Cutout animation

Cutout animation is a form of stop-motion animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. The props would be cut out and used as puppets for stop motion. The world's earliest known animated feature films were cutout animations (made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani),[1] as is the world's earliest surviving animated feature Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (1926).

While sometimes used as a relatively simple and cheap animation technique in children's programs (for instance in Ivor the Engine), cutout animation has also often been used as a highly artistic medium that distinguishes itself more clearly from hand-drawn animation.

Cutout animation can be made with figures that have joints made with a rivet or pin or, when simulated on a computer, an anchor. These connections act as mechanical linkage, which have the effect of a specific, fixed motion. Similar flat, jointed puppets have been in use in shadow plays for many centuries, such as in the Indonesian wayang tradition and in the "ombres chinoises" that were especially popular in France in the 18th and 19th century. The subgenre of silhouette animation is more closely related to these shadow shows and to the silhouette cutting art that has been popular in Europe especially in the 18th and 19th centuries.

While many cutout animation puppets and other material is often purposely-made for films, ready-made imagery has also been heavily used in collage/photomontage styles, for instance in Terry Gilliam's famous animations for Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1975).

Cutout techniques were relatively often used in animated films until cel animation became the standard method (at least in the United States). Before 1934, Japanese animation mostly used cutout techniques rather than cel animation, because celluloid was too expensive.[2][3]

Today, cutout-style animation is frequently produced using computers, with scanned images or vector graphics taking the place of physically cut materials. South Park is a notable example of the transition since its pilot episode was made with paper cutouts before switching to computer software.

Short films
  • Noburo Ofuji worked primarily with cutout animation, for instance using chiyogami (Japanese colored paper) in 馬具田城の盗賊) (Burglars of "Baghdad" Castle) (1926).[4]
  • Le merle (1958) by Norman McLaren is a combination of (white) cut-outs and (pastel) backgrounds to the music of the French folksong "Mon Merle".[5]
  • The Little Island (1958), by Richard Williams, a combination of both traditional animation and paper cut-out elements
  • Famous Studios' Modern Madcaps episode Bouncing Benny (1960) used paper cutout characters by animators Place and Feuer to create shadow effects
  • Yuri Norstein used cutout techniques in his famous animations
  • How Death Came to Earth (1971), by Ishu Patel
  • Tabi (1973) and Shijin no Shôgai (1974), two cutout animations by Kihachirō Kawamoto (who was otherwise primarily a puppet animator)
  • The Miracle of Flight,[6] (1974) by Terry Gilliam
  • Czech animation studio Art And Animation Studio produced a wide range of short film cutout animations, such as, About Dressy Sally (1976), Goodbye Ophelia (1978), Queen Scooter First (1981), The Impossible Dream (1983) and Shakespeare (2000)

Feature films

Television series
  • Mi-Mi, the Lazy Kitten from China and Tillie, the Unhappy Hippopotamus from Czechoslovakia were shown on CBS Children's Film Festival (1967-1984). Mi-Mi used bright-colored pastels set against a white background while Tillie used a variety of different shades of yellows, greens, and grays in a paisley design even before the latter became popular in the 1970s.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969) contained animation sketches with paper cut-out, as animated by Monty Python member Terry Gilliam[7]
  • John Ryan's Captain Pugwash (1957,1974-1975) used cardboard cutouts that were manipulated with levers in front of painted background while filmed real-time
  • David McKee's King Rollo (1980)
  • Pigeon Street (1981) was created by Alan Rogers and Peter Lang, who also both later on created animations for programmes like Words and Pictures, Numbertime, Rosie and Jim and Hotch Potch House
  • the intro and outro of Charlie Chalk (1987) featured cutout animation, while the episodes featured stop motion puppetry
  • Czech animation studio Art And Animation Studio's Bear (1988), Balabánci (1993), Adventures Under the Willow (1999) and Hajadla (2006)
  • Blue's Clues (1996-2006) used cutout animation for many of its characters
  • South Park (since 1997) used construction paper cutouts in its first episode before switching to PowerAnimator and, later, Maya.
  • Angela Anaconda (1999-2001) used black-and-white photographs of faces that were superimposed on computer-generated bodies and backgrounds
  • Bill Cosby's Little Bill (1999-2004)
  • Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola (2005-2008) featured a collage style that mashed together 2D Flash animation, paper cutout, fabric design, real textures, photomontage, and archive footage
  • Outer Space Astronauts (2009) blended live-action footage of actors' heads on computer-generated bodies against 2D and/or 3D backgrounds, a style that is associated with cutout animation
  • Uncle Grandpa (2013-2017) featured photographic cutout character "the Giant Realistic Flying Tiger"

Music videos

Jim Blashfield used cutout animation in his music videos for Talking Heads' And She Was (1985), Paul Simon's Boy in the Bubble, Michael Jackson's Leave Me Alone (1989, winning a Grammy Award, a Cannes Golden Lion and an MTV Award), Tears for Fears' Sowing the Seeds of Love (1989, winning two MTV Awards) and others.

Other music videos featuring cutout animation include Skindred's Pressure" (2006), Serj Tankian's "Lie Lie Lie" (2007), B.o.B's "Nothing on You" (2009).

Internet
  • The humour animation site JibJab primarily uses cutout animation from photographs
  • Joel Veitch uses SWF cutout animation style on his website Rathergood.com
  • It's JerryTime! (since 2005) is an Emmy Award-winning diary series that uses cutout animation
  • Hallmark Cards' characters Hoops and Yoyo appear in E-cards and cutout-animated cartoons since 2003

Video games
  • Nintendo's Paper Mario series (since 2004) use cutout characters to explore the various locations in or around the Mushroom Kingdom. The commercial for the Nintendo 3DS game Paper Mario: Sticker Star (2012) also used cutout animation.
  • Sega's Sonic 4: Episode I and II game opening logo used cutout animation with 3D model sprites of modern Sonic and Tails.
  • The mobile game Sega Heroes features cutout sprite character

Examples
For more examples, see the list of stop-motion films.

References
  1. Bendazzi, Giannalberto. "Quirino Cristiani, The Untold Story of Argentina's Pioneer Animator". Animation World Network. Animation World Network. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  2. Sharp, Jasper (2009). "The First Frames of Anime". The Roots of Japanese Anime, official booklet, DVD.
  3. Sharp, Jasper (September 23, 2004). "Pioneers of Japanese Animation (Part 1)". Midnight Eye. Retrieved December 10, 2009.
  4. Armen Boudjikanian (February 26, 2008). "Early Japanese Animation: As Innovative as Contemporary Anime". Frames Per Second Magazine. Archived from the original on September 28, 2017. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
  5. McLaren, Norman (1958). "Le merle". NFB.ca. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
  6. The Miracle of Flight on YouTube
  7. Malbus Moma (2015-11-25), Terry Gilliam explains Monty Python animations, retrieved 2019-07-23
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