The Explainer Video Production Process
Explainer videos are a great way to engage your audience, deliver your message and have fun with your brand.
But how are they made? How long do they take to produce? And what are the key steps involved in creating a knock-out video?
Step 1. The briefing stage.
It’s important to know about what you want to achieve through the video from the outset – who’s the audience you’re addressing and where the video will be showcased.
This will impact on every aspect that follows, including tone of script and voice over, style of graphics, length and complexity.
We provide a questionnaire at this stage, to pose questions that may or may not have occurred to you up to this point. This is helpful in sparking ideas that we can run with.
Step 2. The script.
The script is the basis of what will be communicated to your audience. It’s the spine that holds everything together, that the visuals will be built around. A good script doesn’t need to go into too much detail… in fact, it’s a good idea to keep it brief and to the point. The story should be easy to follow and have a clear narrative to keep the attention of the audience. We like to break our scripts up into clearly defined sections, which can then be pieced together to create the scenes in the visual.
Step 3. The storyboard.
The storyboard describes the visual side of the video and will marry up to what’s discussed in the script. Put simply, it’s a rough form ‘comic strip’ version of your video. It will indicate camera angles, direction of movement, transitions and effects. It’s a vital step of the process, which offers a real insight into what the finished piece will look like.
Step 4. Voice-Over recording
We use a number of professional voice actors to narrate your script over the video. Using high quality industry standard recording equipment, they’re crystal clear and perfectly enunciated every time. We can supply a number of voice samples ranging in age, gender, ethnicity, region and so on. Finding the right fit is crucial.
Step 5. Concept graphics
The next step is to take our rough sketches and research and start creating the polished elements that will be used in the animation. Out style tends to be flat 2D vector illustration, but this may vary depending out the briefing stage.
Step 6. Animation
Using everything we have created through the previous stages, we will now begin to put together the motion elements of the video. Steps 5 and 6 will overlap somewhat – we work in a flexible way and having some polished, animated sections to show to a client early on in the project is a good thing.
Step 7. Music & Sound FX
We use professionally created, licenced music on many of our videos. This helps bring depth and emersion to the finished piece, particularly when combined with snippets from our huge library of sound FX.
So, how long does all this take?
I’m going to give you the unhelpful answer of how long is a piece of string. It depends on complexity, length and smoothness of production. However, as a ball park 4-8 weeks is about right.