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Silhouette animation is
animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
in which the characters are only visible as black
silhouette A silhouette (, ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhouett ...
s. This is usually accomplished by
backlighting A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) that provides light from the back or side of a display panel. LCDs do not produce light on their own, so they require illumination—either from ambient light or a de ...
articulated
cardboard Cardboard is a generic term for heavy paper-based products. Their construction can range from a thick paper known as paperboard to corrugated fiberboard, made of multiple plies of material. Natural cardboards can range from grey to light brown ...
cut-outs, though other methods exist. It is partially inspired by, but for a number of reasons technically distinct from,
shadow play Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim (material), ...
.


History

Inspired by both European shadow play ( ombres chinoises) and European silhouette cutting ( Etienne de Silhouette and Johann Caspar Lavater), the medium of silhouette animation in film seems to have invented independently by several people at around the same time, the earliest known being the
short subject A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film or ...
''The Sporting Mice'' (1909) by
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
Charles Armstrong. The first to have survived is the same director's '' The Clown and His Donkey'' (1910). This, and at least one other of Armstrong's films (some stills of which have survived by being reproduced in a book by
Georges Sadoul Georges Sadoul (; 4 February 1904 – 13 October 1967) was a French film critic, journalist and cinema writer. He is known for writing encyclopedias of film and filmmakers, many of which have been translated into English. Biography Sadoul w ...
), is in white silhouette on a plain black background. It is, however, most likely that neither the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animat ...
Lotte Reiniger Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Her best known films are ''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'', from 1926, the oldest surviving feature-length a ...
nor the American
puppeteer A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object called a puppet to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the ...
Tony Sarg knew of his work, and it was Reiniger who first established many of what are now the standard practices of the format with her first film, ''Das Ornament des verliebten Herzens'' (''The Ornament of the Enamoured Heart'', 1919). Reiniger's
feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...
'' Die Geschichte des Prinzen Achmed'' (''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'', 1926) – one of the oldest of all animated features – coincided with a revival of interest in silhouettes and sparked off several imitators. Her influence is evident as far away as
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, with Toshio Suzuki's ''Yonjunin no Tozoku'' (''Forty Burglars'', 1928), and as early as 1924, with Hidehiko Okuda,
Tomu Uchida , born Tsunejirō Uchida, was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Uchida chose the stage name Tomu, a transliteration of the English Tom, written in Kanji characters meaning "to spit out dreams". Biography Early career After leaving junio ...
and Hakuzan Kimura's ''Kanimanji Engi'' (''The Tale of Crab Temple''). A few silhouette films have also been produced by the
National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...
. Today, pure silhouette films made professionally are rare, and fewer still are animators who work primarily within its confines. However, sequences of digital and drawn silhouette animation can be seen, for example, in ''
South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...
'' when the lights are turned off, in an episode of ''
Mona the Vampire ''Mona the Vampire'' is an animated children's television series based on the children's book of the same name written and illustrated by Sonia Holleyman (itself adapted to the novel series, itself illustrated by Holleyman and written by Hia ...
'' (1999) and intermittently in the animation of '' Sayonara Zetsubō-Sensei'' (2007). Australian short film '' The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello'' uses a silhouette style closely comparable to ''Prince Achmed'', with creator Anthony Lucas explaining he discovered the technique independently after a lighting fixture failed at his animation desk. The computer animated fan-film '' Emesis Blue'' used
backlighting A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) that provides light from the back or side of a display panel. LCDs do not produce light on their own, so they require illumination—either from ambient light or a de ...
and silhouettes to distinguish original background characters from the stock
Source Filmmaker Source Filmmaker (often abbreviated as SFM) is a free 3D computer graphics software tool published by Valve for creating animated films, which uses the Source game engine. Source Filmmaker has been used to create many community-based animated ...
assets used for the protagonists.Bumpus, Kayvon
"Mercs and Mortality: ''Emesis Blue'', a Fan-Made ''Team Fortress 2'' Horror Flick"
''
Bright Lights Film Journal ''Bright Lights Film Journal'' is an online popular-academic film magazine, based in Oakland, California, United States. It is edited and published by Gary Morris. Originally a print publication established in 1974, it was discontinued in 1980 t ...
'', 16 April 2024. Retrieved 25 July 2024.


Techniques

Traditional silhouette animation as invented by Reiniger is subdivision of
cutout animation Cutout animation is a form of stop-motion animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or photographs. The props would be cut out and used as puppets for stop motion. The world's ...
(itself one of the many forms of
stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...
). It utilizes figures cut out of
paperboard Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 Inch#Equivalents, points) than paper and has certain superior ...
, sometimes reinforced with thin metal sheets, and tied together at their joints with thread or
wire file:Sample cross-section of high tension power (pylon) line.jpg, Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample d ...
(usually substituted by plastic or metal paper fasteners in contemporary productions) which are then moved frame-by-frame on an animation stand and filmed top-down with a rostrum camera – such techniques were used, albeit with stylistic changes, by such practitioners as Noburō Ōfuji in the 1940s and Bruno J. Böttge in the 1970

