Dec 8, 2017

Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant to Launch "Dear Basketball" Oscar Campaign on the James Corden Show

Ten films are currently nominated for the Academy Awards in the animated short category, but only one of them has received mainstream attention: Dear Basketball.

Last night, the short's director, Glen Keane, and the film's writer and dubbing artist, Kobe Bryant, appeared on James Corden's Late Late Show, where Keane used the HTC Vive headset and Google's Tilt Brush paint app to sketch a 3D version of Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

As anyone in animation knows, it's always a special event when animators appear on late-night talk shows. And the last time an animator appeared on a talk show to promote an animated short is fresh in our minds. In this case, Bryant's celebrity helped the cause. Bryant, a former NBA star, was also a guest on Corden's show last night.

It is also interesting to note that Keane did not portray Bryant as the star of the promoted film, but instead used Disney nostalgia to portray an easily recognizable character from his previous career working as a supervising animator at Disney. Keane had previously demonstrated Tilt Brush and used the software to draw other Disney characters.