Meeting Topic: "The Making of Fantasia"
Moderator Name: Robert Auld
Meeting Location: The New School Jazz Performance Space
AES members and guests were treated to a thorough tour of the people and the technologies they created to produce "Fantasia" - Walt Disney's ground-breaking animated feature film. Bob Auld described the parallel developmnents in sound recording for disc and motion-pictures, and the careers of maestro Leopold Stokowski and Mr. Disney.
The limited fidelity of acoustical disc recording caused large orchestras to seriously compromise original orchestrations by substituting one tuba for an entire string bass section. The recording studios could not accommodate the sixty to one hundred players called for in some scores. This was the state of the art that Stokowski experienced at his first thoroughly disappointing recording sessions for Victor in 1917.
The earliest electrical sessions still used the old acoustical studios, therefore continuing the modified instrumentation and stifling sound. However, by 1927 the full Philadelphia Orchestra was recorded in the Academy of Music with remarkably improved results. During this period, E. C. Wente was developing the variable density light valve system for optical sound-on-film, as well as the moving-coil loudspeaker for theatrical film exhibition.
While these developments were taking place, Walt Disney was developing his most successful "star" — Mickey Mouse. After a slow (and silent) start, Walt decided to create cartoons accompanied by a continuous soundtrack of music and effects. We saw "Steamboat Willie" created in 1928, in which Mickey maneuvered around a steamboat using the animals on board to make music themselves or by means of him playing them as virtual instruments.
The third component of the brew which would become "Fantasia" was the relentless desire of Stokowski to achieve high-fidelity sound recording. His 1929 radio broadcasts with the Philadelphia Orchestra eventually led to his study of electrical recording technology at Bell Labs. The latter constucted a recording research lab under the stage at the Academy of Music to devise and refine their techniques. We heard Arthur Keller's 1932 experimental recording for which he used a double-groove system to make a stereophonic recording with two omnidirectional mics. This demonstrated the vastly improved frequency response, variable dynamics and spatial perspective which could now be achieved.
In 1933, after extensive research in equipment design and transmission systems, Bell Labs conducted the "Auditory Perspective" experiment, in which a 3-channel pickup of the orchestra was transmitted by special telephone lines from Philadelphia to an auditorium in Washington, DC. The engineers were able to reproduce a wide frequency response at high sound levels with relatively low distortion. The spatial effect was quite evident, helped by identical placement in both halls of the mikes and their respective loudspeaker systems.
By 1937 Stokowski, now established in Hollywood, was involved in experiements with RCA's multichannel recording system. Using 8 synchronized optical film recorders he was able to make 8-track recordings of the orchestra at the Academy of Music, which could be remixed to refine the balance. For his second feature film, "100 Men and a Girl", the orchestral multitrack was made in Philadelphia, and, using a second system, star Deana Durbin was able to re-record her vocals in Hollywood as a further element to be remixed as required in post-production. We saw an excerpt of the results.
Disney's next feature, 1937's "Snow White", was the first full-length Technicolor cartoon, and featured his latest visual innovation, the multiplane camera. This huge device allowed the vertically-mounted camera to photograph several layers of full-sized artwork, each of which could be moved independently, with significant actual distance between the layers for depth-of-focus variations. This was an analogy to the multi-dimensional sound process which would be realized in "Fantasia."
Stokowski, at a chance meeting with Disney, volunteered to conduct the music for Disney's next short subject, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The original 1938 recording sessions at the Selznick scoring stage were technically elaborate but the maestro was extremely uncomfortable conducting to the pre-recorded click track required by the animators, and he ultimately re-recorded the score without the click track. The animation was adjusted to the new music track, and that became the technique for future animation projects with Stokowski. All of this re-recording and re-drawing was very expensive for a short film, so the sequence was redesigned to be one component of a new full-length animated film. What was first called "the concert feature" was eventually dubbed, "Fantasia".
The technical innovations for "Fantasia" included 4-channel re-recording and 4-channel double-system playback in first-run theaters, as well as the "Fantasound" process. The orchestra was again recorded in Philadelphia with the 8-channel system. Careful placement of the RCA Model 44 figure-of-eight velocity microphones provided separation, as well as a warm sound quality. The original recording tracks were 1-5 for orchestra, 6 for reference mix, 7 for hall ambience and 8 for clicks. 15 to 20 mics were deployed throughout the orchestra and were switched as needed onto the tracks by Disney's Director of Sound, Bill Garrity. These music tracks were combined with narration and effects onto 3 tracks of the final 4-channel mixdown. Track 4 contained level control cue tones to create maximum dynamic range in the theater. The original first-run showings of the film saw Stokowski in the theater cueing an engineer to route the mix either behind screen center, left, right, or to 85 speakers around the theater. This involved the use of another Garrity innovation, the "pan pot." Eventually this was accomplished automatically by notching the film at the appropriate points. All of this managed to put Stokowski and "Fantasia" on the cover of Time magazine in 1940. The film was sold out for months but was very expensive to support.
RCA was preparing to supply 8 road-show systems (weighing 15,000 lbs each without surround) but RKO eventually had a wide release in conventional mono sound. "Fantasia" did not turn a profit until 1965. Bob related the various re-releases, all of which relied upon a 1956 transfer of the original optical tracks to mag.
There was no guidance about the Fantasound surround mix as the original optical parts became unuseable. Preservation had been stymied by the onset of World War II and sheer cost as time went on.
We listened to three versions of a soundtrack excerpt of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, including a stereo LP released in 1958 (preferred by our audience), a 2000 "cleaned up" version of the mags made for the 60th anniversary re-release, and a 1982 new digital recording, which was much brighter but quite antiseptic in tone, and lacking the perspective provided by Fantasound.
We then heard an excerpt of the 1937 Stokowski/RCA Victor mono 78rpm recording of "The Sorcerer's
Apprentice" which sounded excellent. The evening concluded with a screening of this same work with vkideo from the DVD release of "Fantasia" and audio from the 1958 stereo LP as transferred by Bob Auld. Quite a striking performance all around.
Written By: Joel Spector
