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Disney animator behind “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin” draws in virtual reality

(YouTube/Future of StoryTelling)

“Today, all the rules have change”

The name Glen Keane may not ring a bell, but his work with Disney is easily recognizable to any child who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Tarzan are just some of the classic films draped in Keane’s animation style.

“By making a line it’s sort of a seismograph of your soul,” said Keane in this promotional teaser video for the Future of StoryTelling Festival.

Keane is given HTV Vive VR headset (http://www.htcvr.com/) and uses what appears to be the Tilt Brush app (http://www.tiltbrush.com/#intro) to draw one of his iconic characters, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, according to The Verge (http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/11/9309727/virtual-reality-drawing-glen-keane-disney)

“I can put goggles on and I just step into the paper and now I’m drawing it,” said Keane, “When I draw in virtual reality, I draw all the characters in real life size.”

Through the VR goggles, Keane walks around the drawings in a 3D-space, adding another level of depth which Keane says opens the possibilities of story-telling.

One of Keane’s final works with Disney was the animated short “Paperman,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=mM6cLnscmO8)
which won the 2013 Oscar for an animated short film.