Glen Keane, Revisited: Good, True, and Beautiful

Charlie Melcher:

Welcome to the FoST Podcast. I’m Charlie Melcher, founder of the Future of Storytelling, and so happy to have you here with me today. It’s my pleasure to revisit a conversation with a true master storyteller, legendary animator, Glen Keane. During his 38 year tenure at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Glen brought to life some of the most iconic Disney characters of all time, like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, Aladdin, and Pocahontas to name just a few. In addition to his love of drawing by hand with pencil and paper, Glen has also been a pioneer in using new technologies such as CGI, animation, spatially Aware, interactive media for mobile phones with Google Spotlight Stories, and being an early adopter of Tilt Brush Google’s virtual reality drawing tool. In 2018, Glen won an Oscar with Kobe Bryant for their collaboration on the animated Short Dear Basketball, and in 2020, he directed his first animated feature entitled Over the Moon, which was released on Netflix. Glen is an artist of the highest order whose work has delighted and amazed children and adults alike for nearly a half century, but it’s his consistent and enlightened approach to his craft and to his life that has made him such a role model for me personally. I’m so pleased to reshare this conversation with the legendary Glen Keane.

 

Glen Keane, it is such an honor to have you on the Future of Storytelling podcast. Thank you for being here.

Glen Keane:

Charlie, thank you so much for having me. Any conversation with you is always a delight. I really look forward to this.

Charlie Melcher:

I couldn’t feel more the same. I mean, every time I get to spend time with you, it’s a gift. So thank you for making the time today. I remember the last time that I believe we were together, and it was the evening when we were on stage where I had the incredible honor of interviewing you and Kobe Bryant when you were doing a screening for Academy Voters of your film, the Animated Short that you did with Kobe Dear Basketball. It was an incredible night just to be there with the two of you and hear you speak about the making of that incredible short film. And I wanted to ask you, how has the experience been since Kobe passed away, and we haven’t really talked about that together. What has that loss meant to you?

Glen Keane:

Yeah, that was the kickoff to 2020 as we know it, a year of the unthinkable. That experience of doing that film was truly a gift. I mean, I really do believe the best things in life are a gift. You don’t work for them. They’re suddenly there. And then Kobe calling, asking to do dear basketball was one of those. So the remarkable thing to me about that film was how prescient it really was. I had no idea that it was going to be a final message of Kobe. I was animating the final shot where Kobe is walking off the court into this tunnel. As I animated it, Kobe walks off and disappears into the dark, and I looked at it, I thought, no, this isn’t right. I reanimated it and I had Kobe walking into the light where he just disappears into the light and I thought, wow, this feels like it’s about Kobe moving from this life to the next. And as soon as I heard this about Kobe, I thought of that, and I just thought, gosh, what an amazing experience it was to know him.

Charlie Melcher:

It really does change the way people look at that short film now in light of his having passed. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about the origins of your craft. I know you come from a bit of a family of people who were incredibly talented to express themselves with a pen, and your father, bill Keen was a famous cartoonist, the Family Circle, which I think even lives on today. I grew up with it. It’s been around for a long time. How did your father teach you to be an artist, to express yourself, and tell me a little bit about where your passion for being an animator comes from.

Glen Keane:

I think of myself being planted in the Perfect Garden where you’re going to be nurtured Dad. He would take me with him to the art store. When I was little, there was an artist that lived out in the desert. We were out in s Scottsdale, Arizona, and there was this little shack way out in the desert. This was a vaudeville actor. He did some of the performance for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Peter Pan. He would do the acting, and he was also the guy and Mary Poppins who fires the cannon on the ship, Don Barkley. But more than anything, he was an artist. And we’d go out there, it was just me, my dad, and Don Barkley, and we’d sit in his little hut, the whole place smelled of oil paints. But I was there with artists at a certain point around that time, dad said, Glenn, I’m a cartoonist. You’re an artist. And it just made encouraged me that much more how special this was, and I went with all the gusto I had down the path to become an artist.

Charlie Melcher:

So you spent 38 years at Disney. You helped to animate and bring life to some of the most iconic characters of all time, right? Ariel the Beast, Aladdin, Tarzan, and many others. Can you talk about the role of animation in terms of telling stories and bringing characters to life?

