Glen Keane

Born: Glen Keane
Birthday: April 13, 1954
Location: Philadelphia, PA, U.S.
Alma mater: California Institute of the Arts
Occupation: Animator, Director
Years active: 1974-2012

Glen Keane is the son of The Family Circus cartoonist Bil Keane, and developed his interest in art while observing his father’s cartooning work. His father, Bil, gave him a copy of Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy, and taught him to observe body forms and use creative approaches to life drawing.

After his 1972 graduation from high school, Keane applied to the California Institute of the Arts School of Art where he’d be mentored by Jules Engel.

Keane left CalArts in 1974 for Disney to work under veteran animator Ollie Johnston. For three years he animated Bernard and Penny in The Rescuers under Johnston’s tutelage. Glen also contributed to Elliott the Dragon in Pete’s Dragon, and the bear battle in The Fox and the Hound.

He and animator John Lasseter collaborated in 1982 on a scene of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. The 30-second test combined traditional character animation and computer-generated backgrounds. It was Disney’s first experiment with digitally-drawn characters, due to its cost, the studio cut further funding for the featurette.

In 1983, Glen shifted to freelance employment. He animated Professor Ratigan for Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective; the “Boys and Girls of Rock n’ Roll” and “Getting Lucky” in The Chipmunk Adventure; and the characters Fagin, Sykes, Jenny Foxworth, and Georgette in Oliver & Company for Disney.

Keane served as a lead character animator during the Disney Renaissance. He designed and animated Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and Marahute the eagle in The Rescuers Down Under. He was supervising animator for the titular characters of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas, and received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation.

Glen animated Tarzan’s Tarzan for Disney while living in Paris, France, returning to Disney’s Burbank, California studio to be the lead animator for John Silver in Treasure Planet.

In 2003, Keane was assigned to direct Disney’s animated feature, Tangled. He and his and his crew focused on bringing a traditional animation quality to the film’s computer animation. Unfortunately, Glen had to step down as director due to health issues, but remained an executive producer and animating director for the project.

He received the Winsor McCay Award in 2007 for lifetime contribution to the field of animation, but grew disenchanted with Disney’s multiple storyline and title changes on Tangled due to executive interference and a managerial lack of direction. After nearly 38 years there, Keane left Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2012 to pursue new frontiers of animation.

Glen Keane was named a Disney Legend in 2013, a year after retiring from the studio. That same year, he joined Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group to help develop interactive hand-drawn animation in virtual reality, releasing his first animated short, Duet, in 2014. The animated short is designed to be viewed in a virtual reality environment.

Keane created the animated short Nephtali. Keane has also written and illustrated a children’s books series based on Bible parables, starring characters Adam Raccoon and King Aren the Lion.

Glen directed film Over the Moon, animated in China at Pearl Studio. He also directed an animated short film called Dear Basketball in 2017, based on Kobe Bryant’s retirement poem. The following year, Keane shared the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with Kobe Bryant for Dear Basketball at the 90th Oscars.

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Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee has been creating animated cartoons online since 1999/2000 for his website flashcartoons.org. Many cartoons on the site have gained viral video status reaching millions of viewers online. In 2009, Lavalle started learning hand drawn animation from Don Bluth in his animation classes, as well as attending his Masterclasses in Arizona. He has also personally studied animation and visual effects from Veteran Disney animators in Orlando, FL.

Lavalle is widely known in the animation industry as the creator of the TraditionalAnimation.com website. After seeing that most animation sites were about all types of animation, not any specific to classical hand drawn animation, Lavalle knew Traditional Animation needed to be represented online. TraditionalAnimation.com has become the leading website and social media account for all things 2D. The website served as inspiration for “The Traditional Animation Show” in which Lavalle was both producer and host.

His partnership with Don Bluth began when he championed the Dragon's Lair Indiegogo campaign as lead project manager, editor, voice actor and in-betweener. The campaign reached $730,000 dollars to produce a 7-minute pitch video. In 2017, Lavalle brought the idea of creating a school to Don Bluth, and Don Bluth University was born. After a decade of learning from Don Bluth and working together on multiple pitches and business ventures, Lavalle accepted the position as Vice President of Don Bluth's new company Don Bluth Studios.

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