Ahhh, the age of video. Where animated hearts flutter like butterflies and mustached champions leap from mountains. Well, perhaps not every video is that dramatic… but ours is!

In May, we attended the Fraternity Communications Association Annual Conference in St. Louis. We brought with us the usual tradeshow fare: banners, portfolio work, pens, and tasty mini candy bars to coerce the hoards to our corner. In addition, this year we brought a video. We had an opportunity to address the crowd, and despite our amazing oratory skills (I kid!), decided to animate our way through our five-minute timeslot.

I have never received an enthusiastic round of applause in my meager presentation history, so it was a wonderful testament to the power of video when designers, writers and editors at FCA cheered us on. And the interest clearly extended beyond communications folk. It’s hard to miss the influence video has on the web, from more likes and followers to greater search engine optimization. So it’s no surprise that we’ve had many clients inquire about how they should approach creating a video of their own to highlight a product or service. What better way to share the process than walking through the steps we used to create ours?

Storyboarding and copywriting

It all begins with an idea, right? From that idea comes the messaging and storyboard, which is a blueprint of how the video should progress. We focused on how our ideas should be communicated, what each frame looked like, and how each one transitioned to the next. Each animation was plotted out so the story made sense and was easy to follow.

Illustration

The next step was bringing those pencil sketches to full blown illustrations. We determined the illustration style, then built the environment through which our message would be translated. We illustrated characters and typeset headlines.

Audio

Rights free music is not what you’d think. I expected cheesy riffs and tunes set for B-rated movies. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find catchy, compelling music of all types that loops for centuries. Listener, be warned… you can lose an afternoon to it! But finding that perfect tune to complement your message makes all the difference.

Animation

With the music picked and our cadence set, the real work began. Devin, our amazing animator, brought our illustrations to life. He broke apart the layers and plotted out creative animations and transitions for our text and characters. He timed each animation to match the pace of the music and the length of the text.

The Finished Product

We won’t waste any words here. Want one for yourself? Contact us!