Editing Fantasia (1940 film) (section)

====''Night on Bald Mountain'' and ''Ave Maria''====
''Night on Bald Mountain'' was directed by [[Wilfred Jackson]]. Its story closely follows the descriptions that Mussorgsky had written on his original score of the tone poem.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=185}} Chernabog was animated by [[Vladimir Tytla|Vladimir "Bill" Tytla]], his design inspired from a pencil sketch by Swiss artist Albert Hurter of a demon sitting atop a mountain unfolding its wings. Despite Hurter never producing animation for Disney, the studio temporarily hired him to produce pencil sketches for the animators to gain inspiration from.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=185}} Chernabog and parts of the segment were developed further by Danish-born illustrator [[Kay Nielsen]].{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=185}} Tytla conducted research on all the characters he had animated and being [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]], was familiar with the folklore that the story detailed.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=185}} Actor [[Béla Lugosi]], best known for his role in ''[[Dracula (1931 English-language film)|Dracula]]'' (1931), was brought in to provide reference poses for Chernabog, but Tytla disliked the results. He then got Jackson to pose shirtless which gave him the images he needed.<ref name=la1990 /> At one point in its development, the idea of using [[black cat]]s to represent evil was considered, but Disney rejected it as he thought cats had always been used.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=188}}

The film's program reads that ''Ave Maria'' provides "an emotional relief to audiences tense from the shock" of ''Night on Bald Mountain''.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=198}} Disney did not want much animated movement, but wanted the segment to bring the background artwork to the forefront which became a showcase for the multiplane camera.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=199}} An early story outline had the segment end with a [[Madonna (art)|Madonna]] presented on the screen with the clouds, but Disney decided against this as he did not want to suggest overly religious imagery.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=200}} There were ideas of releasing scents throughout the theater during ''Fantasia'', including the smell of [[incense]] during ''Ave Maria''.{{sfn|Barrier|1999|p=246}}

The final shot, beginning with a black foreground and a shining white light in the background, measured {{convert|217|feet|m}} of film; according to Disney historian John Culhane, this was likely the longest continuous scene in animation history to date.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=203}} Ed Gershman, who worked on the segment, described how the animation of the procession figures was so closely drawn, "a difference in the width of a pencil line was more than enough to cause jitters, not only to the animation, but to everyone connected with the sequence."{{sfn|Culhane|1983|p=200}} The jittering created on the first shoot led Disney to order a time-consuming and expensive redo. The studio had no camera that moved slowly and continuously enough to film the segment as Disney wanted, so a custom horizontal camera crane was built that accommodated glass panes {{convert|4|feet|m}} wide, with the artwork painted on them, so they could be shifted out of the way as the camera tracked through.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|pp=203–204}} Workers shot continuously for six days and nights, but following processing they discovered the camera was fitted with the wrong type of lens and had photographed the track, stands, and themselves. Three days into the third reshoot, a minor earthquake rocked the wooden stands and panels that kept the glass panes in place. Rather than carry on with the risk of jittered footage, they started over for a fourth time and completed one day before the film's premiere. The finished film was rushed to New York on a charter plane and spliced into place with four hours to spare.{{sfn|Culhane|1983|pp=203–204}}{{sfn|Pegolotti|2003|p=248}}