Cutout Animation

In still another type of classic animation, the animator moves cutouts or other objects around in front of a camera and shoots the movie one frame at a time. One of my movies in this style (using plastic shapes rather than paper cutouts) is "Face #1":

If you backlight the cutouts to turn them into silhouettes, your animation has the look of shadow puppets. (Shadow puppetry is "one of the oldest art forms in the world" according to ArtsEdge at the Kennedy Center.) Here's an untitled example on YouTube, from Bhavpreet81.

This video, Zanymation 2006, contains a lot of cutout animation. It was created during the 2006 High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, Canada. Quickdraw Animation Society had digital animation stations set up and were playing the animations live while they were being created. The animation stations all used my program StopMotion Station. I edited this video from three nights worth of improvised animation created by QAS members and casual passers-by.

Cutouts can simplify making animation a lot. Cutout animation has the look of cartoon animation since you're working with flat artwork - drawings or photographs. But you don't have to redraw every line on every frame and color the drawings; you concentrate on the motion that expresses the story. Silhouettes can be even simpler - all you need are the shapes that combine to make the forms in your animation. Cutout animation can be character and story driven or completely abstract.