Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (VI) - Seq. 5.3 & 5.4 (Nutcracker: Dance of the Reed Flutes & Arabian Dance)

Directed by Sam Armstrong, assisted by [Norman] Wright and Lloyd Richardson. Layout by Al Zinnen. These pages dated 6/24/40 & 8/19/40.

Animation by Cy Young, Sandy Strother, Brad Case, [Hawley] Pratt, Frank Follmer, Josh Meador, Cornett Wood, Jim Will, John Reed, and especially notable, the Fish-ballerina by Don Lusk.

Hawley Pratt is one of those many names that we really do not know from Disney's, but who was educated there, just like other notables like Izzy Ellis, Emery Hawkins or Ken Muse. Nice to see him turn up here!

(Thanks, John V. and Zartok-35 for reminding me of Norman Wright!)

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (V) - Seq. 5.2 (Nutcracker Suite: Dance Chinese)

Directed by Sam Armstrong, assisted by Wright and Lloyd Richardson. Layout by Al Zinnen. This draft dated 6/22/40.

This sequence I want to present by itself. Many find it their favorite single sequence, with 96-02 ft. of classical movie magic (1 minute 4 seconds 2 frames) by Art Babbitt. Effects by Cornett Wood, Frank Follmer, Sandy Strother and Tom Barnes.

Note also that this draft includes the director's pick-up date, 10/16/39. This is, I believe, the date that the storyboard was issued to the director.

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (IV) - Seq. 5.1 (Nutcracker Suite: Sugar Plum Fairy)

Directed by Sam Armstrong, assisted by Graham Heid and Lloyd Richardson. Layout by Bruce Bushman and Bob Cormack. This draft dated 4/12/40.

The first thing to come to mind about Graham Heid is that he directed Winken, Blinken and Nod, while Brush Bushman later did a lot of design work for Disneyland...

Animation by George Rowley, Bob Stokes, John Reed, Vernon Witt, Ugo D'Orsi, Les Clarck, Jack Campbell and Cornett Wood.

I admit - I am taking this nice and slow. No need to rush a masterpiece...

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (III) - Seq. 5 (Interim Orchestra)

Directed by Sam Armstrong, assisted by Lloyd Richardson. Layout by Lee Blair and Elmer Plummer. This draft dated 10/2/40.

Deems Taylor's introduction to the Nutcracker Suite...

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (II) - Seq. 3.2 (Fugue)

Directed by Sam Armstrong, assisted by Lloyd Richardson. Layout by Bob Cormack. This draft dated 9/27/40.

Animation by Sandy Strother, Cy Young, Volus Jones, Art Palmer, Russ(el) Dyson, Dan McManus, Mildred Rossi, Marcia James, Dwight Stark, Gifford Hiser, Jack Harbaugh (another John...), Cornett Wood, Ed Aardal, Josh Meador and George Rowley.
Truly a veritable who-is-who of effects animators...

M.R. 2-A is, of course, Music Room 2-A, where Armstrong resided. [Thanks, commenter Joe, for completing the names!]

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (I) - Seq. 3 (Interim Orchestra Reel #1) & 3.1 (Toccata)

We start, of course, with the "Interim Orchestra" and the introduction of Deems Taylor in this first sequence of Fantasia, Seq. 3. (in the front of the Morgue copy, see yesterday, called Seq. 2). The Scene numbers are called 2-PAC ## - I suspect this is what we used to call "bipack." Dated 10/2/40. The story continues into J.S. Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in C major, of which above is the first movement. So far no animation, no named animators. Dated 10/3/40.

Both sequences were directed by Sam Armstrong whom we know mostly as background painter. Assistant director long-time Disney editor Lloyd Richardson, layout by Lee Blair and Elmer Plummer.

Here comes another one!

It's been too long, folks! We have been very busy, and at this time,
I must admit that I cannot guarantee a steady flow of postings immediately, but I will do my utmost!

A. Film moved once again, this time to a building from 1885 just next to the Copenhagen City Museum, with a very nice atmosphere and this last month we got everything up and running again!
(Last month left, 1919 right!)Because of the move AND because of my new/old ISP shutting down web services in the start of next year, I moved all files once again - and moved the blog back to this location. The main URL is still the same (afilmla.blogspot.com) but any redirects to separate pages needs to be updated again - to the old ones. Never mind, after a while you'll get the hang of it.

SO... what is next?
I indicated it a few weeks ago in a comment: Prod. 2004 - Fantasia.

Here is the list of sequences as described on the inside front of my draft from the BG Morgue:Now - I admit to having taken the easy way out: I have had a draft copy for some 30 years, and it is this Xerox that I scanned, NOT the copy from the BG Morgue. The info is the same, and then I did not have to take the original apart, remove staples etc. Can you live with that? Then we will see what it has to offer from tomorrow...