Seventy years ago, Walt Disney and his team of animators (nicknamed Disney's Nine Old Men) released what they called "a concert feature." The film, initially poorly received, later went on to gain status as a classic. On Nov. 30, after 7 months of in-depth restoration using the film's original negatives, Disney's Fantasia will be re-released on DVD and Blu-ray."These animated movies age really well," said Don Hahn, director of the live action host segments of Fantasia 2000, in an exclusive interview with justArts. Hahn directed the live-action host segments of Fantasia 2000 and was also the executive producer of Disney classics The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. "It's a 70-year- old movie, and it looks like it was made yesterday because the actors don't age, the hairstyles don't age."

Walt Disney Animation Studio is one of the greatest success stories in the film industry. It is responsible for the invention of many animation techniques considered standard today and has a reputation as a hit movie-producing factory. JustArts asked what Disney's secret was.

"Well, first, the important thing to point out is Disney is just people. It's just us, and so we do what you might do," said Hahn. "[We ask ourselves,] 'What kind of stories did I like growing up?' [and] 'What kind of stories would make cool movies?' and we make movies for ourselves and for our families in hope that the audience likes them, too."

But with such achievements as the first animated film nomination for an Academy Award (Beauty and the Beast) and the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time (The Lion King), there has to be some formula the company uses to churn out masterpiece after masterpiece.

Hahn explained, "You want to make something with a strong narrative, strong story. I guess you could say story's everything. . If you're going to sit down and pay your money for an hour and a half, you want to be able to go, 'I am really interested in these characters enough to watch them for that long,' and some movies may not sustain that. I'm not sure you can do a feature on Rumplestiltskin or something like that because you go, 'Okay, well, he spins gold,' or whatever he does and I'm not sure that's enough of a story. So you have to kind of judge: 'Is this something that's going to sustain our interests?' and hopefully if you're lucky, it [will] be timeless."

Fantasia and its sequel, Fantasia 2000, have certainly proven to be just that. The characters are memorable, and most of the music had endured decades, if not centuries, before being used in the film. Over a 10-year span, a team of hundreds of people carefully crafted each musical sequence in Fantasia 2000. "With 'Pomp and Circumstance,' the piece of music was chosen first and they were trying to figure a story for it," said Dave Bossert, visual effects supervisor of Fantasia 2000, "but with 'Carnival of the Animals', the concept was there [first]."

"I think 'Firebird' was more about them trying to find a concept that fit the music," Hahn added. "I mean, the original Fantasia was the same way. They got a notebook full of every classical piece of music that could possibly be used for Fantasia, a big three- ring binder, and they just sat there with a ton of these big vinyl albums and listened to track after track and wondered, 'Well, what could we do with this? What would this do visually? Would it be abstract? Would it be narrative?' and spent months and months working on that. So that was pretty much what we did on Fantasia 2000. . A lot of sequences never made it to the screen."

The 2-disc DVD set features both Fantasia movies along with new audio commentary from Disney historian Brian Sibley, a virtual tour of the recently created Disney Family Museum in San Francisco and a 10-minute documentary about the artwork and ideas for the original unfinished sequel to Fantasia, Musicana.

The four-disc Blu-ray edition offers all of the special features on the DVD plus additional commentaries, an in-depth look at the recently discovered Shultheis Notebook, which explains the secrets of the making of Fantasia and the long-awaited public release of Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney's collaborative short, Destino.

"[Destino is] a great story," said Bossert, who is credited as an associate producer for the film. "It's these two great artists that came together, and they started collaborating on a project. It was just the circumstances of the day and finances . [that] prevented it from being finished, and 50-plus years later, . it's the first time it's being put out publicly. [It's being released now] really because of Fantasia 2000. One of the interstitials that Don directed with Bette Midler talks about the Disney that never was, and we pulled some images out of the Dalí artwork and that really was when the seed was planted with Roy [Disney, Walt Disney's nephew] to decide like, "Let's finish this," Bossert said. "It was really more of a testament to these two great artists . sort of the encapsulation of a piece of history."

Destino was screened last Monday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. After the film ended, Bossert told the audience: "Dalí is quoted as saying, 'If you understand this, then you don't.'" The 7-minute short follows the Greek personification of time, Chronos, through a world inspired by Dalí's artwork as he falls in love with a mortal woman. Along with the film, the Blu-ray edition of Fantasia comes with a full-length documentary about the friendship and correspondence between Dalí and Disney, who allegedly met at a party thrown by Jack Warner of Warner Bros. fame.

With friendships like these, everything about Walt Disney's life and career seems like something the rest of us can only dream of, but according to Hahn, the only way to make it happen is to stop dreaming. "I would tell people not to wait for the big break, that this is the big break. Life is the big break," Hahn said. "The fact that you're alive and have all these tools at your fingertips in this day is a huge break. And to be able to grab some of those tools and start animating now, making films now, is really where it's at. There are so many brilliant people out there that 30 years ago wouldn't have had a chance. But now you can actually make and distribute your own movie."

"Some of the funniest little films I've seen have been popping up on YouTube," Bossert said. "So you got way more opportunities than we ever did, that's for sure."

"Yeah," Hahn agreed, smiling. "So knock 'em dead.