Joe Ranft

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Joseph Henry "Joe" Ranft (March 13, 1960 – August 16, 2005) was an American screenwriter, animator, writer, producer, and magician who worked with Pixar Animation Studios and Disney at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney Television Animation.

Jerome Ranft, his brother, was also a sculptor who appeared on several Pixar films. He was nominated for Best Original Screenplay (1995) by the Academy Awards for Outstanding Original Screenplay, as one of Toy Story's writers (1995), as well as the co-director on Cars (2006), his final work.

Early life

Joseph Henry Ranft was born in Pasadena, California, on March 13, 1960, and was raised in Whittier. James and Melissa Ranft were his parents. Ranft discovered a passion for magic, storytelling, film, and comedies as an infant. He became a member of the Magic Castle Junior Group at the age of 15. Ranft, a 1978 graduate of Monte Vista High School, Whittier, began studying in the California Institute of the Arts' character animation program alongside John Lasseter and Brad Bird. After two years, Ranft's student film Good Humor captured Disney animation executives' interest, who offered him a job.

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Career

Ranft began working with Disney in 1980 as a writer and storyboard artist. He worked on a number of television shows that were never realized during his first five years with Disney. He was promoted to the Feature Animation group later in his Disney career, where he was mentored by Eric Larson. "He always reminds me of the basic things that I tend to forget," Ranft said about Larson's training: It's like, animation is so complicated; how many drawings are there?' Eric also does stuff, but the audience still loves what's the point of interest?'

He studied under and began performing with the Groundlings, an experimental band. Ranft remained with Disney into the 1980s, including Oliver & Company, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. In 1987, he appeared on The Brave Little Toaster, Hyperion Animation and James, and the Giant Peach, both produced by Allied Filmmakers.

Ranft was reunited with Lasseter after being recruited by Pixar in 1991 as their head of story. He appeared in all of their films from 2006 to 2006; for Toy Story (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay) and A Bug's Life, as the co-story writer and others as story supervisor. In several of the films, including Heimlich the caterpillar in A Bug's Life, Wheezy the penguin in Toy Story 2, and Jacques the shrimp in Finding Nemo, he also played characters, including Heimlich the caterpillar in A Bug's Life.

Ranft's monster was named after him (J. Ranft), as the bulk of the scarers in the film were labelled for Pixar employees. Ranft was also given lead story credit on The Brave Little Toaster (1987) and portrayed Elmo St. Peters, the appliance salesman.

Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe were among his favorite writers. John Carney, Daryl, Michael Ammar, Ricky Jay, and Jimmy Grippo were his top magicians.

He was honoured in 2006 as a Disney Legend, and the Winsor McCay Award, the lifetime achievement award for animators, was given to him in 2016.

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