Disney's ambitious concert-feature experiment, in which Bill Peet was assigned to the Pastoral Symphony segment alongside fourteen other sketch artists. With minimal story direction, the artists filled the boards with flying horses, centaurs, centaurettes, fauns, and cherubs, inventing much of what appeared on screen and forming a defining early chapter in Bill's story career.
Bill described the experience in his autobiography: "When I was assigned to sketch on Fantasia I was even more discouraged when I joined fourteen other sketch men to create a pictorial version of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. While the record player filled the rooms with Beethoven we filled the boards with flying horses, centaurs, centaurettes, fauns, and cherubs, flying, galloping, and dancing all over the Olympian landscape. The story men were at a loss to tell us what to do, so we were responsible for what finally came out on the screen."
His contribution
Assigned to the Pastoral Symphony ("Beethoven's Sixth") sequence, Bill was one of a large team given almost no story direction. The artists, left to their own devices, generated the imagery of flying Pegasus horses, centaurs, and dancing fauns that defined the segment's look. It was an unusual creative situation even by Disney standards, with story artists functioning as designers with no script to follow.
Story sketches
- RELEASED
- November 13, 1940
- DIRECTOR
- Samuel Armstrong, James Algar, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, Ford Beebe, T. Hee, Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson
- BILL'S ROLE
- Story Sketch Artist (Pastoral Symphony Sequence)
- RUNTIME
- 125 min