From the playback of sequential pictures in the 1800s to their development as a popular video style today, animations have gone a long way. Naturally, TVC Service Providers have also changed the norm for making animations over time, moving from manual sketches on celluloid to automated drawings on design software.
However, despite all the modifications, making animations might still seem like a difficult effort. In addition, video animation service providers find it difficult to readily include animations in their video marketing plan due to the intricacy of animated videos and time-consuming editions.
To help you take advantage of their widespread appeal and expand your brand or company, we’ll show you how to create animated films within just a few minutes.
Animations of Today!
The truth is that today it is unheard of to see 14 seconds of animation every week cinematic quality. Most animators in the field would laugh (or weep) and declare it couldn’t be done if asked to try. Today, it’s not unusual for feature animation (in 3D) to progress at a rate of around 3–4 animation seconds every week. Quite different from the 14 seconds Nine Old Men would provide.
If you look at direct-to-video movies, they typically air between 12 and 18 seconds every week. Closer to the bygone era of 14 seconds, but with a significant decline in quality. If you’ve ever watched a direct-to-video movie, it can’t hold a black tie candle to what you see on an immense screen.
- Animations in Television: Depending on where it is made, television animation has a wide range of styles. Some studios in the US ask their animators to keep up to 25–30 seconds of animation each week, especially if the style is restricted. Due to the several holds and emphasis on language with limited animation, this is not extremely difficult to do.
- Animations in Video Games: The video game theme also varies greatly, but after chatting with a few people from different studios, it seems that “typical” animation lasts between 5 and 10 seconds every day or 25 to 50 seconds per week. It decreases to 2-4 seconds every day when something more significant occurs, and it can grow to 10-20 seconds when things are tight.
3 Things to Avoid Pressure & Form Quick Animation
1. Understand Your Constraints
In animation, it’s simple to get sucked into an infinite production if you don’t understand the restrictions and bounds of a project.
The easiest approach to maximise every endeavour is to have these restrictions crystal apparent from the front. The following are some restrictions to keep in mind when organising a campaign:
- Budget: What are the available resources in terms of money?
- Timeline: Is this a slow-moving or quick project?
- Target Audience: Who is my intended audience?
- Video Duration: How long should my animation be in a video?
- Aspect Ratio: Where will the audience see this video?
- Language: Should I make my animation available in several languages?
- Colour: What are the main colours of the advertising campaign or brand you want?
- Characters: Should I use characters to communicate my video tape or not?
- Visual Style: Is there a certain animation or visual style I should adhere to?
The more information you can include in your creative briefing regarding such restrictions, the more prepared the team will be to produce a high-quality result.
Additionally, having a clear scope makes it easy for other teams to collaborate with you on the project’s development and assess and price the project appropriately.
2. Recognise the Procedure
Since many animation projects follow a waterfall development process, practically every stage must be authorised and locked down before going on to the next. Some steps are often purely internal, while others need the final client’s approval.
Motion graphics or 2D animation campaigns often go through the following development process:
Stage #1: Animatic or Boardomatic
Stage #2: Design Assets
Stage #3: Animation
Stage #4: Voice Over Recording
Stage #5: Style Frame
Stage #6: Storyboard
Stage #7: Animatic
Stage #8: Music and Sound Design
You can estimate the time required to complete each phase and comprehend how growth should behave in any situation by considering the framework. By doing this, you can make sure that each process has enough time.
3. Define your Approach
More than just making things move and drawing cool characters are necessary for a successful animation campaign. You require a solid animation strategy to accomplish your client’s objectives. A successful animation plan will enable your campaign to:
- Make the audience feel something via your performance. People will eventually forget what you said and what you did, but they won’t forget how you made them feel, according to the saying. This statement by the poet Maya Angelou exemplifies the significance of evoking emotions. Spend a lot of time figuring out how to create strong emotions with your animation.
- Transmit a strong message. You want the audience to get the message clearly the first time. Make clear the message your campaign should send and work around developing visuals and a story to support that.
- Develop a strong brand association. Additionally, you must guarantee that every frame of your animation conveys and represents the client’s brand. Plan the use of fonts, colours, and other visual components so that they appeal to the target audience that your client hopes to reach.
Your visual idea, narrative, and storyboard should all represent these three components of your animation strategy (all of which were developed during the pre-production phase). You should create a strong creative brief, emphasise these themes, and translate them into visual references to direct production to assist you with that.
Final Words
Speed is only important “when a deadline swiftly approaches,” after all. Working in a huge studio when strict deadlines may require you to do work at a considerably faster rate (and lesser quality) than if it were a close-up or short in front of you.
Don’t WORRY about speed when it’s a personal short, though. Instead, concentrate on producing the finest animation you possibly can.
A terrible game is horrible forever; a delayed game is good someday. If you must wait, do so, but don’t give up everything to move quickly.
So how do YOU animate—slowly or quickly? Let me know in comments…
