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PART OF YOUR WORLD — You may not have heard of Glen Keane, but you have seen his work in your childhood Disney favorites like "Pete's Dragon," "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast."
After hand animating with Disney for 38 years, Keane left in 2012 to further explore the "endless new territories" of animation, describing animation as the "ultimate art form of our time" in his farewell letter to his colleagues at Disney.
Keane first made a splash in his new life with his lauded short, "Duet," which Google's Advanced Technology and Projects Group released last year. It's revolutionary in its form, allowing viewers on certain Motorola phones to interact on a 3-D level to explore settings and characters.
In his new video, "Step into the Page," Keane describes his passion for animation and how that passion pushed him to move to new and advanced tech. He explains that when he draws, he wants to get as close as he can to actually becoming part of the world he's creating.
"I would draw not to do a drawing, but so that I could step in and live in that world," he says in the video. "When I animate, there's a frustration that I have, wishing that the flatness of the paper would go away and that I could actually dive in."
He then demonstrates in the video just how he is now starting to live that dream by drawing with virtual reality tech. In VR, he draws a sketch of Ariel, almost like he would on paper, but the difference on a very basic level is he can "walk" around the 3-D drawing and easily draw life-sized figures.
While the tech demonstrated truly is a remarkable sight, it would almost fall flat if Keane's fiery passion wasn't terrifically inspiring and contagious. It's a solid reminder that it takes the artist's passion to make any method work, no matter how advanced the method is.
Keane got his start in animation growing up with his famous father, Bil Keane, who was the man behind the family-friendly comic "Family Circus."
