Animation is an incredibly versatile medium that can be used across a variety of businesses, including the healthcare sector. Not only do animated videos help you to communicate your message in a clear way, but they can also help you to explain a complex topic to your audience too.
If you don’t believe me, look at the statistics. Recent stats have shown that video can increase a business’s revenue 49% faster year-over-year than those that don’t. What’s more is that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in video compared to 10% when reading it in text.
Believe it or not, one of the main factors of a successful video campaign is how the groundwork is laid and there are some key steps of animation that we’ll go through below.
What Are the Initial Steps Involved in Planning an Animation Project?
Planning is key for any project, including video, and it’s at this point where the concept for the project is born, ready to start the creative process.
- Concept & Brief – an idea and brief needs to be created to provide an overview of the campaign objectives, target audience, competitors, and brand message as well as the channels being used to run the campaign (eg. website, social media)
- Script & Style – once the brief is created, a script needs to be formed as well as brand guidelines to help inform the visual style of the animation.
- Storyboarding – once the above is complete, a storyboard needs to be designed. This is incredibly important as it helps to illustrate how the animation comes to life scene by scene. The storyboard helps ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to creation and make sure that the script flows naturally.
How Do Animators Develop Storyboards for their Animations?
Storyboarding is the process of mapping out step by step sequences in a video. It’s been around for years to help breakdown and visualise the storyline prior to production.
While the main principles of storyboarding are the same for a lot of projects, there can be differences. But there are three main components that animators use to develop storyboards for their projects including:
TheScene
The scene is the most important part of an animation storyboard. It depicts how you see the scene playing out. Because a storyboard is intended to convey your ideas, you should only include the most important scenes here.
Description
A description of what’s happening in the scene will give the director a clearer understanding of what’s happening in that given scenario. You can avoid adding unnecessary scenes to your storyboard by adding in descriptions instead.
Directions
Directions help to guide the director to your vision and outcome. An animator can understand clearly what it is you want to achieve and decide how best to do it.
What are the benefits of planning and pre-visualizing animations through storyboarding?
The power of storyboarding lies in its ability to pre-visualise the final product. This is incredibly important in animation as it allows creators to see and refine their concepts before they’re brought to life.
What Are the Key Considerations When Designing Characters and Settings?
Characters are an extremely useful tool when it comes to animations and storytelling. Even if it’s a relatively short social media clip, a character is the most effective part of audience engagement as consumers resonate with them the most.
When designing compelling characters and settings, animators have to consider:
- Your brand’s visual identity, and the best way to portray that on a character.
- Who your target audience is (age, location, gender, interests)
- How the character represents your business
How Are Feedback and Revisions Incorporated Throughout the Animation Process?
Feedback and revisions are all part of the animation process. Animation agencies work with your business to ensure that the final product meets your expectations. Through continuous feedback at every stage, animators can ensure that you’re happy at each touchpoint so that when it comes to handing your video off, there are only minor tweaks to be made. This includes:
- Pre-production feedback – before starting your project, animators will check with you that you’re happy with their concepts, characters, and storyboards. Feeding back at this stage is super important as it ensures alignment going into the storyboarding process.
- Storyboard review – once the storyboard has been drawn-up, this will be checked with you and your team. Here you may want to give feedback on the overall storytelling, characters, or flow.
- Draft Edits – throughout the process the animation team will want to check with you to see if it’s what you’re expecting. This allows you and your team to request revisions to align with your vision.
- Final Review – before the animation is finished, one last review will be conducted to ensure that it meets your needs and that your feedback has been incorporated.
How Do Animators Ensure Quality Control and Finalisation of Their Animations?
Once you’re happy with your final edit, the animation agency will work together to finalise your project. This includes ensuring smooth movements and transitions throughout, checking that the visual and audio elements are perfectly timed with each other, confirming that the design is consistent throughout, and ensuring that the content fulfils your requirements.
Conclusion
Rome wasn’t built in a day – and neither were any great animation videos.
To create the best quality animation videos, plenty of time and care goes into them to get the best results. Not to mention, it’s not just a quick and easy process, it takes time, refinement and more.
Once these steps are complete, you have an amazing video in your hands that’ll soon pay off!
