It's been a year and about 5 days since Joe Ranft passed and we decided to pay a little homage to the great talent that this man was. The photo to the left is of Joe Ranft pinning up boards for "Rescuers Down Under," in 1989. Joe Ranft, one of the most beloved, talented and inspirational people to work in animation. Joe had the reputation of a great friend, teacher, and artist. He was the heart and soul of the story department and of Pixar. Ranft was head of story on the original story teams for Pixar's first two films, TOY STORY and A BUG'S LIFE, and was a story artist on MONSTERS, INC. He was most recently working as head of story on John Lasseter's next film, CARS.
Voice roles he did included Heimlich the Caterpillar in A BUG'S LIFE, Jacques the French Shrimp in FINDING NEMO and Wheezy the Penguin in TOY STORY 2 and BUZZ LIGHTYEAR OF STAR COMMAND: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS. He also did some additional voices in THE INCREDIBLES. Ranft's ability to bring life to his characters while presenting boards (better than any actor could), made him the easy choice to become the actual voice for those characters in the movies.
Born in Pasadena, California, and raised in Whittier, Ranft studied animation at CalArts for two years before joining the Disney animation team in 1980. He trained under legendary animator Eric Larson and cut his teeth as a story man on THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, as well as an EPCOT Center TV special and early versions of WHO FRAMER ROGER RABBIT? and THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE. He went on to provide storyboard work for OLIVER & COMPANY and THE LITTLE MERMAID before moving up to head of story on THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER.
Film critic and animation historian Leonard Maltin, noted, "Great storytelling is the foundation of every successful animated feature, and no one understood that better than Joe. Like so many writers he didn't get all the attention he deserved when kudos were being handed out, but he was one of the architects of Disney's animation renaissance and Pixar's emergence.""The Journey is the Reward."
~Joe Ranft, RIP 1960 - 2005
information here gathered form film buff online, the hollywood reporterand renderaid.com
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