The Animation Process | Steps To Create An Impactful Animated Video

‍

After doing ample research, we’ve come to the conclusion that animation improves the overall marketing strategy and delivers an exceptional ROI. 

The animation process might seem a little overwhelming in the beginning. No matter how big or small, it requires some planning, analysis, and main choices to achieve the best results. However, if you execute it in the right sequence, you can easily create stunning animation for your business. 

So, I’ve drafted this piece that includes a compilation of the entire process of animation in different steps so it helps you if you promote your brand or idea through an animated video. 

How Animation Benefits Your Marketing Game?

Online audiences prefer to see more & more engaging video content than other content formats. This makes it harder for brands to cut to the chase and woo them consistently. Animation plays a pivotal role in doing so as it's a powerful marketing tool for attracting the target audience. 

Animation translates to entertaining and eye-catching visuals which work extremely well in keeping the viewers hooked to the message you’re trying to convey. 

Animation simplifies a complex concept so that the audience can easily understand it. Animation gives life to simple characters and objects which makes it more interesting to watch. 

Additionally, animation engages the viewer like no other content type and easily connects with the brand. This eventually results in your target audience trusting in you!

Important Factors That Determine The Production Process 

Whether you’re creating a simple video or an animated one, some of the key aspects that you must focus on is mentioned below:

1.Target Audience 

If you wish to create an animated video that really impresses your audience, you must get acquainted with their interests and characteristics. This will help you a great deal in creating authentic and relatable scenarios and characters. 

This way the viewers can feel identified with your whiteboard animated software video. Furthermore, they’ll be likely to get convinced about buying your product or service as a solution to their problems. 

2. Deadlines 

Generally, the time duration of making a custom animated video is around 8-10 weeks. However, there are video production companies that work according to their client’s timeline. 

An effective way to create an animated video faster is by using templates. However, you must remember that producing a top-notch animation requires some amount of time. So, opting for the short-cut method might result in a poor-quality video. 

3. Colour Palette

Your colour scheme has a huge role to play in explaining your brand’s style, and you wouldn’t want to send mixed signals to your viewers. 

In order to send your message in a consistent manner, your animation must use the same colours as your website, social media profiles, newsletters, and more. 

4. Feedback 

Though, you’ll reach out to a professional for creating an animated video for your business, but that doesn’t mean you cannot get involved in the process. 

Providing your feedback is important to get the best results. This is because nobody knows your brand or service better than you! So, keeping an eye on the entire process will inform you well whether the video will match your brand’s identity or not. 

A good video production company will be always open to your suggestions and tweak the video accordingly. 

Steps To Create an Impressive Animated Video

There are different animation styles you can opt for your marketing needs. Different animation styles help in accomplishing different marketing objectives as per the type of the business or brand. 

Following are some of the fundamental steps that are required to create a stunning animated video:

1. Providing Creative Brief To Clients

The key component of creating an animated video is to thoroughly understand the brand or company’s core values and identity. 

In order to do this, video production companies send a creative brief to their clients to get answers to a few important questions related to the project: What’s the purpose of the video? Who’s the target audience? What is the product or service they’re trying to promote, and so on. 

At this stage, scriptwriters and project managers get involved in the project so that they can begin the work on writing the storyline and script of the animation. They sit with the client and discuss their expectations, and other important creative aspects of the project. 

It is necessary to truly understand the brand’s message and goals before brainstorming the ideas. The best way to do this is by prioritizing the client’s needs before anything else. 

It’s important to portray the client as unique as possible in front of their target audience. This is why make sure to carefully listen to their feedback during the entire production process. 

2. Defining the Concept & Scriptwriting 

This stage deals in delivering the message to the target audience. 

Once the concept is defined from the creative brief, it’s time to write the script. Scriptwriting is one of the most crucial parts of the entire animation process as it transforms the message into an intriguing story. 

You can either opt for a straightforward approach - presenting a product or service while mentioning its features & benefits, or you can choose to show a problem/solution scenario. 

The script must be memorable and engaging, and keep in mind to keep the information as  simple as possible, especially when explaining a complex subject. 

