Joe Ranft

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Joe Ranft

Born

Joseph Henry Ranft
March 13, 1960
Pasadena, California

Died

August 16, 2005 (aged 45)
Mendocino County, California

Spouse(s)

Sue Barry

Awards won
Academy Awards
Nominated: Best Original Screenplay 1995 Toy Story

Joseph Henry "Joe" Ranft (March 13, 1960 - August 16, 2005) was a magician, animation storyboard artist, and voice actor who worked for Pixar and Disney. His brother Jerome Ranft is a sculptor who also worked on several Pixar movies.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Death
4 Selected filmography
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Born in Pasadena, California, but raised in Whittier, California, Ranft spent much of his youth practicing magic tricks and playing the accordion. At 15, he became a member of the Magic Castle Junior Group. Finishing high school in fall 1978, Ranft began studying in the character animation program at the California Institute of the Arts. After two years, Ranft's student film Good Humor caught the attention of Disney animation executives, who offered him a job.

[edit] Career

During his first five years with Disney, Ranft worked on a number of television projects that never got made. Furthering into his Disney career, he was bumped up into the Feature Animation department, where he received training from Eric Larson. Ranft remembers his training under the Disney Legend as, “[Eric] always reminds me of just the fundamental things that I tend to forget. You know it like, animation is so complex; ‘how many drawings are in there?’ and stuff, but Eric always comes back to like; ‘What does the audience perceive?’” ^[1] Around this time, he studied under and began performing with the improvisational group, The Groundlings. He stayed with Disney throughout the 1980s, doing story work on animated features including The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.

Ranft reunited with John Lasseter, whom he had previously met at California Institute of the Arts during the late 70's, when he joined Pixar in 1992. He worked on story development for all of Pixar's feature film releases, most recently as Head of Story on Cars.

In the movie Monsters Inc., Ranft had a monster named after him (J.J. Ranft) as most of the Scarers in the film were named for Pixar staff.

In the DVD of Cars Ranft can be seen in an interview about the movie.

He voiced the following Pixar characters:

Toy Story - Lenny the Binoculars
A Bug's Life - Heimlich the Caterpillar
Toy Story 2 - Wheezy the Penguin
Monsters, Inc. - additional voices
Finding Nemo - Jacques the Shrimp and Phil, Tad's father
The Incredibles - additional voices
Cars - Red and a Peterbilt that Lightning McQueen encounters en route to Radiator Springs

His favorite writers were Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe.

[edit] Death

On August 16, 2005 he died when his car plunged into the ocean in Mendocino County, Calif. He is remembered by Henry Selick as "the story giant of our generation" ^[2].

Joe died during production of the movie Cars which he co-directed. The movie ends with a dedication to him.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, which Joe executive produced, ends with a dedication to him as well.

The road on which Joe died, Highway 1, is akin to Route 66 featured in Cars in the way it "moved with the land" (quote from movie). Meandering along the scenic California coastline, Highway 1 is very much a road where appreciating the journey is as important as reaching one's destination, a theme of Cars.