Strata-cut animation, also spelled stratcut or straticut, is a form of

clay animation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes 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 clay. T ...

, itself one of many forms of

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames ...

animation. Strata-cut animation is most commonly a form of clay animation in which a long bread-like "loaf" of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the animation camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within. Wax may be used instead of clay for the loaf, but this can be more difficult to use because it is less

malleable Ductility is a mechanical property commonly described as a material's amenability to drawing (e.g. into wire). In materials science, ductility is defined by the degree to which a material can sustain plastic deformation under tensile stres ...

. Experimentally toyed with in both clay and blocks of wax by German animator Oskar Fischinger and his associate

Walter Rutmann Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...

during the 1920s and 1930s, a crude form is specifically found in the Lotte Reiniger film "

Prince Achmed ''The Adventures of Prince Achmed'' (known as ''Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed'' in German language, German) is a 1926 German Animation, animated Fairy tale, fairytale film by Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film; ...

". The technique was revived, named and highly refined with precision and control in the mid-1980s by

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...

animator David Daniels, a past associate of Will Vinton, in his 16-minute short film ''

Buzz Box Buzz may refer to: People *Buzz (nickname), a list of people *J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner (born 1967; aka ''Dr. Buzz''), American forensic psychologist and journalist Fictional characters *Buzz, a character in the 1987 American comedy movie ''Reven ...

''. The method of strata-cut animation has also been used in the

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...

for " Big Time" by

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

(1986), also for the "ABC" part of

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

's '' Moonwalker'' video compilation, and the title sequence for the 1993 film '' Freaked''. Daniels has also used it as background imagery as other forms of animation or live action is superimposed over it. Designing the interior contents of a clay block is a complex art form in and of itself. Obviously, abstract images and patterns are easier to do than recognizable images or character-driven moving images. Both the pace and forms of the movements of the internal imagery have to be considered when building the block (or loaf). A kind of non-high-tech "underground" quality of the all-moving imagery is usually the result, which has its own level of charm, unique to that process. Interesting abstract images can be created by folding strips of different-colored clay together, and then flattening them out again, so they can be folded again, repeating this process until the final result is a relatively tight mosaic of "woven" patterns, interesting to the eye, even in its static (unmoving) form, but even more so when animated via the strata-cut process. Eventually, a series of blocks of these mosaics can be combined into single blocks (loafs) and also combined with non-abstract imagery. Although David Daniels' ''Buzz Box'' What are all those paint men digging? - 'Buzz Box'-Animation World Network
/ref> is his showcase for all these techniques, he has also used variations of them for a variety of TV commercials and bits made for the Pee Wee's Playhouse series during the mid-1980s, also " 10th Anniversary Birthday", a network ID for MTV, and an 'acid trip' section from the television series ' Gary and Mike'. In reference to the ' time sculpted extrusion block' or ' geometry loaf' slice-reveal technique, Daniels coined the visual results or look as ‘insanimation’ in 1984 while a graduate student at Cal Arts.

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Sources

External links

Explanation
at StopMoWorks, with a diagram and links
Buzz Box reviewBent Image Lab
David Daniel's Company {{Animation Animation techniques Clay animation