cut out animation

Cut out animation.

Cut out animation is one of the simplest and cheapest forms of animation.

Lottie Reiniger a famous animator known for her interest in chinese puppet silhouettes. 

Terry Gilliam another famous animator in the region of cut out animation most famous for the hilarious films under the monty python.

Strengths of cut out animation:

1. Cheap
2. Easy to create ones own world.
3. Any picture could be used.
4. Effective
5. Quick in some aspects.

Limitations of cut out animation:

1. Time consuming in some aspects.
2. Everything must be kept the same before any movement.
3. Limited movements.
4. Hard to continue if a mistake has taken place.
5. If hand is caught during picture without realising hard to remove.

My groups cut out animation:

 

Pro's: 

• Its simplistic.
• A lot of movement.
• Music goes well.

Con's:

• Some hands have been caught.
• Lighting is off.
• No narrative.

Evaluation.

During the creation of out cut out animation we decided we didn't want to have a narrative, we choose that because we wanted to do the 'Harlem Shake', a popular parody. Also we didn't want to over complicate our first cut out animation. So went with simplistic yet effective. We wanted the set to be in a room/ office, an everyday place. By doing so we can disrupt a calm place with the 'Harlem Shake' theme. We cut out 8 different characters  that would be less or just at half the size of the A4 piece of paper and changes a few of them by swapping heads.

By looking at our turn out we have achieved what we went for as it ticks our own criteria of simplistic and effective. The video is 29 seconds yet we had longer footage so we cut and even changed the speed to give it a livelier feel to it as the song is up beat and fast.

However we had many technical issues. As you can see we did catch our hands during the taking picture process, out lighting was off at times and we even moved some of the cut outs too much at some stages. But I would say our mistakes  have degraded the final piece as the video can be seen well and the placement of hands are hardly there. Some may say there is too much movement during the piece but we wanted to do the 'Harlem Shake' and the parody is based on many movements at once.

Overall I would say our final piece was good. Needs some improvement but for our first time using this form of animation we did a good job.