Cell Based Animation

Cell Based Animation is a series of hand drawn images on sheets of clear plastic, and every time one is drawn a photograph is taken of it, and then traced over but slightly changed and another photograph is taken. this process goes on until you have your animation. But it also takes 25 images to make up a second on when creating a cell based animation, so that takes a really long long time! A traditional form of animation used in the production of cartoons or animated movies where each frame of the scene is dran by hand. A full-length feature film produced using cell-based animation would often require a million or more drawings to complete. 

Here is the first full featured length movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, a disney classic. It took disney creators a least  3 years to create this movie!

Cut-out Animation

In this lesson, we are creative a cut out animation with the cut outs that we got last lesson. For our animation we are turning, moving and swapping facial features on the two base faces that we have got. In the end the features will have gone and it will just be the clear base faces. At the current stage we are half way through taking photographs and moving the cut out features.

This is the final image of our cut out animation. Altogether it is 14 seconds long, although it took over an hour to create. 

This is our finished Cut-out Animation.

Our Cut-Out Animation Designs

 For our cut-out animation, we went though a magazine and took out large close up portraits of women, and then from then we deciding on one of the portraits as the base of a face, and with the rest of the faces, we cut out the individual features, such as eyes, noses and mouths. Them from this we placed them onto the base face, making the model look very weird.

Cut Out Animation

Cut-Out Animation is a type of animation which are made with a bits of cut-out shapes which are them placed on top of each other to make an picture, then a part of the image is moved slightly, making it look like the image is moving.


This is a independent cut out animation that i found on YouTube. All of the backgrounds and the characters look like that have all be hand drawn and painted. Also at the joints of the elbows and on the knees you can just see some little black dots that look like they could be small split pins. This would make it easier to move the arms and legs with out them moving out of place, but still able to be moved about.

Here is an original short clip of South Park, by Seth Mcfarlane. There are basic shapes and backgrounds, this is because it is hard to get a lot of detail, but it is still effective enough. But not the new South Park is digitally animated, which makes it a look quicker to create, a lot quicker then move a tiny piece of paper and taking a new photograph every time! Especially when its 24 photos per second!

My Fish Animation

In today's lesson, I used the model that i created in my last lesson and made this short animation. I used tissue paper for the background, and created little blue circles, to look like bubbles. In my animation my fish swims across the screen but stopped in the centre and 5 bubbles then come out of its month, before it then carries on swimming to the other side.

Model Based Animation

Here is my Model fish! I used plasticine to create this! I will be using this to make my animation in my next lesson.

Model Based Animation Examples

King Kong is a pre-Code 1933 American monster/adventure film directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose was from an idea conceived by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling ape creature called Kong who dies in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman. King Kong was a clay based model distinguished for its stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien. 

Morph is another popular model based animation. Although there is not speech, a story is still told with comedy too. 

How it works

To create a model based animation, what you need is model, can be any material but most people like to use clay because the models can be moved, to give the effect that it is movie in the animation. First a camera is set up, so that it will not move and then a couple of shots are taken for an establishing shot. Then the model is moved slightly into the frame and another picture is taken. This is continued until you have model the model to where you want it to be. After every little move, you take another picture, and then when it is all put together and played back quickly, it looks like the model is moving on its own.