Business owners that don’t have a background in marketing often have a hard time picking out quality design and understand its value.
When your central concern is just to get your message out there, is the extra time, money, and energy required in creating a QUALITY video animation justified?
Will all those small details that professional video add be noticed by your target audience?
You bet …
The tiny details all conspire to create a truly immersive, tactile experience for viewers, and it’s one they remember. If you want viewers to be inspired to action by your Animated Explainer Video, you need to provide an experience that emotionally connects with them.
Remember that the way the viewer FEELS about your video is the way they will FEEL about your brand. It’s the subtle details that will inspire the right emotions.
Let’s take a look at some ways you can tell the difference between premium and amateur video animation productions.
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Watch for static frames
When it comes to quality, there’s a golden rule that you’d do well to remember:
More frames = more time
Think of video animation like a flick book – in order to get objects to move, you need to add frames that change the figure piece by piece.
Rather than go through the effort of drawing up additional frames, amateur animators just use static figures in active poses to save time.
This is generally combined with over-simplified transitions between scenes, and minimal use of sound effects … So when you watch the video, you may not even know why, but you FEEL the business being explained is unprofessional.
When comparing a professional animation and a budget animation side by side – it’s easy to notice the difference in the amount of movement, effects and details.
What’s more important though, is to notice the difference in how you FEEL when watching the videos side by side.
2) Fluidity is key
Did you ever try making a flick book as a kid?
They were never as good as the ones that you’d buy in a shop. They’d usually come out jumpy, broken, and rough. This is because we couldn’t be bothered to go through the painstaking task of drawing out hundreds of pages of images.
This is the same for animation – if you don’t add enough frames, movement loses the impression of fluidity and appears jarring and unnatural. A high-quality animation studio takes the time to add minute changes to each frame so that movements feel silky smooth.
3) Understand object bounce
When we look at video animations from other studios, we often remark on how lifeless and dull they appear!
One of the reasons for this is that lazy animators don’t go to the effort of making their objects appear dynamic. Look closely at a high-quality, premium animation and you’ll see that moving objects often have a small bounce effect before becoming stationary. This tiny detail makes animation feel organic and full.
More importantly, it keeps the viewer’s mind engaged and watching your video until the end.
4) Look for signs of life
Characters are crucial in video animation.
The eyes of your viewers will always be drawn to faces and living creatures first, so it’s important to make them creative and engaging.
This is a real skill, and one that is underestimated by second-rate animators.
Certain aspects of each character need to be “larger than life” to accentuate your brand. “Hero” characters should generally allow your target market to place themselves in the character’s shoes.
And all characters should be unique and well designed – NOT template-ised and production-lined like amateurs.
A great animator will look for the minutiae in movements, gestures and facial expressions to bring characters to life. For example, when we walk, our heads bob slightly up and down when we move. A great animator will notice and capture tiny details like this in your animated explainer video.
5) Bad writing
Quality script writing is often the first thing to go when you drop down into the realms of budget animation.
Quality copywriters are expensive, and poor video animation companies will eagerly bet that if you don’t understand copywriting theory, you won’t notice the difference.
Make no mistake – the script is the most important component of your video, and will define the overall success of your project!
Ensure your agency can describe the psychology behind every line in your video!
Amateur agencies will generally have you fill out a questionnaire, and will then “plug and play” your answers into the video. They won’t run a Strategy Session before your project, because there isn’t any actual strategy to the project!
No strategy. No creativity. No results.
Wrapping it all up …
Here at Visionary Digital Studios, our team will ensure that you get a quality Animated Explainer Video that conveys your brand powerfully to your target market and your network.
That means taking the time to add all those extra frames, quality strategic scripts, free subtitle tracks, and spot-on aftercare.
Unlike amateur agencies, we’ll walk you through a free Strategy Session at the beginning of the project. And then we take you through a Launch Session at the end of your project to ensure you get optimal results.
So, contact us today to discuss how we can help you create an animated explainer video that resonates with your customers!
