Fantasia 2000
Preparing for USC and writing for Fangoria has caused me to neglect my blog for quite a while. Thus, Nicholas appears to have declared himself judge, jury, and executioner of lacinemayouth.com for the time being. As I plot the eventual retaking of my crown (which will take place as soon as I get my schedule for school worked out) he will continue to make me look like an utter flake.
This day, Nicholas has supplied us with an academic paper about one of the more fascinating projects in the history of animation. With Disney poised to return to its roots, this is quite a timely subject to examine. Maybe today’s animators could try their hands at this someday.
Fantasia 2000: A Dream Fulfilled
By Nicholas Zabaly
As cap on the first century of animation and introduction to the next, few films of recent memory aspired to the heights of Fantasia 2000. Called both a great art film and “Roy’s Folly,” this fascinating and troubled movie epitomized all that was right and wrong with Disney in the twilight years before the Pixar takeover. Technically and artistically brilliant, filled with the dreams of the staff, and plagued by inter-company woes, the film did not strike a chord, lost a tremendous sum of money, and was seen as a mistake. In other words, it was a true Fantasia production in the spirit of the original, and one worthy of a closer look. This is its story, from its beginnings as Roy E. Disney’s dream, through production, and to its lasting legacy as pinnacle of the modern Disney art.
The Fantasia dream, of course, began long before Roy’s time. Uncle Walt, as Roy knew him, famously imagined it as an enduring project. Roy inherited the dream and kept it alive until the opportunity came as the Disney Renaissance entered full swing. According to James B. Stewart’s DisneyWar, the whole thing started as a debate about home video. In 1984, “Bill Mechanic, a young executive from Paramount, had followed Eisner and Katzenberg to Disney, hoping to become a movie producer” (DisneyWar, 91). But the studio had other plans and placed him in charge of home video. Mechanic proposed releasing animated classics like Pinocchio and Cinderella on video, but there were fears that “… mass-marketing videos might cheapen the Disney image. Roy was opposed to the idea, and Katzenberg, too, felt it was a mistake” (92). While overruled on these films, “… they still wouldn’t let Mechanic release… Walt’s treasured Fantasia” (93). Things were stuck until 1990. “Then Eisner hit on a compromise… [he] proposed using the proceeds from the sale of Fantasia videos to finance a Fantasia sequel under Roy’s direction… Roy agreed. Fantasia sold 15 million copies, and Eisner called Lillian, Walt’s widow, to tell her that Fantasia had finally earned a profit” (106).
The decision launched the Fantasia project in 1991. It came at the right time. Employment at Feature Animation was soaring, and animators were often without assignments. For the next 9 years of production, Roy picked up the free talent. Unfortunately, “Katzenberg hated” the new Fantasia, and he “remained hostile” even into pre-production (106). The film “… became an ongoing source of unspoken friction between him and Roy… Katzenberg showed no interest in it… Instead, Roy dealt directly with Eisner” (106). This had significant consequences for the film.
With the project approved, Roy assembled his long-term team. John Culhane in Fantasia/2000: Visions of Hope reveals the choice of key personnel. “For the day-to-day producer, [Roy] Disney chose Don Ernst. Ernst had edited the story of animation [presentation]… at the Disney-MGM Studios… produced the Roger Rabbit short ‘Roller Coaster Rabbit,’ and a feature that could have been a metaphor for the making of Fantasia/2000: Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” (Visions of Hope, 11). Next was Hendel Butoy, chosen to direct the Pines of Rome sequence (the first approved). He later directed the Piano Concerto No.2 and served as the supervising animation director of the entire project. Of Butoy’s directorial work on The Rescuers Down Under, Roy said “There’s something under the surface with Hendel that’s gentle and sweet, and Fantasia needs that kind of supervisory creative point of view” (12). These three formed the core group of the project, and were the only ones to stick with it from start to finish for the full 9 years. While “Roy gradually invited the entire Feature Animation division to suggest classical selections,” it was the intention of the three “to have every selection contribute to the single theme of hope of rebirth” (12). Musical choices were further assisted by Maestro James Levine, “… a musician famous for his interpretations of the most emotional moments of grand opera” (12). But finding the right music was hard. Don Ernst claimed that “I think anyone looking at our selection process would have thought we were crazy. But… our process seemed to have a certain logic. We hoped to begin and end Fantasia/2000 with… orchestral compositions that seemed to get the greatest emotional response from audiences over the years. So… we would put the names of selection on cards, on a bulletin board. We moved them around until we… reached a consensus… We must have gone through this process… six or so times” (12-13). At last, the compositions were chosen, the order was set, and on October 22, 1993, the first dailies of Pines of Rome were screened. Fantasia 2000 was underway at last.
Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 is the film’s first sequence, but because of indecision on which concept to use it was the last to go into production. One exchange from a 1992 meeting between Roy and Levine reveals this. When asked if he would feel comfortable conducting a three-minute version of the symphony, the Maestro responded with “The right three minutes would be great” (20). It didn’t just have to be the right three minutes of music, though, but the right visuals. By December of 1997, two years from release, they still had nothing even after, according to Don Ernst, “… four or five original story ideas” (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Symphony No.5”, 0:14-0:17). This, unfortunately, was symptomatic of the film’s fragmentary development. Pixote Hunt, tapped earlier to design the Interstitials, was asked to leave his work on Tarzan and give the sequence a try. “I had to come up with a fast way to present this” Hunt explained (1:50-1:53). Pastels were a favorite (and quick) medium, so he used them for his concepts. Ultimately, the goal was “… to try and bring this sequence to life as a moving pastel drawing” (2:01-2:05). Because he saw the Symphony as a battle between good and evil abstract shapes, Hunt needed a means of expressing readable movement. “We went to… the zoo in San Diego, to a butterfly farm, we watched footage in slow motion of bats. I didn’t want people to look at these shapes and take them literally that, ‘oh, this is a butterfly or this is a bat,’ but they’re just shapes that have butterfly-like behavior, bird behavior, bat behavior, so to keep it in a more surreal world” (1:15-1:42). Pastels also allowed smooth and rough gradations, reflecting changes in the music. But problems emerged.
The original artworks couldn’t be photographed with traditional animation camera rigs, since the glass flattening plate would ruin the paint. Layers of artwork couldn’t be stacked. Everything had to be scanned into the computer and then digitally moved and composited. Even this method destroyed the original artwork, as the paint transferred from the pastel to the celluloid sheets that were pressed against them in the platen, making each original a one-shot deal that, if improperly scanned, was lost forever. Complications also existed in the background colors. Story development artist Kelvin Yasuda came up with an ingenious solution. “To give us the widest variety” of bases, “we ended up going to your local hardware store, and… looking at house paints as our surface colors. We started off with pretty close to 130 choices for paint colors, and we narrowed it down to 15” (3:34-3:50). The pastels were then laid down on top of these. According to Yasuda, this was the first pastel piece ever done in animation (Fantasia 2000: Symphony No.5 Commentary). By combining traditional animation, cel airbrushing and pastel transfer, CAPS digital reproduction, and hand-painted backgrounds, Fantasia 2000’s only abstract sequence came to life… and somehow made deadline.
The second sequence, Respighi’s Pines of Rome, had been the first to be greenlit. Following the initial dailies in October, production proper went from 1994 through 1995. At the time, CG animation was still relatively undeveloped at Feature Animation, so significant advances were necessary to realize the concept. But even beyond technical challenges, what drove this sequence was the desire to create wonderment. Hendel Butoy explains: “The minute that I heard those first initial chords [of Pines of Rome], it kind of felt like you just wanted to fly… So just taking off from that abstract idea, we began to just search for something to do with flight” (Fantasia 2000: Pines of Rome Commentary, 5:54-6:09). “Early on, I shared my thoughts with Chris Sanders and Brenda Chapman, [who did] a sketch of a cloud-whale breaching water… Chris took that idea and plussed it, coming up with a mass of flying animals… Out of our ideas came a multitude of whales breaching and flying” (Visions of Hope, 41). The sequence, as Roy announced in a press release on Valentine’s Day, 1995, “… will depict neither pines nor Rome, but will use the latest computer-generated animation technology…” (45). How that technology would be developed, much less how the glorious promised imagery would be created, was the monumental task facing Butoy’s team. Chief among the problems was believability: who would buy flying whales? As Roy later said, “The only way that was ever going to work was if it was done in a kind of photorealistic style, that these were real whales where you could see the enormous bulk and