What you absolutely need to know before planning an animated video

We often face a problem: a client wants to change something during one of the final stages of the production process. O, my. That’s hard. This is like rewinding the whole process back and starting again. One small detail can cost us some time, and will probably cost more money.  That’s why we ask our clients to decide everything before we jump into the creation of a video. In the pre-production stage. 

Pre-production is the period of time before production itself begins, and it affects the whole process enormously. The pre-production process can make or break your animated video, so it’s important to know what you’re getting into. It is a critical step in creating an animated video.

Maybe the most critical. It includes all of the research, planning and decision-making that goes into building your product from scratch. It’s also important to note that this process can be different for every company and every project. Some companies might have endless resources at their disposal and can afford to take their time planning out their projects, whereas others might have limited financial resources and less time to get things done.

“The preproduction phase in filmmaking allows you to organize everything you need before you start rolling the cameras. Preproduction is when you figure out what you need to make your film, how much it’s going to cost, and who you can hire to help you. Effective pre-production can help you save time and money (the two most limited resources in filmmaking) when shooting your project. An outlined budget means you are less likely to waste resources (or run out of money), which can derail an entire project. Detailing the schedule is also integral to a smooth production process, as it gives the crew a set idea of where time should be allocated for an efficient shoot.”

This is how MasterClass defines pre-production. Well, it is no different for animation.

Let’s take a look at the importance of the whole process, and see how to build a cool animated project before the studio will create it.

Understanding your needs

Mistake: coming to the animated studio without understanding what you need to achieve, why you need a video, and what it has to be about. Note: you can brainstorm with a team and get a perfect plan for a video, figuring out what you didn’t know.

Decision: Answer all the questions about the project before you start requesting a video in the studio. Maybe some studios will send you the list of questions to answer. But you have to know why you need a video in the first place.

One of the most important things you can do before your animated video production is complete is to have a clear understanding of what you need. If you don’t know what you need to achieve with the video, then how can you ensure that your needs are met? And if needs aren’t met, then it could lead to a lot of wasted time and money.

Luckily, there are many ways to gather this information before beginning production on an animated video. The first and most obvious way is through meetings with studio representatives face-to-face. But it’s not always possible for people from different companies to meet up in person—especially if they’re located on different sides of the world! Thus, zoom or Google meet can be a big help.

You should consider clearly communicating your needs from start to finish so that your message reaches its audience effectively without being distorted by miscommunication or misunderstanding on either side. It’s not rare for animation studios to see how clients suddenly decide to change their minds in the middle of this stage. That’s normal. People become more familiar with the whole process, and they start to see more options. This is why a studio should give all the options right away. 

Besides, changing something in the pre-production phase is much easier than doing that when you already approved the whole thing. It could drastically impact the amount of money a client will spend, and will take much of your time. No one actually wants that. 

When it comes to design or a final stage, changing something is so bad. So, pre-production carefully held can bring you an easy way to a desirable outcome. On the other hand, if you miscommunicate things, it could lead to the

Shaping a budget

At this point, you are forming the size of the budget. During the early stage, you can decide whether you need just one animated video or you’ll be required more than that. The reasons for that are plenty:

• The narrative and the story itself – or even marketing goals –  may require more characters or a few series of animation;
• You need a few voice-over artists;
• The campaign may be extended for a few months or so.

At this point, it is totally okay. That’s why it is “pre-production”. You can change a lot here.  If you set up a specific budget at this stage, changing it later will affect the whole production process, and you will have to spend much more time than was calculated. “Harry Potter” movies weren’t entirely animated, but the scale of the such project can help us understand more about the importance of the changes: 

“Finance was a big part of Harry Potter’s pre-production and the smallest of changes such as deadlines could have altered the spending by thousands. The original budget for the film was around $125,000,000 and it made a box office profit of $970 million. Budgeting for a film is crucial as it gives the producers and directors a strict path to follow.

Film budgeting is the process in which a line producer prepares a budget for film production. This document is used to secure financing for the pre-production and production of the film. The budgeting and finance of a film have many elements such as story rights, screenplay, producers, director, casting, production costs, visual effects, music, costume, set production and props. All of these elements take up the majority of the budget of the film and the finance of these elements can alter at any point during production which is why planning well ahead is completely necessary. ” 

Creating a strategy

Your animation strategy performs a few tasks: to shape the whole campaign’s goal and find appropriate ways of showing it to people. The limitations of the project should be set here and for good during this stage. The strategy, as always, is essential. 

Everything is decided here: from the type of your audience and geo you are looking to reach to a type of animation that will fit your goals. Besides, we decide the duration, the best voice-over, and lots of other things. Once you’ve created a strategy, changing it will cause a lot of additional effort.

Defining a style

This is the hardest thing: when you decide what kind of style to use, suddenly clients want something else. The problem is that you can’t go back and use another style because it means starting everything from scratch again. 

Sometimes the client needs different versions of the video. This is a decision for an early stage of the whole process. Be careful in identifying all the necessary aspects that have to be optimized. The style here might be as important, as the ratio, for example.

Schedule and timing

Time is one of the most valuable resources. Your production schedule will help you figure out what and when should be done. Each part of the team should know what and how to do and the synchronization at this point means a lot. Besides, knowing the duration and how long each stage should take is crucial for meeting deadlines.

Video placement

Another vital point is knowing where exactly you are going to place a video. Is it a social media page, a presentation, a landing page or something else? Not every video is so universal it could be working equally for every goal.

Besides, there are strictly technical sides: adjusting aspect ratio and dimensions to specific requirements that are usually limited and very strict. Make sure you know exactly where the video will be uploaded.

Call to action

Depending on your goals, you will have to ask people to do something. To encourage them to act. The video’s call to action is basically a hook. The whole point of the video is to finally. We recommend formulating the call to action early and including it in the video’s script. It should not be changed.

What could be helpful?

Moodboard could be super helpful at this point. A collection of materials may provide a great deal of help for the animation team to find out the atmosphere of the video. Moodboards can include the following things:

• design examples;
• characters;
• UX and UI design;
• A color palette;
• Specific references to scenes.

References to a video that may inspire your idea of the whole campaign always give a bigger picture to a studio. The whole crew will know what picture they should keep in mind. Don’t rush the whole pre-production phase — you have enough time to figure things out and deliver wonderful results.

Conclusion

Collaboration is everything. If the clients and a studio work together from the very preproduction stage, your results will be fascinating. From the very beginning, your animated video should be created with care. This means that every stage of the process needs to be carefully considered and implemented – from pre-production through post-production.

The first stage of animation development is called pre-production. In this stage, you will decide on the strategy, scriptwriting, style development, and storyboarding. It sounds like a lot of work for a team to handle at once, but when it comes to animation, these are all important parts of creating a great product.

Generally, the whole pre-production production is usually divided between two departments: a design team works on the idea, storytelling features and designs, meanwhile, the management team is responsible for developing the production plan: budget, deadlines, meetings, etc.

Remember, the more organized the pre-production phase of your animated project, the better will be the result you achieve.  That’s it!