Want to create awesome animations from your couch?
Can’t film at the moment thanks to Corona? No worries, Clothesline have the solution.
Animation.
They can be created remotely. They’re low touch for you and your team. You don’t need to arrange talent to be filmed. You don’t need a location. And you can create just about anything.
The entire Clothesline graphics team is formerly from the ‘The Project’. So we are experts in creating broadcast quality animations quickly, that are pacey and engaging.
We want to share our knowledge of years of producing animation for TV with you, so you can create awesome animations from the convenience of your home desk.
Step #1 - Development: Who and what is your animation for?
There are so many ways to use animation. Logo animations, titles, end boards, animated text on screen, through to full frame explainer and character animations - it can be a little overwhelming.
So, with that in mind, the first thing to do is to sit down and work out what you want to say, and who you are saying it to. This will help inform the style of animation you go for, the duration and the format you need it to be created in.
Step #2 - Development: Where will your animation live?
This is important because different platforms call for different formats and aspect ratios, and if you want your animation to be published full frame across all of them, it helps to decide on this at the start of your project.
Step #3 - Development: How long do you want your animation to be?
Duration is an important thing to consider. It’s a good idea to firstly think about the length of video your target audience typically watches, the information and key messaging you’d like to convey, your budget and when you would like to go live.
These days, the average attention span of online audiences are much shorter. Most people will only watch videos that run for 30-60 seconds. This is bad news for the human race, but good news for your budget; because the shorter the animation, the less expensive it will be to make.
Animations can range from short and punchy 15 second promos, 30 and 60 second adverts to full blown narratives that run for minutes.
Once you have all these practicalities and parameters down, the fun begins and you can start getting creative!
Step #4 - Pre-production: Scripting
With animation, the scripting process is not as limiting as filming video. You don’t need to organise talent, a location, or camera crew - your story can take place anywhere with anyone - the sky's the limit.
Typically, our clients will come to us with either a fully fleshed out script, a brief or just the seed of an idea. Whether we’re coming up with the full creative or working with an existing script, we love coming up with creative and fun ways of interpreting key messages. This can all be done online or via phone meetings from the comfort of your couch.
Step #5 - Pre-production: Visual Treatment & Storyboard
Whether your script is driven by voice over narration, or with text, music and sound effects, how your animation will look and feel is arguably the most important part! And there are many so many styles of animations out there - you need to decide on the look before you begin the animation building process.
It's always good if you have some examples of the style of animations you like the look of. This helps us understand what you do and don’t like, and informs the visual treatment, storyboard and final animation. These can be simple links to animations that you like or stills of animation styles. Any and all references help.
Once the script is locked in, we provide a visual treatment to accompany it, which includes static pictures for the look and an explanation of the animation movement.
This gives you an opportunity to make any changes in the early stages. Which saves you time and money!
Step #6 - Production: Creating the animation
Once the visual treatment or storyboard is approved by you, the animation build commences. How long this takes really depends on the style of animation, the complexity of the information and the duration.
A good rule of thumb is that 30 seconds of full frame (very simple style) animation will take at least one full day to create - this doesn’t include final music, voice over recording or sound effects. These things are added once everyone is happy with how it all looks.
Step #7 - Production: Finishing touches
You have signed off on the look of the animation - what next? This is where the final music track is added, the sound effects are built in and the final voice over script is recorded and added in.
This is also the time that the end board, logo and call to action is built into the end of the animation. This is where you want to direct your audience to.
Step #8 - Publishing
Once you have your final animation in all the necessary formats, it’s time to go live, upload, publish and just get it out there.
Animation and high quality motion graphics are such powerful marketing tools. It’s no wonder they’re so popular for 2020.
That’s all from us for now - any questions hit us up at hello@clotheslinecontent.com or follow us on insta @clotheslinecontent to keep up to date with what we’re up to, and more tips on content creation.