Cut out animation evaluation

Cut out animation Evaluation

Cut-out animation is one of the oldest forms of animation. Cut-out animation involves moving cut-out shapes in small steps and taking a picture at each stage, this is a lot less work than having to draw every single frame of the animation.

Cutout animation is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: cutout shapes arranged on a flat surface, and manually moved and repositioned to simulate animation. Cutouts can be colored paper, white paper with drawings on it, even photographs, and can be completely flat or can sometimes be 3D object

The cut-out animation technique is great to use when you want to create an animation that looks fluid without spending hours adjusting individual keyframes and producing artwork. This technique is used to produce a range of popular animated television shows including South Park, Blues Clues and Angela Anaconda.

One pioneer of cut-out animation is Terry Gilliam who had a unique visual style of sudden and dramatic movements and errors of scale. He uses surrealist landscapes populated by large buildings, Victorian objects such as prams, statues, machinery and cut out people from Sears Roebuck catalogues for the characters. He successfully obtains new and humorous meanings the tradition of surrealist collage assemblies.

 The process of cut out animation from : http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/What-Is-Cutout-Animation.htm

First the scene is created using cutout objects, laid out flat against the background image

The scene then has to be adjusted to the next frame in the sequence, much like stop-motion animation / claymation - making it notably different from traditional animation. Rather than working between keyframes, cutout animation has to be produced from beginning to end in sequential order, with each change between frames involving minute adjustments to the assembled pieces before the next image in the sequence is captured on video. Sometimes parts of animated cutout characters need to be changed out, if the character changes the angle of their position or changes facial expressions. Facial expressions can be drawn on different heads, or the different facial features can be cutouts themselves, allowing them to be moved or swapped out with different features.

This method of animation is what creates the signature somewhat jerky style, even when animators strive to create completely smooth motion. The cutout pieces can often seem to jitter and bounce in place.

Cut-out animation, of course, does have limitations. Because the cut-outs are flat, they must work across or up and down the screen in a flat plane. Despite the difficulty of cut out animation it is still a relatively simple animation style that is quite popular among novices because it requires little drawing or application of complex animation principles