Michel Ocelot's television series ''Ciné si'' (''Cinema If'', 1989) was a little different, combining cutouts and
cel A cel, short for '' celluloid'', is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th cent ...
s and also, more occasionally,
live-action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games or ...
and
clay animation Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine cl ...
(this series is better known as ''Princes et princesses'', the feature film version mentioned below). This was also the first silhouette animation to successfully make characters appear to speak for themselves (traditionally, either
intertitle In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...
s or
voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique used in radio, television, filmmaking, theatre, and other media in which a descriptive or expository voice that is not part of the narrative (i.e., non- ...
narration had been used) as the mixed medium made accurate
lip sync Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , like the word ''sink'', despite the Hard and soft C, spelling of the participial forms ''synced'' and ''syncing''), short for lip synchronization, is a technical term for matching a Speech, speaking or singin ...
ing possibl

Traditional animation Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawing, drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation of the 20th century, until there wa ...
can also be used to imitate silhouette animation, as seen regularly in Be-PaPas' '' Shōjo Kakumei Utena'' (''Revolutionary Girl Utena'', 1997). Most recently, several CGI silhouette films have been made, which demonstrate different approaches to the technique – Jossie Malis' use already 2D, vector animation

Michel Ocelot's " Earth Intruders (film), Earth Intruders" (2007) and a scene in '' Azur et Asmar'' (''Azur & Asmar'', 2006) use 3D figures rendered as silhouettes, while Anthony Lucas'
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
-nominated '' The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello'' (2005) mixes 2D characters and 3D backgrounds, both of which are combination of live action and CGI. Computer animation has also been used to make more explicit reference to shadow theatre – particularly of the
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
n ''
wayang ( , ) is a traditional form of puppet theatre play originating from the Indonesian island of Java. The term refers both to the show as a whole and the puppet in particular. Performances of wayang puppet theatre are accompanied by a ''gamel ...
kulit'' style – by adding visible rods to the characters which appear to be operating them (ironically, in CGI, it is the other way round). This was used in Jan Koester's ''Our Man in Nirvana'' (200

and the opening of the The Walt Disney Company, Disney feature '' The Jungle Book 2'' (2003). Michel Ocelot's television series ''Bergères et dragons'' (''Shepherdesses and Dragons''), which, as of March 2008, is still in
development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...


uses a mixture of 2D and 3D computer animation to simulate the look of his earlier, analogue silhouette animation. However, traditional, cutout silhouette animation is still practised to this day by such people as Edward S. de Leon and Reza Ben Gajra, where it is often combined with other forms of
stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...
animation such as Lumage.


Use of colour

Silhouette films are traditionally monochrome, with the foreground solid black and the background being various shades of grey – the more distant an elements in intended to be, the paler the shade of grey, thus creating an illusion of depth. In ''Die Geschichte des Prinzen Achmed'', different scenes were tinted in different all-over colours, as was the standard practice among features of the time. ''Das Geheimnis der Marquisin'' (''The Marquise's Secret'', 1922) is a reversed, white-on-black silhouette film. ''Jack and the Beanstalk'' (1955), which Reiniger was forced to shoot in colour, uses full-colour painted backgrounds with the black silhouettes, some of which are inlaid with translucent, coloured, "sweet wrapper" material for a
stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...
effect. Though she seems to have made the most of this expanded format, she disapproved of it herself and returned to monochrome films for most of her remaining career, perhaps finding an acceptable middle ground with ''Aucassin et Nicolette'' (''Aucassin and Nicolette'', 1976), which used a more restrained colour palette for its backgrounds (which were built out of pieces of translucent
plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...


Among other, later filmmakers, the dominant method of shooting silhouette films in colour has been to imitate the tinted look of ''Prinzen Achmed'' by using backgrounds with many different tones of one colour, or sometimes two close or complementary colours. Full-colour cutout animation in which the characters are mainly seen in profile is sometimes described as colour silhouette film, though this is dependent on one's definition of a silhouette, as opposed to profile or side-on viewpoints in general.


List of feature-length silhouette films

* '' Die Geschichte des Prinzen Achmed'' (''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'', 1926) by
Lotte Reiniger Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Her best known films are ''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'', from 1926, the oldest surviving feature-length a ...
* ''
Pinocchio Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel, ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a poor man named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...
'' (1930) by Ugo Amadoro - An unfinished animated film * ''
Shaka no Shōgai Shaka kaSenzangakhona (–24 September 1828), also known as Shaka (the) Zulu () and Sigidi kaSenzangakhona, was the king of the Zulu Kingdom from 1816 to 1828. One of the most influential List of Zulu kings, monarchs of the Zulu, he ordered wi ...
'' (1961) by Noburō Ōfuji * '' Princes et princesses'' (''Princes and Princesses'', 2000) by Michel Ocelot * '' Tales of the Night'' (''Les Contes de la nuit'', 2011) by Michel Ocelot Note: Ōfuji's and Ocelot's features are compilations of earlier series of shorts.


List of short silhouette films

*''Tony Sarg's Almanac'' (1921-1923) 17 Silent films. *''Silhouette Fantasies'' (1916) *'' Madame Butterfly's Illusion'' (1940) by Arai Wagorō *''Homeless Home'' (2020)


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silhouette Animation 1909 introductions Animation techniques
Animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...