Cut-out animation was taken to a whole new level of madness and creativity when digital technology arrived. The possibility of unlimited mix and match with the fastest possible time and unimaginable results along with the power of replication, deletion and to undo the mistakes are the added advantages to the hard hand working animator.
Computer cut-outs have the immense advantage of being able to go back and forth on the timeline and work with key frames, in the “pose to pose” method. Nowadays animators often produce animation in the cut-out style using computers, drawing cut-out shapes digitally and giving illusion of 3d with lots of fine detailing and short method of finishing as early as possible. Cut-out animation is a popular technique because it saves production time and leads to smaller file sizes when compared to full cel animation. These days cut-out is mostly used for commercial market on internet and television. The characteristic jerky style is changed into its quality, and not limitation.
Cut-out animation got a whole new life when Flash came for animation. Flash is a web authoring tool making animation simpler for everyone who wants to try their hands on it. Flash today is used for everything between banner web animations to full feature films, like that of “Walts with Bashir” by director Yoni Goodman.