CU = Close Up
Shoulder to head
Used to show facial emotion

MS = Medium Shot
Waist up
Used as a transition between LS and CU. Good for showing body language.

MLS = Medium Long Shot or ‘Cowboy Shot’
Frames the figure just above the knees. Also called a ‘Cowboy Shot’ because this shot type was commonly used in westerns to show the gunslingers and their holsters.

LS = Long Shot or Wide Shot (WS) or Establishing Shot
Frames the whole figure. Used to show where we are, who is there and where they are in relation to one another – the establishing shot.

ELS = Extreme Long Shot
The figure is an element within the environment. Used to show the figure’s relationship to the environment. Can be used as an establishing shot.

OTS = Over The Shoulder

Here are some basic shot types or framing methods that I put together with some of my animated cut-outs for teaching material. I’ve never been able to find images of shot types that I’ve really liked so I decided to make my own using my cut-out figures from previous projects.

The top series of images, of the 1960′s Mercury styled astronaut, is created from the animation that I made for a documentary, ‘Lucky.’ I worked as an illustrator/animator/compositor on ‘Lucky.’ ‘Lucky’ was directed by Jeffrey Blitz.

The last image of the OTS is put together from the animation that I made for Death Cab For Cutie’s, Grapevine Fires animated music video. I worked as an illustrator/animator/compositor on Grapevine Fires. The animated music video for Grapevine Fires was directed by Walter Robot.

I created several of the animated sequences for ‘Lucky,’ a documentary that aired on HBO last month.
The documentary, by Jeffrey Blitz, aired on July 19th as part of HBO’s summer of documentaries. ‘Lucky’ focuses on “chronicling the many, and often sobering, effects winning a big jackpot can have on a person” (Television review: ‘Lucky’ on HBO by the Los Angeles Times).

The above character design is Miss Lotto. She was one of the characters that never made it into the final cut. Miss Lotto is a very simple cut-out character composited and animated in After Effects. Miss Lotto was drawn in Photoshop with a Wacom, lightly textured in Photoshop, cut out and then all her girly bits were imported into After Effects.

Lucky premiered at Sundance 2010.

The above is a still from one of the animated sequences I illustrated and animated for Jeffrey Blitz’s new documentary, Lucky. Lucky premiered at Sundance 2010. I was fortunate to work again as an animator and illustrator with Bill Barminski from Walter Robot on this production and it was also great working with Jeffrey Blitz. I found Jeffrey to be a very intelligent and challenging director. The sequences were animated in After Effects, with the illustrations drawn and colored/textured in photoshop.

The reviews of Lucky have been positive and it seems people also liked the animated sequences, as this review from Scott Weinberg testifies “with nifty animated interstitials full of interesting jackpot stats.” You can read Scott’s full review here:

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/01/27/sundance-review-lucky/

I’m excited to see the full film. Please leave a comment if you’ve seen the film and let me know what you thought, thanks.