weight… [and] simultaneously believe they were capable of flight… a Monstro kind of a whale, it’s too easy, you know, ‘sure, he can fly ‘cause you can draw him flying,’ but if it’s a real whale, ‘wait a minute!’” (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Pines of Rome”, 0:12-0:42). To create that ‘real’ whale, a complex mix of CG and traditional animation was required. The two didn’t naturally go together, so a saturated color palate was needed to help the visual blending. Beyond this, computer animation software needed to evolve to allow the required artistry. CGI artistic supervisor Craig Thayer explains: “We had a lot of difficult problems that hadn’t been solved… We had problems with the wrinkling on the skin… So we created a special customized way to remove all wrinkles. We also had problems with getting the water to look like it was really moving in reaction to the whales. So we… created a wavelet-driven particle system to cause these ripples to come out from the whale… Then we’d give Effects plotted reference of that so they could draw on top of our water and make the two work together” (1:52-2:30). Even with the advances, the whale’s eyes weren’t expressive enough with the computer, so they were hand-drawn and painstakingly composited onto the CG whales. Despite the difficulties, the completed footage created such a sense of wonderment that the story concept of the flying whales returning to the ocean at the end was no longer dramatic enough. Midway through production, the final conclusion was created of the whales bursting through the clouds and breaching in space. Satisfied at last, Fantasia 2000’s first segment (and Disney’s first major CG sequence) was finished.
Compared to these complexities, the next sequence, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, was simple… and deliberately so. Director Eric Goldberg, who had harbored an obsession with Al Hirschfeld’s concept of an all-expressive ‘line,’ and previously applied it to Aladdin’s Genie, now could create an entire short film using the style, and set to a piece of music that, according to Ernst, he had “always wanted to do” (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Rhapsody in Blue”, 0:18-0:20). He lost no time, constructing the story around whatever images the music suggested to him – including pile drivers, rivet guns, or ice-skating. With Hirschfeld himself as artistic consultant, Goldberg’s team got permission to adapt the master’s famous caricatures, which they did in spades: Rhapsody is a virtual guide through Hirschfeld’s career as an illustrator, featuring, as residents of animated New York, decades of his design work. “The star of the piece is the line,” claims art director (and wife of Eric) Susan McKinsey Goldberg (2:51-2:53). “The line itself had to have a character to it, that had to have a personality,” Eric continues, “or the piece wouldn’t have come off in the same way” (3:23-3:30). A limited color palate involving computer-painted backgrounds (a rarity at this time), added to the graphic nature. Blue and muted darks formed the color scheme, with bright colors used to highlight important objects, like Duke’s red lunchbox and Rachel’s red ball.
As the longest and most character-animation intensive sequence, Goldberg had to raid free animators wherever he could. Disney legend Andreas Deja was among them. “I got roped in for two weeks, while I had a cold,” he revealed at a Van Eaton Gallery event in his honor on June 21, 2007. “I did the scene with organ grinder and the monkey.” Although his contributions last just a few seconds, it was work like this, spread among many animators, which completed the film. Ultimately, even Hirschfeld was pleased: “When I saw the film, finally, I was tremendously excited by it. I thought it was a wonderful collaboration of a moving line and a static line… to me, it’s complete” (5:46-6:01). But Rhapsody nearly didn’t make it into Fantasia 2000. Although Goldberg petitioned to make his baby for 8 years, Disney hadn’t greenlit it until a break between Hercules and his other Fantasia 2000 segment, Carnival of the Animals – and the agreement was for a stand-alone short only. But when the Fantasia team expressed an interest, “The Goldbergs and their team… rushed furiously to complete the segment” (Visions of Hope, 59). According to Eric, Rhapsody gave the film something “uniquely American, modern, urban, and twentieth-century. Urban America is not an area upon which animation – and particularly Disney animation – often treads” (59). Including the segment was a smart move: Rhapsody was heralded as among the best in the film.
