Cut-out Animation

Cut-out Animation


Cut-out animation is another form of stop motion animation, it is one of the oldest forms of animation, and was one of the easiest to create. Cut- out animation involves having characters cut into different sections, for example the head, body, arms and legs would all be different shapes, because having them in different shapes makes it easier to change the character for example if you wanted them to wave to somebody, you wouldn’t have to draw the character fully again. Not just the characters are cut outs but also the backgrounds are made from materials such as cardboard, fabric and sometimes photographs.
The technique is very similar to clay animation only cut out animation is 2D, but it still involves moving the characters and the background slightly and taking still images, then placing them together, with a minimum of 10 frames per second to create the illusion of motion. An example of traditional cut out animation is the first ever episode of ‘South Park’.

However due to technology, cut-out animation is produced using computers. Scanned images and vector graphics have taken over the traditional paper cut-outs. The image is a lot clearer with animations created on the computer, as you will see in the next video, which is a recent episode of ‘South Park’, you will clearly see the improvements made in cut-out animation.

 In the recent episode's the writing is computerised not hand drawn, like the first episode of 'South Park'. Other features that are noticable are the colours are more bold and solid, but the most noticable feature is that the image and sound are much more clearer than the traditional way of cut-out animation.

Clay Animation

 Clay Animation


Clay animation is one form of stop motion animation. It’s a very traditional way of creating an animation, it involves taking a series of still pictures of the figures, then putting the pictures together and playing the frames back at a rate of 10-12 frames per second to create the illusion of movement. The characters and sometimes the background are made of a malleable substance such as clay, so the figures are easy to change. The procress involved is very time consuming and thought provoking.

The technique is very simple, each figure is usually made of clay around a armature, so that the figures stay strong but can also easily change shape when played with. The technique involves the figures being placed around a background, the figures are constantly moved slightly by hand, after each movement a still picture is taken. This is repeated around 64,800 times for a full length 90 minute film, very time consuming, but the technique is successful. One popular animated film created by clay animation is ‘Wallace and Gromit’.

From looking at this clip, you can see that the figures and the most of the background is made from a malleable substance, however even if you watch the clip closely, you can’t tell that the film has been made using stop motion because the human mind processes the series of still images as motion, making the objects and figures look like they are moving.