Cut out animation is a type of animation that is created by cutting out pieces of material, and taking sequential pictures of each frame, which will have small changes. In groups of four we created our own from scratch, using a prompt that we would have to animate. Our group was given the prompt 'jump' so we started brain storming ideas for what we could do.
We started by brainstorming ideas as to what the animation would be. One of the early ideas was to animate a person jumping, but we scrapped it because it sounded too complicated. Another idea was to stack all the letters up and have the bottom one jump, which would catapult the rest into the air as well. I thought this was a good idea, as it would show a sense of timing if we got it right. However, we later went with another idea, which was the same thing apart from the letters were all next to each other and on a trampoline.
We decided that each person should animate one letter, so I went with the 'm'. Before I got started I had a think about the layout of the animation, and planned it out briefly, thinking about the colour scheme and other important factors. Originally, the 'outer' letters were going to jump lower than the two middle letters (which were going to be on a trampoline). I tried out different ways of stretching and shrinking the letters in paint, which gave me a better idea of how everything was going to turn out.
I also tried to create a background and foreground that would look alright. This was mainly to work things out in my head, but it did help the group in the end.
After that, I went straight to drawing. I used a grid to get a better sense of scale, and to make sure that all the stretching and squashing was as uniform as possible. I decided that the letters would distorted when they were being stretched and round out when being squashed. I even created a trampoline in case no one else had created one for the animation.
I then photocopied the outlines onto card and cut them out, making sure to label them as I went. I wasn't there to help take pictures of the animation, but being a part of the process was a real eye-opener for just how challenging something as simple as cut out animation can be.
Overall, I think our group did very well. However, our communication was bad, and things could've been handled better. This was collectively everyone's fault, but in the end the animation was completed. Our coordination could've been better as well, as half the time i wasn't sure what everyone else was doing. This meant i did a lot of unecessary things that someone else was already doing.
This is the finished animation:
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