Drawing in Animation: Duet

This animation is simply astonishing and one of those things that you can re-watch endless times. It was created by Disney's animator Glenn Kean.
And while Keane and company got a few lessons in programming, the programmers got to participate in a life drawing class, so they could get a better idea where the artists were coming from.
And drawing is what Keane and his animation assistant Sarah Airriess did quite a lot of because the programmers needed the roughly three and a half minute film to be a mind-boggling 60 frames per second, quite jump from the 24 frames per second Keane was used to. “Max and I would drive home just struggling with this 60 frames per second,” Keane recalls.” That translates to 60 drawings per second and that’s a lot of drawings. “The big missing piece was that every frame was being held for two frames,” explains Max Keane, “So 24 to Glen actually meant 12 frames and when we found that then that gave us a common ground.”
“Twelve goes into 60 five times,” notes Glen. “And that was the Rosetta Stone.”
They worked out with “Duet” technical project lead Rachid El Guerrab what frame rates they could use. “He went down this list: 10, 15, 30, 12,” recalls Max. “He said 12 and it was like, ah-hah! We can do 12. It was like a lightbulb.”
Ultimately Google ended up using 10,555 frames, a lot of drawings for Keane. “You probably threw out 2,500 other ones in the process,” Max reminds Glen.
“I don’t think of it as drawing after drawing after drawing,” Glen Keane says. “I think of it as a melody.”
Keane relished another difference that the making of “Duet” opened to him. “There are no cuts. And I love that idea. A seamless unbroken conversation with the character that you’re having. And if I needed a close up, I would draw them closer. There was such freedom of movement.”
Keane is hoping to carry his new insights into his next venture. “I really love the freedom of this type of storytelling and I’d really like to keep exploring that,” he says.
Despite his long and storied career in animation, “Duet” is Keane’s first time as a director. He was at Disney and directing “Rapunzel”(later renamed “Tangled”) when he had a heart attack in 2008, and had to step away from the director’s chair. And now that’s he’s left Disney, he’s ready to explore more on his own. “I have some ideas I’ve been cooking for a long time,” he notes.
But another project like “Duet” isn’t what he has in mind. “I don’t want to say that I wouldn’t do another one. It was fascinating and wonderful,” he says. “But I’m not driven by the technical side of things. I’m driven by the artistic, the need to say something. And I have some ideas that I really want to say. And that’s where I want to focus.”
But he’ll always be thankful for his brush with technology. ” I never could have told this story without that technology. It just would not have gotten there. That’s the wonderful, surprising thing.”