Animation Artifacts &Disney &Mary Blair &Story & Storyboards 02 Feb 2009 08:48 am
Baby Ballet
The Baby Ballet, set to the music of “Berceuse” by Chopin was to be a segment for Fantasia when they were originally putting the feature together. One of those rotating sequneces that were being planned, such as the Clair d’Lune sequence. The Baby Ballet never made it much further than the storyboards and some small design work.
You can see a similar piece, Perambulator, on an earlier post of mine.
The piece was supervised by Sylvia Moberly-Holland with Mary Blair working under her.
What follows is the board constructed of several versions of the piece. I believe Mary Blair did the fully rendered images. The first version is the board as photographed, followed by my breakdown so that I can keep the images large.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
Here’s the breakdown.
11a
11b
11c
12a
12b
12c
13a
13b
14a
14b
15a
15b
21a
21b
22a
22b
23a
23b
24a
24b
25a
25b
31a
31b
32a
32b
33a
33b
34a
34b
Tomorrow, I’ll offer some color sketches.
on 02 Feb 2009 at 10:00 am 1.Mark Mayerson said …
I wonder if this board is complete enough to set to the music and get a sense of what the sequence might have been like?
on 02 Feb 2009 at 10:19 am 2.Michael said …
They obviously didn’t think they had enough when they put together the Fantasia “legacy” dvd. It includes a reworking of “Adventures in a Perambulator” but only shows some of Mary Blair’s images from this board. (I’ll post those tomorrow. There was too much for one posting.)
on 02 Feb 2009 at 8:30 pm 3.hans bacher said …
fortunately it was never done, would have been a masterpiece in ‘kitsch’.
I saw a lot of color pieces in the studio, someone digged it out for another never realized project. in 1994 michael eisner had a similar genius idea for the music of POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCES, planned for FANTASIA II, babies falling from the sky in the finale. couldn’t wait to see that…
on 03 Feb 2009 at 12:19 am 4.Michael said …
I must say I agree with you. It reminds me of all those awfully cute shorts: kittens going to the Milky Way, puppie at the dog show, Sniffles staying awake for Santa. Some were great – like the Sniffles, but most like this storyboard were difficult to sit through.
on 03 Feb 2009 at 6:02 am 5.slowtiger said …
“Films that fortunately never have been made”, Part 1 …
But the formula persists, from countless TV commercials to the “dancing baby” CGI meme. Maybe this is something only parents understand.
on 15 Aug 2009 at 12:54 am 6.Miguel Garcia said …
Love the way this cartoon was staged and storyboarded,
I just wish it was animated and everything. =D