At the recent Google I/O Developer conference, Glen Keane – a well renowned, retired Disney animator – showcased his new, hand-drawn animation, which he has produced in partnership with Google projects.
Keane is most famous for designing the characters of ‘Ariel’, ‘Aladdin’ and the ‘Beast’ during the Disney renaissance period, and being acknowledged as a “Disney Legend” by the company upon his retirement in 2012.
Those of you who are scouting for a good, old-fashioned, hand-drawn love story will be enthralled by Keane’s emotive three-minute short called Duet that shows the development of a romance between two people – from cell to adult form. Beginning at birth, and moving into adulthood, the featurette encapsulates the wonder and beauty of life, friendship and love in just three minutes.
Duet is the third in Google’s Spotlight Stories, which are designed to explore the possibilities of interactive animation for mobile devices, and the fully interactive version of Duet will be released on mobile later this year. Google is currently building development kits to enable storytellers with new, advanced tools to bring their ideas to animated life. Through the extraordinary examples produced by the Spotlight Stories, Google is hoping to revolutionise the film festival as “a film festival in your pocket.”