-Disney Tangled that did it for him.

It says "probably should have"

Um I don't see how that goes against what I said.

[Elladorine]

I'd guess the final product of Tangled was much more corporate and "Disney-fied" than what Keane originally wanted to do, not that it wasn't Disney enough for him. It states that "he liked the idea of doing something smaller and uncompromising in 2D," and basically any ideas created at Disney have to be compromised in some way in order to get produced.

[Disney Duster]

On the contrary, his original version of Rapunzel was more faithful to what Disney truly is, it is the changes the heads at Disney made to it that made it un-Disney, not the other way around.

[DisneyJedi]

Okay, HOW does Tangled not use the so-called "essence"?!

[Elladorine]

Has it ever been spelled out that Keane specifically wanted to do a "Disney-fied" version of Rapunzel? I thought I'd heard he wanted to keep it dark, and while that's not entirely unheard of for Disney, it isn't typical of them, especially with their post-renaissance films.

Him stating that perhaps he should have done it on his own as an indie film doesn't necessarily indicate that he wanted it to be more "Disney" than the final outcome we were given.

[DisneyAnimation88]

Him stating that perhaps he should have done it on his own as an indie film doesn't necessarily indicate that he wanted it to be more "Disney" than the final outcome we were given.

I agree. After nearly four decades at Disney I don't think anyone could begrudge him wanting to move out of the studio system but I haven't read anything from Glen that suggests he was particularly unhappy with the way that Tangled turned out. I don't think any of us would be surprised if he was at least a little disappointed that the film didn't turn out like he had initially envisaged but I haven't seen anything that suggests that he found it "un-Disney" in any way.

[Disney Duster]

Like he would have even dreamed of making it darker than he thought Disney would make it. He thought that DISNEY was the best place to make his film the way he wanted it. But then they changed it a lot.

He also said he probably should have done it on his own, but as I already said, he's a Disney kind of guy, he likes the classic things Disney used to be, so doing it on his own might as well be like them, too.

So I can't prove that he was concerned about the film being un-Disney. I odn't need to. The only thing missing is him actually saying it out loud, the evidence is there.

Okay, HOW does Tangled not use the so-called "essence"?!

I've explained it a thousand times. The name for one, and also how much they changed the story from the original. The main characters didn't even keep the same backgrounds that had, which all the films of the Disney renaissance, and got to keep, which means they were Disney essenceful, not Tangled.

[Sotiris]

Former Disney animator Glen Keane awarded at 2012 Dallas Film Society Honors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NubBTdn-zoE

[Sotiris]

Claire Keane, visual development artist and daughter of Glen Keane, announced today on Twitter she's leaving Disney.

[DisneyJedi]

Then it's official. Disney doesn't care about making art. The layoffs and some people quitting there make that clear enough.

[qindarka]

Then it's official. Disney doesn't care about making art. The layoffs and some people quitting there make that clear enough.

While layoffs are a different matter entirely, it's understandable that people would want to leave for a whole host of reasons. There are plenty of animation studios now, sometimes people just like to sniff around for better opportunities.