Tribeca: Kobe Bryant on His New Career as Storyteller, Moviemaker
The animated short “Dear Basketball,” athlete tells TheWrap, is the beginning of a post-NBA career in the entertainment business
Next up: movies, TV, short films, even novels.
“I think there’s a myriad of ways to reach an audience, and the important thing is making sure we have compelling stories and characters that can support that,” the NBA legend told TheWrap on Sunday at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Bryant was at Tribeca to premiere the short film “Dear Basketball,” a collaboration with Disney animation legend Glen Keane.
The six-minute, hand-drawn short is based on a poem Bryant wrote in November 2015 and published on the Players’ Tribune website to announce his retirement from basketball.
Keane, who left Disney after a 40-year career included designing and animating such iconic characters as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” the genie in “Aladdin” and the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” depicts Bryant as a child and as an NBA superstar, as Kobe’s voiceover explains what drove him and why it was time to end his playing days.
How did this turn from a poem on the Player’s Tribune website into a film?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Because I felt like, if I was a kid growing up and Michael Jordan had a project like this, it would have helped me tremendously to learn from his dream.
He called, and we could not believe Kobe was visiting us in our humble, tiny little studio in Hollywood.
BRYANT: [in a hushed voice] There were storyboards up on the walls, and it wasn’t computer generated, it was hand drawn.
Game 6, 2009 Western Conference Finals.
The Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets 119-92 to advance to the NBA finals, which they also won.
[...] we really connected on an artistic level.
Kobe, I was at the John Williams tribute you attended last summer, and I was fascinated by the idea that you find common ground between basketball and music or cinema.
Everything you view, you can view from that perspective, which makes everything a learning asset for you.
[...] if that’s the case, then I can take a very specific film that’s focusing on basketball, and have that connect to human nature as a whole.
Because it’s not necessarily about the discipline, but it’s about how the discipline is achieved, and why.
[...] if you’re riding the bike, you can’t aim it straight at the telephone pole.
BRYANT: [laughs] Now, see, after watching Glen animate those moves frame by frame, now I realize why my shoulder and why my back and everything hurts so darn much.
Do you want to have a presence in the entertainment industry now?
With kids sometimes, it’s tricky.
Because you can’t say, “Do this, do that, work hard.”
Through films, shorts, TV, long-form, live-action one day.
Glen, you sit down to animate this six-minute short as the guy who designed some of the most iconic figures in Disney animation history …
I keep saying to my wife, “I feel like I’m 20 years old again, and I’m just starting.”