Tip: Write the script in a way that it’s first 10 seconds gives something to viewers that keeps them hooked till the end! A catchy sentence, or a compelling question will make them stay.

3. Visualizing 

A quality animated video is attractive, visually-appealing and customized in a way that it’s unique style matches the brand’s identity. 

This is why the visual style design must be well synchronized with the brand’s goals and identity. 

At this stage, the designers develop images or ‘style frames’ that show how the animation will appear to the audience and how they would interact with it. 

These images are tailor-made as per the video’s requirements and include a variety of aspects associated with the visual delivery such as colour palette, illustrations, icons, angles, character designs, typography, etc. 

4. Storyboarding 

‍

‍

A storyboard is a visual representation of every single scene mentioned in a script. It is a collection of drawings and illustrations visualizing a video or film. A storyboard gives a better idea of how the final video will unfold as a combination of all the elements such as script, visuals, animations, and the like. 

Storyboarding helps the animator and the designer create and plan the scenes, effects, transitions, and everything included in the process of 2D animation. 

5. Narrator 

‍

The person who tells or narrates the story is called the Narrator. Picking the right narrator is important while creating an animated video as a good narrator connects with the audience on a more personal level. 

Whether your explainer video is on a technical topic or has a laid-back approach, it’s mandatory to have a voice-over artist who aligns well with the brand persona and the audience. 

The narrator applies the right tone, pace and style to add empathy and a human touch to the entire script, as well as also adds credibility to the message that is being conveyed. 

A voice-over artist can make or break your video. So, pick one keeping this in mind. 

6. Illustration and Modeling 

‍

Before starting with the actual animation process, you need to create the elements that are animated.  And the process of crafting these elements totally depends on the type of animation - 2D or 3D. 

‍

• Illustration (2D Animation Process)

A 2D animation process involves illustrator or designer drawing & illustrating each character, object, background as well as typography of the animation. These must be well-crafted in detail as they are actually seen in the video. 

‍

• Modeling (3D Animation Process) 

Crafting different video elements is much more complex in the process of 3D animation. Instead of illustrating the characters, objects, backgrounds, etc, the animator has to sculpt them individually. 

The elements are designed in a three-dimensional mesh - a collection of points distributed on height, width and depth axes. Usually, 3D animators begin by shaping the mesh into the most fundamental form of the object, and then create its final form. 

7. Animation Process

‍

Once the illustration or modeling is complete, it’s time to turn to the actual animation process. Whether it’s the process of traditional animation, 3D animation, explainer video, whiteboard animation, this is the stage where your characters or objects are brought to life. Animators provide motion and dynamism to scenes, characters, illustrations and objects, and everything else included in the animation. 

You must remember that this part is the most time-consuming, and requires a lot of patience. This is when you add music, sound effects and voice-over to the video. 

8. Music & Sound Effects 

‍

Animation and music are brought together while editing the entire video. 

The audio editor takes the voice-over recording to edit, cut and trim it according to the animated video. They’re also responsible for adding sound effects, music such as pop-ups, scrolls, and any other kind of music that gives extra oomph to the animation. 

Make sure you choose the relevant kind of music for your video as music plays a huge role in setting the mood for it. 

9. Delivering to the Client 

It might take 6-7 weeks to complete the entire process of creating an animated video. 

This is when the client gets the final video for his approval. Any necessary changes or edits can be done once the client and his team goes through the video. In case of any amendments, it’s the responsibility of the video company to get it done as per the client’s requirements. 

The final piece must be compelling, engaging and informative enough to satisfy the target audience, and must bring the brand or company to the forefront. In a nutshell, it should deliver the message in the best possible manner. 

Wrapping Up

The client plays a major role in the entire process of whiteboard animation as they have some bigger choices to make such as picking the right animation studio, voice-over artist and giving the feedback. 

Different production houses work differently. If you provide the same concept to multiple explainer video production companies, each will offer you a different kind of animated video. Therefore, it's important to make the right choice while picking the animation studio. 

‍