Cutout animation is a technique for producing animations using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. The world's earliest known animated feature films were cutout animations (made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani); as is the world's earliest surviving animated feature.

Today, cutout-style animation is frequently produced using computers, with scanned images or vector graphics taking the place of physically cut materials. The South Park TV series is a notable example (though first episodes were indeed made with actual paper cutouts) as are Angela Anaconda and more recently, Charlie and Lola. One of the most famous animators still using traditional cutout animation today is Yuriy Norshteyn. South Park is now made with Maya 3.0 and Corel Draw.

Examples of cutout animation

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

Feature films

• The Adventures of Prince Achmed by Lotte Reiniger (from 1926) was a silhouette animation using armatured cutouts and backgrounds which were variously painted or composed of blown sand and even soap.
• Thieves of Baghdad by Noburo Ofuji (from 1926) was also an early example of cutout animation, by animating chiyogami (Japanese colored paper) cut-outs.¹
• No. 12, also know as Heaven and Earth Magic by Harry Everett Smith, completed in 1962, utilizes cut-out illustrations culled from 19th century catalogs.
• The Soviet films Lefty (1964) and Go There, Don't Know Where (1966).
• René Laloux's early films made use of armatured cutouts, while his first feature Fantastic Planet is a rare example of unarmatured cutout animation.
• The feature films of Karel Zeman (Czechoslovakia), which combined cutout animation and landscapes with live actors.
• The opening sequence of L'Armata Brancaleone, a film by Italian director Mario Monicelli.
• Twice Upon a Time (1983), an animated movie directed by John Korty and produced by George Lucas (of Star Wars fame). The film uses a form of cutout animation, which the filmmakers called "Lumage," that involved prefabricated cut-out plastic pieces that the animators moved on a light table.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut uses computer animation to imitate cutout animation.

Other

• Monty Python's Flying Circus is famous for its animated sequences created by Terry Gilliam.
• Kihachirō Kawamoto, primarily a puppet animator, made two cutout films Tabi (1973) and Shijin no Shôgai (1974).
• Angela Anaconda combined black-and-white photographs with cutout-style CGI animation.
• South Park's pseudo-cutout style is more traditional, as is Blue's Clues.
• The TV series of Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola uses a complex combination of photographic and drawn elements to imitate the collage style of the books.
• Joel Veitch uses this animation style on his website Rathergood.com.
• Strange frame relies primarily on an innovative cutout style combined with both traditional and 3D elements.

References