Fantasia (1940)
Fantasia opens with live action scenes of members of an orchestra gathering against a blue background and tuning their instruments in half-light, half-shadow. Master of ceremonies Deems Taylor enters the stage and introduces the program which consists of 8 animated segments set to pieces of classical music.
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Live-action shots of the orchestra illuminated in blue and gold, backed by superimposed shadows, fade into abstract patterns. Animated lines, shapes and cloud formations reflect the sound and rhythms of the music.
The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Selections from the 1892 ballet suite underscore scenes depicting the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn to winter. A variety of dances are presented with fairies, mushrooms, goldfish, flowers,, and leaves, including "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "Chinese Dance", "Arabian Dance", "Russian Dance", "Dance of the Flutes" and "Waltz of the Flowers”.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas. Based on Goethe's 1797 poem Der Zauberlehrling. Mickey Mouse, the young apprentice of the sorcerer Yen Sid, attempts some of his master's magic to animate a broomstick to do his chores however he does not know how to control the magic.
Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. A visual history of the Earth's beginnings is depicted to selected sections of the ballet score. The sequence progresses from the planet's formation to the first living creatures, followed by the reign and extinction of the dinosaurs showcasing the Tyrannosaurus rex, Dimetrodon, Parasaurolophus, Aapatosaurus, Triceratops, Ornithomimus, and Stegosaurus.
Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack: The orchestra musicians depart and the Fantasia title card is revealed. After the intermission there is a brief jam session of jazz music led by a clarinettist as the orchestra members return. Then a humorously stylized demonstration of how sound is rendered on film is shown. An animated sound track "character", initially a straight white line, changes into different shapes and colors based on the sounds played.
The Pastoral Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven. A mythical Greco-Roman world of colorful centaurs and "centaurettes", cupids, fauns and other figures from classical mythology is portrayed to Beethoven's music. A gathering for a festival to honor Bacchus, the god of wine who rides on his horned donkey Jacchus, is interrupted by Zeus, who creates a storm and directs Vulcan to forge lightning bolts for him to throw at the attendees.
Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli. A comic ballet in 4 sections: Madame Upanova and her ballet ostrich students (Morning); Hyacinth Hippo and her hippo servants (Afternoon); Elephanchine and her bubble-blowing elephant troupe (Evening); and Ben Ali Gator and his troop of alligators (Night). The finale finds all of the characters dancing together until their palace, the palace of Duke Alvise, a Venetian nobleman, collapses.
Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky and Ave Maria by Franz Schubert. At midnight the devil Chernabog awakes and summons evil spirits and restless souls from their graves to Bald Mountain. The spirits dance and fly through the air until driven back by the sound of an Angelus bell as night fades into dawn. A chorus is heard singing Ave Maria as a line of robed monks is depicted walking with lighted torches through a forest and into the ruins of a cathedral.
TRIVIA
Disney had wanted Fantasia to be an ongoing project, with a new edition being released every few years. His plan was to replace one of the original segments with a new one as it was completed, so audiences would always see a new version of the film. However the film's disappointing initial box office performance and the USA's entry into World War II brought an end to these plans.
Additional story/musical numbers considered were Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner, The Swan of Tuonela by Jean Sibelius, Invitation to the Dance by Carl Maria von Weber, the Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper by Jaromír Weinberger, a "baby ballet" set to Berceuse by Frédéric Chopin, a "bug ballet" set to Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (which was later adapted into the Bumble Boogie segment in Melody Time), The Firebird by Stravinsky, La Mer by Claude Debussy, Adventures in a Perambulator by John Alden Carpenter, Don Quixote by Richard Strauss, and Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky.
Another segment, Debussy's Clair de lune, was developed as part of the film's original program. After being completely animated, it was cut out of the final film to shorten its lengthy running time. The animation depicted two Great white herons flying through the Florida Everglades on a moonlit night, with more focus towards the segment's background art than story and animation. The sequence was later edited and re-scored for the Blue Bayou segment in Make Mine Music.
Yensid’s name is Disney backwards.
Technology
Fantasound, a pioneering stereophonic surround sound system, was developed for Fantasia which is essentially stereo sound. This new system would create the illusion that the actual symphony orchestra is playing in the theater. Fantasound employed 2 projectors running at the same time. With one containing the picture film with a mono soundtrack for backup purposes, the other ran a sound film that was mixed from the 8 tracks recorded at the Academy to 4: 3 of which contained the audio for the left, center, and right stage speakers respectively, while the 4th became a control track with amplitude and frequency tones that drove variable-gain amplifiers to control the volume of the 3 audio tracks. In addition were 3 "house" speakers placed on the left, right, and center of the auditorium that derived from the left and right stage channels, which acted as surround channels.
Finally, as the original recording was captured at almost peak modulation to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, the control track was used to restore the dynamics to where Stokowski thought they should be. For this, a tone-operated gain-adjusting device was built to control the levels of each of the 3 audio tracks through the amplifiers.The illusion of sound traveling across the speakers was achieved with a device named the "pan pot", which directed the predetermined movement of each audio channel with the control track. Mixing the soundtrack required 6 people to operate the various pan pots in real-time, while Stokowski directed each level and pan change marked on his musical score.
The artists had to study ballet dancers in order to accurately animate the Dance of the Hours.
Visual Style
The abstract images in Toccata and Fugue was inspired by the work of Sai Yeung and German abstract animator Oskar Fischinger.
Many elements in The Nutcracker Suite are rendered carefully and painstakingly using techniques such as dry brush and airbrush.
The Rite of Spring features extensive and complicated special effects to depict volcanoes, boiling lava, and earthquakes.
The animators stayed true to the works of book illustrator Kay Nielsen for Night on Bald Mountain.