A more mixed (and challenging) success was the next sequence, Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No.2, Allegro, Opus 102. “This show really represents the first time we’re doing main characters as computer graphics elements” said CGI artistic supervisor Steve Goldberg (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Piano Concerto No.2, Allegro, Opus 102”, 0:06-0:12). While director Hendel Butoy had gained valuable experience with CG on Pines of Rome, little in the massive, shape-oriented whales could have prepared him for the realistic humanoid toy characters that the Piano Concerto offered. As with the previous sequence, new paths had to be blazed to achieve the objective. Roy offered this take on the dilemma: “In 1991, it was clear to us that the computer was beginning to make… bigger contributions to what we were doing. So we were pioneering on one side of the coin, and we were also being really, really careful not to let the computer show… if computer art had been so far ahead of us by the time the film came out as to make us look like a bunch of amateurs, that wouldn’t have done any good” (0:27-0:51). But by 2000, film audiences had already experienced works like Toy Story 2, and this segment, a technical marvel half a decade earlier, now lacked the hoped-for punch. As Goldberg said, “In our show, we were working with traditionally-painted backgrounds, and there were a lot of hand-drawn elements… we had to make sure that the computer elements… fit in with all the other hand-drawn and hand-painted elements” (1:18-1:34). Some characters, like the rats, were hand-animated but had to interact with the CG Tin Soldier.
Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” was picked when Butoy, listening to the Concerto (which Roy chose because his daughter liked it), found storyboards done by artist Bianca Majolie in 1938. While the images matched the music well, issues that afflict other Andersen adaptations surfaced. The original story ends unhappily when the Tin Soldier and Ballerina fall into the fire. This was storyboarded but, “The music had more of an upbeat tone to it” Butoy said, “or just ended on a positive note… and so we felt we had to go back and rework the story and the visuals to match what the music was saying” (4:05-4:17). Changes were also made in the rat scenes. “It just didn’t work, the first version that we had” Roy reveals (2:59-3:01). This version had comical rats performing cartoon antics. “We all looked at it and said, ‘you know…’ [laughs] we need to do a little more justice to this center section” (3:21-3:25). The discovery came only after full, colored animation had been completed on the comic version, resulting in unused work, wasted time, and money. Even when things were going well, animating to the fast music was hard. “The soundtrack itself is really punchy” explains animator Eamonn Butler, “and it’s a difficult piece of music to work to. We’re trying to tell quite a lot of story in a relatively small space of time… it was a real challenge” (2:24-2:51). The story and animation had to be shaped around the music. The integration was successful, but the segment is more uneven than many of the others.
Compared to these difficulties, Carnival of the Animals, Finale by Saint-Saëns, was breathtakingly buoyant. Based on a concept by veteran story man Joe Grant (who created The Dance of the Hours in the original Fantasia) and animated in its entirety by Eric Goldberg over a 9-month period, this piece had, according to Goldberg, “a kind of duel joy of having first of all the international language of music… [and] also the international language of humor as well. It’s nice to be able to do in pantomime and have everybody understand it in any country around the world” (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Carnival of the Animals, Finale”, 3:01-3:19). While other sequences depended on collaboration and mixtures of techniques, Carnival was strikingly individual and handcrafted – the only computer technique was digital replication of the ‘Snotty Six’ flamingos. Goldberg animated a single flamingo that was rubber-stamped to create all the characters. Under the direction of Susan McKinsey Goldberg, the flamingos were then hand-painted in watercolors. Backgrounds too were hand-painted: yellow for the Six, green for Oddball. A co-worker, Eric Goldberg explains, inspired the yo-yo tricks. “I got my research from my previous co-directing partner Mike Gabriel, who anytime he was bored on Pocahontas would pull out a yo-yo and start playing with it” (0:31-0:39). The only minor difficulty in nailing down the sequence was determining story: “Early story reels were very like Dance of the Hours: one guy had a yo-yo and all the others were chasing him in order to get it… one thing we learned when we went to study flamingos… is that they tend to work as a kind of group unit… It’s kind of mob rule, so to speak, and we thought it would be funny to make our hero the individual” (0:55-1:31). As Goldberg’s individual (which more than a little suggests self-caricature) is easily the liveliest character of Fantasia 2000, the effort succeeded admirably.
Success was not an issue for the next sequence, Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – it had, after all, remained a classic for nearly 60 years. Kodak’s Cinesite company spent months restoring the image, while Sony’s proprietary audio technology was used to fix the soundtrack. The result, while the highest quality possible, did not resemble the new material when blown up to Fantasia 2000’s IMAX format. But the magic of the story and art remained. As the sole sequence from the first film, it linked the two Fantasias.
