Strata-cut animation, also spelledstratcut orstraticut, is a form ofclay animation, itself one of many forms ofstop motion animation.
Strata-cut animation is most commonly a form of clay animation in which a long bread-like "loaf" ofclay, 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.[1][2]Wax may be used instead of clay for the loaf, but this can be more difficult to use because it is lessmalleable.
Designing the interior contents of a clay block is complex in and of itself. Abstract images and patterns are easier to create 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.
Interesting abstract images can be created by folding strips of different-colored clay together, flattening them out, and then folding them again, repeating this process until the final result is a relatively tight mosaic of "woven" patterns. Eventually, a series of blocks of these mosaics can be combined into single blocks (loafs) and also combined with non-abstract imagery.
Experimentally toyed with in both clay and blocks of wax by German animatorOskar Fischinger and his associate Walter Rutmann during the 1920s and 1930s, a crude form is specifically found in theLotte Reiniger film "Prince Achmed". The technique was revived, named and highly refined with precision and control in the mid-1980s byCalifornia-Oregon animatorDavid Daniels, a past associate ofWill Vinton, in his 16-minute short filmBuzz Box.[3][4]
The method of strata-cut animation was used in themusic video for "Big Time" byPeter Gabriel (1986),[5] for the "ABC" part ofMichael Jackson'sMoonwalker video compilation,[6] and in the title sequence for the 1993 filmFreaked. Daniels has also used it as background imagery as other forms of animation or live action are superimposed over it.[7]
Daniels has used variations of this style for a variety of TV commercials and bits made for thePee Wee's Playhouse series during the mid-1980s, "10th Anniversary Birthday", a network ID forMTV, and an 'acid trip' section from the television seriesGary 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 atCal Arts.
In the 6th episode of season 3'sSmiling Friends "Squim Returns," (2025) a rhythmic musical montage takes places, wherein a food-poisoned, parasite-infected Charlie experiences stratacut hallucinations as he dazedly rushes to make it into work.
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