this is a reconstructed very long pan background from my favorite segment in disney’s FANTASIA – the nutcrackersuite. the way you see the BG here, it of course never existed. the very background painted a bit blurred was in this 3-level-multiplane scene much shorter. I stretched it to fit the length of the 2 foreground levels. these levels were moving much faster than the very background and had to be longer for that reason. except the blurred BG, the 2 foreground levels were painted in oil on glass, so the animation could take place inbetween. it is a complicated move tracking in and out as well as movement in different speeds. I always wanted to see it in one piece, I was fascinated by the blurry painted foliage and the beautiful colors, ranging from cool grey-greens to blueish violet and complimentary subdued small spots of yellow. fantasia was produced during the beginning years of the second world war. glass, that was used for the different multiplane levels was not available in bigger amounts, it would have been too expensive anyway. one level measured about 1.50 meters by 40 centimeters. the glass had to be re-used for the next scenes. so, after the shooting of each scene it was cleaned, the oil color scraped off. for that reason only a few glass-painted backgrounds survived from that time.
© disney enterprises, inc
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 40 years I lived and worked in duesseldorf, london, paris, los angeles, manila and tokyo. now I am professor for film-design at the nanyang techn. university in singapore.
Hello Hans,
Good to see you back on the blog.
Can’t wait to see more of those treasures.
ULI
Fantastic!You are back.:o)
Super! Sie sind wieder da!!!