Linking was also the job of the Interstitial sequences. Unlike the original film, where Deems Taylor introduced all the segments, Fantasia 2000 would have a group of presenters. As for the set design, several ideas were tried before producer Don Hahn struck gold. “Actually he dreamed up [the designs] at lunchtime one day and sketched them out on a napkin” relates Don Ernst (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “The Interstitials”, 0:35-0:40). The set, featuring large translucent sails, allowed for ever-changing displays. “It’s a little like story sketches pinned to a storyboard or frames of film” Hahn explains (0:50-0:54). By combining the sails with the orchestra, the concert could be set anywhere, even “in the middle of your imagination,” as designer Pixote Hunt wanted (1:14-1:16). The orchestra, presenters, and live-action material for the sails were each shot separately and composited together by Rhythm & Hues. Additionally, at the end of Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Mickey Mouse was featured running from Stokowski over to Levine. This was Andreas Deja’s other contribution to the film, and a transition to the next segment.
But what would that next segment be? This was one of the toughest debates of the film, and one which brought everything back to Roy’s sole boss: Michael Eisner. Since Katzenberg had not been involved with developing the project, Roy had no choice but to respond to Eisner’s advice. While a number of concepts were tried for this spot, including a boarded sequence called Icarus Duck set to music from Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas, Eisner at a meeting “insisted that Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ be one of the compositions” after hearing it at “his son Eric’s high school graduation” (DisneyWar, 289). Although “Roy said nothing… everyone could tell from the strained look on his face that he didn’t like the idea” (289). From here, things only grew worse. “Eisner proceeded to outline a plot… all the classic Disney heroes and heroines – Cinderella and Prince Charming, Ariel and Eric – march in a wedding procession carrying their future babies… There was dead silence in the room… When Eisner left, the animators were in an uproar… The mass wedding… seemed like… a Korean religion cult. And showing the hallowed Disney characters as married with babies implied they had engaged in sex. The very thought was unsettling” (289). Roy assigned animators to create concepts. But “when they unveiled the segment… there was stunned silence. ‘This is an appalling abuse of the characters’ one animator said… The animators flatly refused to continue work” (289). Eisner gave up the babies. “‘I don’t care what you do… but you have to use ‘Pomp and Circumstance’’ he finally said. Roy concluded it was the price he’d have to pay to get the film made” (289). Even director Francis Glebas acknowledged it. “It was Eisner’s baby all the way” he confirmed at Van Eaton Gallery’s Animation Book Look event on May 17, 2008. Given these restrictions, the staff made the best of a difficult situation.
Glebas had pitched an idea with Donald as Noah’s assistant assembling animals for the Ark. In the wake of the baby scandal, it was an attractive alternative. Donald was underutilized, and he might provide the boost Mickey gave to the original Fantasia. Peter Schickele was brought in to arrange the marches. “Mostly what I did was a sort of a pastiche… but we did take a few liberties. I did a little slide on the tympanis that Elgar would never do, I think – probably lose his knighthood if he did that” (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Pomp and Circumstances”, 1:52-2:13). While the artists were enthusiastic about Donald, they were less so with the animals. Their animation was outsourced to Richard Purdum Productions in London, previously unthinkable for Fantasia. Some of the rain effects were reused live-action elements shot in 1940 for the original film. But no effort was spared for the feathered pair’s final kiss. Director Glebas explains: “Tim Allen was our animator who did it, and he basically put himself into the piece. He thought about the time when he was away from his wife and saw her again for the first time and they had this incredible kiss. That’s what he did with Donald and Daisy” (3:57-4:10). Allen’s emotion helped elevate the sequence above its infamous beginnings.
The final sequence, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite – 1919 Version, provided a challenge unlike any other. Roy knew that something that could live up to Night on Bald Mountain was needed. This ultimate assignment fell to identical twins from Paris: Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi. “The theme” Gaëtan said, “was death and rebirth” (Fantasia Legacy: Creating “Firebird Suite – 1919 Version”, 0:07-0:15). Knowing this, the brothers set to creating the story. Every storyboard and concept was done by them alone. Art director Carl Jones then created the color script, the base from which the film was derived. Art Nouveau style was used for the characters; Symbolist art for the backgrounds.
