Fantasia
(2000)

Symphony No. 5 is an abstract segment created by Pixote Hunt with story development by Kelvin Yasuda. In December 1997, after rejecting pitches from four other animators, Disney and Ernst asked Hunt for his ideas. Hunt first thought of the story on a morning walk in Pasadena, California, one depicting a battle of "good" multi-colored shapes against "evil" dark ones and how the conflict resolves itself. It took Hunt approximately two years, from start to finish, to complete the segment. Disney and Ernst decided to go with Hunt's idea; Hunt avoided producing an entirely abstract work because "you can get something abstract on every computer screen" with ease. Hunt divided the segment into 31 mini-scenes, noting down points in which he would employ vivid color when the music was bright and fluid, and then switch to darker hues when the music felt darker and denser. To gain inspiration in how the shapes would move, Hunt and his associates visited San Diego Zoo, a butterfly farm, and observed slow motion footage of bats. The segment combines hand drawn backgrounds using pastels and paint that were scanned into the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), and computer-generated imagery (CGI) of abstract shapes and effects, which were layered on top. Hunt explained that scanning each drawing "was a one-shot deal" as the platen that pressed onto it would alter the pastel once it had been scanned. At one point during production, Hunt and Yasuda completed 68 pastel drawings in eight days. The segment was produced using Houdini animation software.