10 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About Fantasia
8. Animators Were Given More Freedom Than Any Other Feature
With most animated films, and especially Disney films, the way the picture looks, sounds and moves is all painstakingly decided in pre-production. The vision of the director is final and it’s the job of the concept artists and pre-visualisation animators bring that vision to life. If there’s something there that a director doesn’t like it’s scrapped and the team has to start again.
For Fantasia, things worked out differently. For The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, there was certainly a set vision Disney had in mind. For the rest of the film, as it was very much a late choice to turn it into a feature, there was nothing set in stone for Disney.
The animators were given a simple outline as to what would be shown on screen. As for the rest, it was entirely up to the team, giving them more freedom than any animated film up to that point.
This is especially apparent in the opening segment featuring Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which features entirely abstract imagery matching the music playing alongside it. The other pieces had creative freedom for the animators, but for one particular segment, that proved to be a mistake…