Dec 19, 2013

Official Announcement: Glen Keane to Direct Motorola's Interactive Hand-Drawn Short Film

Last week, we reported on Glen Keane's possible involvement in a project for Google-owned Motorola. And today, it was officially announced that the 59-year-old former Disney animator and director will produce an interactive hand-drawn short film for the "Spotlight Stories" initiative being developed by Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects Group

Jan.

If you have seen Jan Pinkava's CG short film for Motorola, "Windy Day" (more details coming soon), you will understand why this is a bold and surprising move for Keane. enable a different kind of narrative experience. Combined with new technologies like Google Glass, the pioneering work that Pinkava, Keane, and others are doing now could have a disruptive impact on entertainment for decades to come.

Here's the official announcement:

Animate means to bring to life.

Glen Keane's work appears larger than life. As the creator and animator of beloved Disney characters such as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Aladdin in Aladdin, Pocahontas in Pocahontas, The Beast in Beauty and the Beast, and Tarzan in Tarzan, Glen has drawn much more than just on-screen characters. He has created the stories and characters of our childhoods. He has given us imaginary friends, heroines to admire, misfits to understand, and at least a Halloween costume or two.

At Motorola's Advanced Technology & Projects Group, we believe in the power of storytelling and are building new stories made specifically for mobile. Not stories made for the big screen, but stories that show up on the small screen. Nor is it flat content. We are building interactive, immersive stories made for smartphones.

So we are delighted to announce that Glenn, the artist behind many masterpieces, is working with us to push the future of animation with an original spotlight story.

In this third Motorola Spotlight Story, scheduled for release in mid-2014, Glen returns to original art. Literally. Together with the engineers who unleashed the graphics technology that brought the first Spotlight Story, Windy Day, to life on the Moto X, we are breaking new ground. The raw emotion of hand-drawn lines brings our technological world to life. And for you.

What happens when a master animator of the big screen dives into an innovative mobile canvas?