Glen Keane:

From that moment where dad told me I’m an artist, I eventually sent my portfolio to, well, I didn’t actually send it Dad and I drove out when I was 18 to Arts to drop off my portfolio. I wanted to get into the School of Art, and I wanted to be a painter, a sculptor, a fine artist. Well, the school was closed that day. It was Easter break. My dad was not a sophisticated artist. He learned how to draw his craft in World War II as an artist on Stars and Stripes. So he was not sophisticated about art schools. So as we drove around, we’re thinking, oh, well, what are we going to do? And there’s this student walking across, I could tell the guy was stoned, my dad. Instead, he rolls down his window and he says, excuse me, young man. And I’m thinking, dad, what are you doing? And he says, look, the school’s closed. And the kid says, yeah, man, it’s closed. And he said, yes, yes, I understand. Look. And he grabs my portfolio and he says, would you drop this portfolio off at the art school for my son? And he gives this guy all of my original drawings, painting stuff. And the guy says, sure, man. And he just walks away. And we drove back to Phoenix.

 

I would never do that.

 

But a month later, I get this acceptance letter from Cal Lars saying that I was accepted into the School of Film Graphics. I said, that idiot dropped it off at the wrong school. But I discovered, no, this was the right path. I mean, I felt like animation is the ultimate art form because it is an art form that really in some ways started out for entertaining in a comic way kids. And it’s sort of relegated as it’s not a high art form. It’s all about bringing this dimensionality that you see in your mind to the screen. And so everything I’ve done, I’ve really seen it as a path to fulfill that kind of nighting that my dad gave me. And Glenn, I’m a cartoonist. You’re an artist.

Charlie Melcher:

Well, Shakespeare wasn’t considered high art in his day either. He was a comedic performer writing these plays. People were laughing and throwing vegetables. And today we think of it as Shakespeare.

Glen Keane:

Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty amazing. I was talking to my granddaughter, she’s 11 years old, and I was quoting Shakespeare to her about all the world, the stage, and

Charlie Melcher:

All the people merely players upon it.

Glen Keane:

And it made me think about the characters that I animate. Those characters are real. I know them. Charlie, even in designing them, there’s this weird experience that I have that the character exists before I draw them. And I would say that that’s kind of insane and crazy to think that, but that’s been my experience. Like with the Beast drawing him, I had hundreds of different versions of him, and people would say, is that him? No, no, it’s not him. And until one day he arrived and I looked at him and he was looking back at me and was like, that’s him. There he is has the same thing with Ariel, with Pocahontas, all these different characters, they become real. And what I was taught by Ollie Johnston, my mentor was Glenn, don’t animate what the character’s doing, animate what the character’s thinking and feeling. And the only way you can do that is to live in their skin and believe in them. I think that’s the thread that people connect with when an animator puts it, that kind of heart into it.

Charlie Melcher:

I remember it with the video that we made step into the page that we made with you when you spoke at the Future of Storytelling Summit. You’re describing how you physically embodied the beast and when you would draw him, and then we saw you in the video actually drawing him. And you can see your shoulders rise up and your jaw get tight and your body, you’re almost transforming like the Hulk in front of us as you draw this character. And so I really came to understand how physical that experience is for you.

Glen Keane:

Oh yeah. I would go home at night and my jaw was hurting, and I’m thinking, oh, I’ve got some kind of disease in my jaw. I dunno what it was. And Linda said, well, what are you doing all day? I said, well, I’ve been animating the beast talking like this. And I realized that’s what it is.

Charlie Melcher:

I also just want to say that you are at the number one of all time greatest moments in the history of future of Storytelling Summit for the performance that you gave on our main stage. I don’t know if you remember. I’m sure you do. Well, why don’t you describe it instead of me describing it,

Glen Keane:

I was describing a dream that I always have about flying. Is this the one you’re talking about?

Charlie Melcher:

Yeah. I remember the story with a little girl who wanted to fly. Yeah,

Glen Keane:

I love flying dreams. As I was talking with the audience, I was describing this, but I was doing it while I was drawing this little girl. And flying always happens for me. And the dreams where you have to lean forward to the point you’re about to fall over, then it’s like you have to commit to it. And as I did that, I did this drawing of this little girl, and as she then floats up into the air, I’m drawing her flying in the air, and she’s with these birds, and I’m just telling this story and you’re seeing it dimensionally happen and people can be seeing what I’m imagining because I’m drawing it. And then there’s this moment where she wonders, wait, I can’t fly. What am I doing? And she falls back down and lands onto the bed and wakes up.

