Animation Techniques- Silhouette Animation

Silhouette animation is the technique of using black silhouettes, often created by cardboard cut outs, against a back light. It has similarities with cut-out animation. The joints are tied together and is shot frame by frame in singular movements. There are not a lot of feature length Silhouette films but it can be seen in TV shows. For example South Park and Mona the Vampire.

Silhouette animation has existed since 1910 where we have The Clown and his Donkey by British Filmmaker Charles Armstrong.

Although it is traditionally done in Black and White it has been done using colour in more recent years.

Here is an example of Silhouette Animation- http://vimeo.com/59878173

Animation techniques- Cel animation

Cel stands for Cellulose Acetate, which is the transparent sheet in which the characters are drawn on and laid over a backdrop. This reduces the amount of times it has to be re-drawn. Cel Animation was one of the most common forms of animation for cartoons from 1914 up till around the 1990's. This was because most studios, like Disney, switched to Computer animation production System.

An example of Cel Animation is Lady and The Tramp (1955) by Walt Disney. It tells the story of a stray dog, Tramp who falls in love with a pet dog, Lady. It was created with Cel Animation.

Animation Techniques- Stop Motion

Stop Motion is the process of making an object look like it is moving on its own my manipulating it between frames. The idea is to make minute changes after each photograph is taken. These are then all ran after each other to provide a moving object. 

   The most common form of Stop Motion is using clay figures or figures with moveable joints. 

The first use of Stop Motion was in 1897 with The Humpty Dumpty Circus. 

One of the most common forms of Stop motion is using clay, claymation, in which plasticine is used. Although humans, drawings and objects can be used for stop motion.

Willis O'Brien brought claymation to fame. He is well known for his work on the lost world and King Kong. 

Since this Stop motion has been used in many films including Terminator, Star wars and Indiana Jones. 


One of the most famous uses of Claymation is the work done on Wallace and Gromit by Oscar winner Nick Parks.

The first Wallace and Gromit short film was created in 1989 and lasted 24 minutes. It was called A Grand Day Out. Since then three more short films have been created and one feature length film, which took 15 months to make. Park has been quoted saying they make approximately 30 frames in one day. This is just over one second of footage.

Wallace and Gromit is the story of an elderly northern man who lives with his dog Gromit. Wallace is an inventor and we follow them as they get into numerous situations.

Another example of Stop Motion is South Park. Episodes are usually completed with one week.

Up (2009)- Pixar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwPMKcYEkmw

Up is a 2009 3D computer animated film by Pixar Studios.

It tells the story of a widower named Carl, who ties thousands of balloons to his house in order to fulfill his and late wife's dream of going to South America. He accidentally acquires young Russell in his journey and we follow them through their quest to get to Paradise Falls. Later to be joined by a talking dog and a rare bird.

It took approximately 4-5 years to make. There are 10,927 balloons for shots of the house just, 20,622 balloons for the lift-off sequence, and a vary number for other scenes.

Up received world wide critical acclaim. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars.

Up received two academy awards for "Best animated feature" and "Best original score " winning the same at the Golden globes. 

Vincent (1982)- Tim Burton

Vincent by Tim Burton- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQcBKUPm8o

Vincent is a 1982 stop motion short film by Tim Burton. The film is narrated and inspired by acclaimed Horror actor Vincent Price.

    It tells the story of a 7 year old boy who pretends to be Vincent Price. It is narrated in poetry form and we see the young boy switch between the reality of his own life and his imaginary world in which he is Vincent Price and lives in a Horror film type world.

It took Burton two months to make this five minute film. Whilst working at Disney he was given a 60,000$ grant. Disney took a risk as they had never made something of this nature. 

The film features a cameo of the first form of Jack Skellington, the protagonist of one of his later films, Nightmare before Christmas. It also hints at another later character of his, Sparky of Frankenweenie.

The film won two awards at the Chicago film festival and the Critics prize at the Annecy film festival in France.

Vincent Price was an actor famous for his work in Horror movies. From House of Wax to The Raven. Burton often quotes him as one of his major inspirations.

History of Animation Techniques

The earliest attempts at Animation that we can see developed in paleolithic cave drawings. The idea to show the thought of motion existed within drawing an animal with multiple legs, to show the different stages of running.

A cave drawing showing the different positions of an animals legs in motion

An Egyptian drawing dating 4000BC

Next we see the development of drawings in motion. As with the Egyptian drawing, pictures would be drawn singularly showing each movement and then spun to give the illusion a drawing was moving. The phenakistoscope (1832), zoetrope (1834) and praxinoscope (1877) were the earliest examples of this. Below is what you would see if you watched a phenakistoscope.

The Praxinoscope led to the first animation projection screening in France. But it was drawn and not photographed. The first picture film to include animation was Enchanted Drawing in 1900. This led onto the first completely animated film in 1906, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J.Stuart Blackton, later to be known as the father of American animation. This was filmed in the Stop Motion technique on a BlackBoard.
This led to a series of different cartoon films being made including Gertie the Dinosaur and the more famous Felix the Cat.

Walt Disney was one of the most famous companies to use Animation to its full potential. In 1928 Mickey mouse found his fame in the cartoon Steam Boat Willie, one of the first cartoons to start adding sound and eventually colour. From this Disney went on to create his first full length colour cartoon, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2YSrK4-NgM)
Many of the animation films today are made with computers. The first ever animated film is Toy Story (1995). 
      In 2001 the Academy Award for Feature length animated motion picture was instituted. The first ever award went to Shrek (2001) Dreamworks Studios first ever film. However the most sought after award in Animation is the Annie award. 

The idea also existed within Egyptian and Greek culture in which drawings would be made showing the different movements in single pictures. This isn't the same thing we see in today's animation as there was no way of seeing the motion in full flight. You had to look from picture to picture and imagine.