What Is Cutout Animation?

 

You've probably seen cutout animation without realizing that you have - in fact, it airs on one of the largest cable networks on a daily basis. But what is cutout animation, exactly?

 

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 objects, though this ventures away from cutout animation and into stop-motion animation.

Many often use cutout animation to make photographs of people and animals to make it seem as if they're talking or moving, often resulting in a 2D marionette effect.

 

The actual step-by-step process of cutout animation is somewhat related to the process in stop-motion animation, and can be just as tedious because it requires manual intervention. First the scene is created using cutout objects, laid out flat against the background image. This scene is created on an animation stand, with the rostrum camera positioned above the animation stand and positioned to pan or zoom over the scene. The camera is used to capture the scene created with the cutout shapes.