In a private interview, John Pomeroy, supervising animator of the Firebird, told his personal story of creation. In 1994 John Pomeroy, the Firebird’s supervising animator, had pitched a project for Fantasia that he’d developed for a year, only to have the concept turned down. Disappointed, he was ready to move on when the Brizzis invited him to join the Firebird team. Excited at the monumental challenge of animating the Firebird, he accepted. Little did he know that his 44 seconds of footage would take the next year and a half to complete. The first half-year was spent on experiments and tests. “I needed to learn how to animate lava and crust” he said, “and how this creature would move.” Finally, he was ready. 1997 was Pomeroy’s year of the Firebird. He animated every frame himself, including roughs of the dozens of layers of effects. The creature was half-character, half-effects, so there was no way around it. The Effects department then cleaned up and refined his work. No computer animation was used. But beyond this, the work had great personal meaning.
“All three of us lead animators, Anthony deRosa [Sprite], Ron Husband [Elk], and myself, are very devout Christians” Pomeroy said. He saw similarities to his beliefs in the sequence. The Elk (like God) breathes life into the Sprite (like man), and the Firebird is like God’s wrath and also a means for new birth and life. The lead animators invested their faith in their characters, creating something more than ordinary drawings.
“There is this look between them [the Elk and the Sprite] where there is this communication… we wanted expressly to show the eyes of the Elk saying ‘Come on, you can make it, I’m sure you can make it… I will help you’” said Gaëtan (Fantasia 2000: Firebird Commentary, 105:58-106:14). These connections were the key to the sequence. According to Pomeroy, the Brizzis are “almost connected mentally” and could work as a single unit. Artistically, connections were crucial as well. “Firebird was… probably the most challenging of all the segments from an effects standpoint” asserts visual effects supervisor David Bossert (Fantasia Legacy, 1:42-1:50). And “with the Sprite… 50 percent of it was made up out of effects elements” (2:30-2:38). Layers of drawn effects, CG, particle simulation, and character animation were all combined. The Elk’s antlers were done in CG and composited later. Pomeroy related that the entire team felt that it was incredible to be working on this project. For them it was a rare opportunity, the pride of the movie, the crown jewel of Fantasia 2000, the summation of Disney greatness. “I wish there were more like that one,” he said.
On the film’s release, many agreed — for Firebird and Rhapsody. But critics found less to like in other segments. “The Eisner-inspired ‘Pomp and Circumstance’… came in for particularly harsh criticism” (DisneyWar, 347). And the film’s huge costs, at least $90 million, were increased by “the seven eventual ‘premieres’… [each of which] cost more than $1 million” (346). As the film had been made for the limited-capacity IMAX theaters (including one specially built by Disney), less than $3 million was earned on opening weekend, and the film grossed only $60 million in the United States. “Eisner was impervious to arguments that at least $60 million would have been incurred anyway since so many animators were under contract. He didn’t say anything directly to Roy, but told others that the film was ‘Roy’s folly,’ and that it had convinced him that Roy had little, if any, talent” (347). This became a wedge issue when, during the lead-up to the Save Disney campaign, Eisner forced Roy from his family’s company. The Fantasia dream was over, and draconian layoffs at Feature Animation soon followed.
Most of the creative talents responsible for the film have now scattered. Looking back on the moments of creation when these, the best 1,200 artists and technicians of contemporary animation were all together, one cannot help but feel something important, though intangible, has been lost. However, their lasting work remains a benchmark for beauty in the animated form, and testament to their accomplishments. Like its predecessor, Fantasia 2000 earned a profit on home video. With Eisner gone, Roy and others dream new Fantasia dreams. Perhaps a new child, 60 years from now, will pick up the baton, for the singular theme of hope springs eternal in the dreams of creators.
Works Cited:
Culhane, John. Fantasia/2000: Visions of Hope. New York: Disney Editions, 1999.
Deja, Andreas. Lecture. Career at Disney and Overview of Studio History. Van Eaton Gallery, Studio City, CA. 21 June, 2007.
Fantasia 2000. Dir. Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldber, James Algar, Francis Glebas, Gaëtan and Paul Brizzi. Executive producer Roy Edward Disney. Walt Disney Pictures, 2000. DVD. Buena Vista Pictures, 2000.
Fantasia Legacy. DVD. Buena Vista Pictures, 2000.
Glebas, Francis. Personal conversation. Van Eaton Gallery, Studio City, CA. 17 May, 2008.
Pomeroy, John. Interview with Nicholas Zabaly. Telephone interview. 12 May, 2009.
Stewart, James B. Disney War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.