In a nutshell, there are a few distinct activities that roughly flow in sequence to create a video explainer: Script, Storyboard, Illustration, Animation, Voiceover and Music
We have a whole page to help you understand our process:
Explainer video maker software might be the right solution for you if you have a very limited budget, and you're not overly concerned about quality and customization. But if you're trying to connect with your audience--especially as a business, "explainer video maker" software may not be adequate for getting your message delivered to your audience in the way you intend. Antifreeze Animation and Design excels at listening to you, carefully considering your script, and crafting both custom illustration and animation to meet your needs. It's not done overnight, and it's not the cheapest solution out there. But it's a quality visual message that brings our loyal clients back to us with their professional explainer video needs.
Even if your message is reeeeally great stuff, it's easy to take too long to say it--like that storytelling uncle at the family reunion. Strive to make your message succinct yet compelling. A powerful story can be ruined if your audience clicks away before they get to your ending. We think a duration of 1.5 to 2 minutes is a good balance between brevity and thoroughness.
To help you craft your story, we like to suggest the "problem-solution-outcome" walkthrough. With this framework, you start by describing the "problem" that needs solving. Then you explain the "solution", followed up by the positive "outcome" or result you're wanting to achieve. This result will often include a call-to-action or instructions on how your viewers can take the next steps forward. We'll provide suggestions and help you refine your script before we move into storyboarding scenes.
Yes. The budget will include selecting and auditioning our best voice for your message from thousands of talented professional voice actors. We'll narrow it down to a few best candidates, and make our recommendations to you. After selecting a talented actor, we'll take care of everything and present you with the finished voiceover track for your approval.
We strongly encourage you to let us take care of voiceover. Professional voicing is one of those skills that feels like anyone could do it. After all, we all speak, right? But it's surprisingly difficult to create a professional outcome without the proper skills and equipment.
Yes. The budget includes finding and licensing the right stock music track to embed in your animation. We'll specify our favorite potential track, and have a few alternate ideas available as well.
To create an explainer video, typically we spend the first week making sure your script is perfect and that you love our descriptions of actions. Then, we'll take a week to storyboard those descriptions, a couple weeks to create the artwork, and a few more weeks to create all the animation. In total, it's generally about 6 weeks for a 2-minute animation.
The mood board is a collection of visual ideas that help everyone involved catch the visual "vision" for a sequence. It helps us make sure we understand the type of artwork that you'd like to see, as well as things that you want to avoid. A mood board is part of our design process. We'll comb the internet--and ask you to do so as well, looking for examples of photos, videos, websites, and animations that inspire you. This will help inform our process and get us off on the right foot as we begin to create custom artwork for your video.
A storyboard is a series of drawings depicting the action of a potential sequence to be created through filming or animating. Think of it as the rough comic book version of your story. A storyboard is where we define the general subject matter on screen and block out the basic elements before beginning the illustration process. With the storyboard, we include a description of the onscreen elements and action, as well as the associated voice-over that the viewer will hear.
An animatic is minimal video-version of a storyboard sequence that usually includes temporary music and voiceover. We'll combine our storyboard drawings, a temporary voice-over (or scratch-track), and a potential music track to create an animated slide-show as the first draft of your story. This is an important step, because it's here where we'll discover any timing holes or communication problems with your story that we can work out before we've committed time and resources to illustration, animation, and voice talent.
We'll deliver your animation by providing a download link to an .mp4 file, which is perfect for internet use. We can also give you most any format of higher quality file and the source files for your archiving. Want to repurpose those great illustrations for a later digital campaign? Have at it. Make screensavers or Zoom backgrounds. They're yours to enjoy.
If your animation is primarily for internet use, HD (1920x1080) is a good fit. YouTube supports higher resolutions, but many people will be viewing this on their phone, which would make higher resolutions unnecessary. If your video's final destination is a trade show screen, a restaurant display, or other 4K screen, we'll probably master in UHD, which is twice the width and height of HD at 3840x2160. And we're happy to create both, if needed.
After we collaborate, you've got a message as a video animation. But what then? Your message needs to be seen by your intended audience. Your success with your animation is our success, so we also have a Social Media Integration strategy that can help you make sure you're ticking all the right boxes when you post to social media outlets (and there are quite a few!) We provide this as an additional service, or we'll gladly give you that bullet list to work through on your own.
"Whiteboard animations" are a type of explainer video where a human (or invisible) "hand" appears to draw the content of what is being spoken in the voiceover. A "Whiteboard video maker" is a specialty provider or software that helps clients make this type of animation, which was particularly popular a number of years ago for it's simplicity and low cost.
Sure! Making your own animation can be a fun and gratifying experience. And, of course, it might be necessary if your budget requires that you don't spend very much money. There are multiple options for the DIY animator, and you can find a host of them with an "Explainer video software" Google search. Canva is a recent popular web-based software that works similar to Powerpoint, with more animation features. Some other options to consider would be Rawshorts, Renderforest, Easy Sketch Pro, Biteable, and Powtoon. Each of these are created to help the creative do-it-yourselfer that has limited budget, or doesn't need the custom work of Antifreeze Animation.
Absolutely. We can set up a call, or chat via e-mail. Whatever works best for you.
(1) 503 563 5747
