What is animation?
The term animation is used to describe a series of still images or illustrations joined together to form a fast paced sequence. Animated explainers are one of the best ways for companies to communicate messages to an audience. They can be used for learning, training, educating, and promoting content across multiple platforms. Over the years, we’ve helped clients across a range of industries connect with their audiences through engaging video content. From UBS and IBM to AXA, we take projects from story to screen, creating innovative video content that communicates clearly and delivers results. Check out our animation showreel below.
The main stages of animated video production:
Creating an animated video involves several key stages, and our process keeps our clients involved at every step. While every project is different, our animated video production process typically looks like this:
- Scriptwriting: Whether you’re creating a promo for a product, or a training video for your employees, we’ll develop a script that reflects your brand’s tone of voice. We’ll ensure the language, messaging and voiceover ( if applicable) work together to communicate your messages clearly.
- Styleframes and Designs: We’ll work with you to develop a design approach that feels on-brand, engaging and recognisable. We’ll draw inspiration from your brand guidelines, website, existing assets and any reference videos or styles you like.
- Storyboarding: Once we’ve agreed on the design approach, we’ll use your script to create a storyboard. This gives you a clear view of how the visuals and your finished video will come together.
- Animating: Now it’s time to bring everything to life! We’ll animate the approved designs and storyboard, turning your ideas into a finished video. Whether you’re creating an animated explainer, infographic or web animation, this is where you’ll start to see the project take shape on screen.
- Post-production: Depending on the approach, timeframe and budget, we may add sound design and other finishing touches to give your video that extra bit of polish.
Voiceovers and music
Much like with live-action video production, music can help bring an animated explainer together, setting the tone and keeping the pace. Upbeat tracks work well with quick transitions and dynamic visuals, keeping your audiences engaged from start to finish. Voiceovers are another effective tool for animated explainers. They guide viewers through the story, explain key information and add another layer of personality to your content. If a picture can paint a thousand words, imagine how many video can. Ps. it’s a lot more…
Endless options
There are many different animation styles you can use to create training, educational and promotional content for your business. 2D animation brings illustrations, graphics and other flat elements to life using digital or hand-drawn artwork. It’s a versatile style that can help you communicate ideas in a creative and engaging way. 3D animation takes things a step further by creating depth and dimension. Using 3D techniques, we can bring characters, products and environments to life with a more realistic look and feel. In addition, there’s also stop-motion style of animation. It’s a very hands on style and unlike 2D and 3D, it works by photographing physical objects frame by frame, moving them between each shot to create the illusion of movement.
We work with a range of different animation programs to bring our creations to life and carry out production services for clients. The animation style of the project will determine what program we will use to create it, but the most common softwares are After Effects, Cinema 4D, Premiere Pro and Blender.
Why choose explainer animations?
How do you communicate key information quickly while keeping your audienceS engaged? Animated explainer videos make it easier to turn complex information into clear, engaging content. Typically lasting around 60–90 seconds, they’re a great way to showcase your services, demonstrate a product or support a new product launch.
Explainers are a very important marketing tool; an essential element to developing your business or helping your agency flourish. Due to the recent Coronavirus pandemic, many live events and conferences have been replaced with virtual events, which are slowly becoming the ‘new normal’ for companies across the globe. As a result, companies are using animated explainers as a way to engage with their audiences, showing off that latest product or highlighting their newest services. Are you in need of an animated explainer for your business? Contact us; we’d love to bring your project to life!