Charlie Melcher:

And so just so that our listeners understand, you were in a live headset and you were drawing with Tilt brush and on the big screen behind you, you were on the main stage and the big screen behind you, we could see what you saw in your VR headset. And so you are drawing this story of this little girl and her learning to fly in real time. What we see is you drawing, so it actually looks, you’re drawing her life size and we’re watching this girl, and you’re telling this story, and there’s this beautiful music, and she takes off and she flies and she lands back on earth. And the story is sort of over, and you are facing the audience with your VR headset on, and then you do a 360 on stage. You just sort of turn all the way around. And what we see on the screen is the entire story floating in space around you. And when that was revealed, the entire audience was stunned. They literally, you could hear their jaws drop to the floor. You were surrounded by the story, and it was this incredibly beautiful moment about how these tools could be used to communicate a new kind of story, to tell a story in a new way. This was literally the opposite of the flatland of a printed page. This was a story that was filling, if you will, the space of the theater.

Glen Keane:

Charlie, I got to tell you that at that moment, what I was feeling was this tremendous sense of rightness of the choice that I had made when I was going to leave Disney. I mean, I loved being at Disney. I was there for nearly 40 years. At a certain point, you just sense I’ve got to step away from the comfortable thing or else the new thing isn’t going to happen. And my wife was saying, well, Glenn, if you left Disney, what would you do? Where would she go? I said,

Charlie Melcher:

She was scared. I said,

Glen Keane:

I don’t know Google. She said, Google, they don’t what? They don’t animate. I said, no, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to take the things that I’ve learned and apply it to something new? Sure enough, first thing that happened after I left Disney, Google happened to call, and I did this animation, and it was there that I met the amazing folks who created Tilt Brush. And as I’m on stage there at fos, I thought, this is what I was talking about. What you’ve created in FO is a pathway for all of these different disciplines to come together and cross paths there. And I was so happy that I landed in the middle of that day.

Charlie Melcher:

I think it was incredibly brave for you to leave Disney. I mean, think about it. You were at the top of your game. You were incredibly well respected. You were a mentor to so many, it’s Disney. When you made a character, the whole world got to see it. And you walked away from that to take creative risks. And I think about the incredible success you’ve had since you left. I mean, whether it was duet that you did with Google, it was Dear Basketball with Kobe, for which you guys did win the Academy Award. Congratulations. It was a really exciting moment to see you both on stage there holding up your Oscars and now to having made your first animated feature post Disney, this new film that’s coming out over the moon that you’ve just done with Netflix. So tell us a little bit about the origins of that. Where did that idea come from?

Glen Keane:

Well, it started with Janet Yang who did Joy Luck Club. She knew this story about the goddess that lives on the dark side of the moon. And everybody in China knows the story of Chang’e, that’s the goddess, and Hou Yi, her lover. When they look at the moon, they don’t see the man on the moon, which personally, I never could see the man on the moon. They see a rabbit on the moon with a mortar and pestle. He’s like a magic rabbit. And he’s creating a potion, a potion that will let you live forever, which is the story of Chang’e and Hou – we’re going to live forever by taking these immortality pills.

Performer:

Fly away! Chang’e, I am coming to you, right away! Papa, I will prove it to you, I’ll be free, above gravity. Hey, Chang’e I’m gonna be there soon… in my rocket to the moon.

Glen Keane:

Janet thought this would be a wonderful story about a little girl that believes this story so much. She’s going to build a rocket to the moon. It is this wonderful story of healing a lot of comedy, eight songs in it. It’s a wonderful musical. We finished and it’s opening up on Netflix, October 23rd.

Charlie Melcher:

I was just blown away by how breathtakingly beautiful it is, and also how original and creative. I mean that whole world of the dark side of the moon, I just can’t get over. Where did that come from? So not like anything else. You worked in a tradition. There is a thing, a Disney style Disney look, and this has nothing to do with that. I mean, the dark side of the moon is just truly original. I mean, it’s a crazy fantasy, right? This idea that a little girl can build a rocket and go to the moon, and yet you make it so believable. Where does that come from?

Glen Keane:

Well, I mean, Audrey wrote the script. I was flying to China reading through the script, and that’s where I started doing lots of little drawings on the edges of the page and thinking about how I’m going to do this story. Suddenly I realized, wait a second. I get this building, this rocket. And I remembered when I was seven years old for my seventh birthday, I had a bunch of my friends over at my house, and my dad walks into the living room where we all were, and he says, so I have a surprise for you. And I was like, everybody’s excited. And he said, I have a friend who works at NASA and they have invented a new rocket ship, and he let me borrow it, and it’s actually sitting in the backyard. We’re like, what? And he says, yes, and I was wondering if you would like to take a ride.

