The Teachers' Animation Toolkit

3.3 CUT-OUT ANIMATION

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The Teachers’ Animation Toolkit
Another technique to consider is replacement animation. This 
involves making a sequence of cut-out shapes then cycling them to 
create the illusion of movement. This technique can allow a bird to 
fl y, a face to change from a frown to a smile or a seedling to grow 
into a mature tree.
The following activity uses replacement animation, and might be 
useful as an initial warm-up exercise for younger students:
Ask each student to draw just the outline of a head onto thin white 
card and cut it out. Then draw the following items on the cardboard 
and cut them out:
Four sets of eyes from wide open to nearly closed
Six mouths showing the sounds a e i o u and very wide open
Four sets of odd-shaped ears
Four sets of eyebrows
Four hair styles
Four different hats
Make up different faces with these cut-outs. Pull faces in a mirror 
to get some ideas. Another way to make cut-outs is to stick 
magazine photos onto cardboard and cut around them. You can 
make pictures larger by using a photocopier. You can reverse 
them by tracing over the original then tracing over the back of the 
tracing paper.
Next animate each face by mix and matching different combinations 
of features.
Materials:
Thin card in various colours,
 
glue sticks, scissors, sugar paper, 
pastels or crayons, BluTak and/or paper fasteners, 2D animation 
rostrums and lights.
Resources:
Video: Eco Monkey

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Animation Styles
87
Lotte Reiniger’s animated feature The Adventures of Prince Achmed 
(extract) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25SP4ftxklg
Terry Gilliam’s animated sequences for the Monty Python TV series 
and fi lms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq37WSg9ESg
Yuri Nortstein’s fi lm 
The Fox and the Hare
, 1973. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo4ccROH55E
Chris Marker’s photo collage fi lm La Jetee. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvTYd4XnEc
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut uses computer animation to 
imitate the look of cut-out animation. 
http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v10574062841
The closing credits of the fi lm of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of 
Unfortunate Events mimics the style of cut-out animation, though 
sophisticated animation software was used.
The TV series of Lauren Child’s Charlie and Lola. 
http://www.charlieandlola.com/
Angela Anaconda combines black-and-white photographs with 
cut-out-style CGI animation. http://www.angelaa.com/
Cut-out Pro’s Stickman software can be used to create cut-out-style 
animations. http://www.cutoutpro.com
The Museum of Childhood: This webpage offers great resources. 
Here you can fi nd classroom friendly instructions and templates 
to make silhouettes, cut-outs, jumping jacks and more. 
http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/kids/things_to_make/jumping_jack/index.html

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The Teachers’ Animation Toolkit
Cut-out fairytale animation

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Animation Styles