Yeah. Whoa. I was so excited. And he said, but it’s a top secret rocket ship, so you can’t see it, but I can blindfold you and you can take a ride on it. So one by one, we all went out and you step outside and you can hear ground control kind of, okay, we’re left off here, and you climb up. Dad says, now it’s an open air cockpit because we’re not going up into space. We’re just going to fly around the desert a little bit quick trip so we can get back and get all your friends on this trip. And so finally, the countdown and the whole thing, the rocket starts shaking, and you go up into the air and you can feel the wind blowing in your hair, and you’re flying across the desert and fly all the way back and you land and you’re unstrapped, and you’re just breathless with this amazing trip you’ve been on.

And as you’re stepping down from the rocket, the blindfold is removed. And you see my mom and my dad with a lawn chair and a fan and a little short wave radio to make it sound like it was ground control, and there’s our swimming pool. It all happened in my mind, in my imagination. That’s what I get to do with the audience. They’re going to sit down, whether it’s in the living room or the theater, and they’re going to, in a sense, I’m going to blindfold them, and they’re going to see in their imagination, faith a building this rocket and going to the moon to lunar. And you’re going to believe it. It’s absolutely the most wonderful thing to lean into your imagination and don’t back away from it. I mean, don’t second guess it. Go for it.

Charlie Melcher:

Is there anything that you can share about tapping into that six-year-old, your inner child to help enable your art form?

Glen Keane:

I find that when I’m doing something that I really am not equipped for, that I really don’t know much about, that’s the best place. That’s the time to communicate something new. When you communicate from the point of discovery, there is great power to that. There is a natural fear we have as creators that we all have one thing in common. If anybody knew how much we’re faking it, we’d be booted out of here. All of us. Everybody has this in common. You got to lean into this thing. Like Picasso said, I’m always doing that, which I don’t know how to do in order that I may learn how to do it. And if you don’t know how to do it, that’s okay. It never arrives. The little click of the idea never comes until it’s almost too late. It’s always at the almost too late moment.

Charlie Melcher:

So Audrey Wells wrote this movie shortly after she started. She was diagnosed with cancer and that she would likely not live to see it released or finished. What was the responsibility? How did you feel about having to help tell this story for her?

Glen Keane:

Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing is that the last two projects been that somebody’s, in a sense, final message. Kobe didn’t know it was Audrey did. And at the beginning, I did not know she had that hanging over her head as she was writing this. But it was also a creative driver for her to send this message to her daughter. Audrey said, all of her stories are about healing. This one takes you at a certain moment in the film into the chamber of exquisite sadness, and she described it as exquisite sadness. It’s an unusual way of putting it in those two words that she describes is hope. It’s exquisite because through that pain, that sadness, that those tears of sorrow can so easily become tears of joy, and that is really the journey that we take the audience on in this film.

Charlie Melcher:

I heard recently an old expression that there are three kinds of death. There’s the death when your heart stops, there’s the death when your organs stop, which can be a few minutes later. And then there’s the death when you’re forgotten, when people no longer speak of you, and we’ve been talking about you with your last two projects being ones that help to extend the lives of the people that you collaborated with. They have that way of being a memorial or a remembrance or something that will hopefully live forever. I wonder how you think about that for your own work, for you personally, what is the thing that you want to be remembered for?

Glen Keane:

I mean, I really take each day by faith and really leave it in God’s hands about what next is coming for me. Glenn Ke productions, we have three words that describe the things that we want to do. Good, true, and beautiful. That’s the fruit. That’s the fruit that I want. Whatever this tree of Glenn King’s life to taste like, to experience, whether it’s talking to me on the street or working with me on a film, or having me as a dad or a husband or a grandfather. I want that to be good, true, and beautiful.

Charlie Melcher:

Thank you, Glenn. It’s always such an honor to speak with you, and I always learn so much. You are as a person, as an artist, you are spreading love and healing out there for so many.

Glen Keane:

Thank you, Charlie.

Charlie Melcher:

Bless you. Thank you.

Glen Keane:

Yeah. Boy, what a pleasure to be able to chat with you and have it be so personal, but to be able to share it at the same time. Thank you for what you do fast. What an amazing group. Who would’ve ever thought, keep doing it. Lean into it. Wow. I can’t wait for the day where everybody can be together again, though, in person. Nothing’s better than that.

Charlie Melcher:

Me too.

I’m Charlie Melcher, and this has been The Future of Storytelling podcast. Thanks for listening. FoST is a community of storytellers of all stripes who are passionate about combining innovation with imagination. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider subscribing, giving us a five star review and sharing the show with a friend. We also have a free monthly newsletter, FoST in Thought, which you can check out and subscribe to on our website@fost.org. The FoST podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our talented friends and production partners, charts and leisure. I hope to see you again soon for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, please be safe, stay strong, and story on.