How to make an animated video like a pro
We all want to create animations, but not everyone knows how to make them professional-looking, as if they were made by a pro.
Regardless of whether you are creating an animated video as part of an e-learning course, an online tutorial, a classroom assignment or a content marketing campaign, you want it to look good!
We put together this blog to help guide you through the process of not just creating an animated video, but making sure it looks professional. Here are a few steps to help you approach your video project in the best way possible.
Step 1: Plan ahead and prepare your content
Planning is by far one of the most important, yet unappreciated stages in any video creation process. Having a great plan separates the average animated videos from the successful ones!
During your planning stage, try to focus on two main aspects: your audience and your goals.
The first being: “Who is my target audience?” You need to understand your audience to make sure you know what works for them. Great animated videos are the ones that take into consideration what their end viewers want to see and what motivates them to act. Who are these viewers? Why would they be interested in your video? What’s in it for them? Ask yourself these questions before starting your creation process.
The second question in your planning stage is “ What are my goals or objectives”? What would you like to achieve with you video? Would you like your target audience to understand something, to do something, to become aware of something? List these goals for yourself and develop your content with those goals in mind.
Step 2: Write your video script
With a clear view of your audience and your objectives, you are now ready for the next step in your video creation process. No, you’re not ready yet to start animating. The best next step is writing a script for your video. For some people, script writing can be much more challenging than actually animating the video.
Here are four key takeaways when it comes to writing your script:
- Address your audience and write in a conversational manner.
- Statistics show that 20% of viewers already stop watching your animated video after 10 seconds. So ensure your script is catchy, compelling and brief.
- Make sure you script every word. Don’t be lazy and think upfront about all details. This will help create your video in a more efficient manner, you’ll gain back time in the later stages of your video creation.
- End your video animation script with a clever call-to-action: invite your viewers do take a next step.
Step 3: Create a storyboard for your animated video
A storyboard is a visual elaboration of your script. A script is a text, a storyboard puts sketches next to that text. A storyboard of your video allows you to truly visualize how your created animated video will look before you start dedicating serious hours and resources to the animation process.
Start by identifying the key scenes in your animation story. Add the corresponding piece of script to each scene, and then proceed to sketch your thumbnails in a rectangle next to it, depicting what your video will look like in that scene. No need to be a graphical artist, rudimentary sketching is fine!
It’s important to remember that a storyboard is a plan. You don’t have to go into incredible detail. Just make sure it’s easy to understand and helps direct your story.
A storyboard is particularly useful when you are not the only one involved in the video creation project. It allows you to share with others what your visual ideas are and to start gathering feedback before creating your video. After all, you’ll soon realize that making important changes to a fully animated video – for example, because of late feedback – may mean deleting or redoing major parts of your video, which you don’t want. In other words, while it takes some effort to create, your storyboard may save you a lot of time!
Step 4: Animate your story!
Now that you have all the necessary elements in place, you are ready to turn your ideas into professional looking video content, including animations, sounds, effects and more.
First things first, identify a style of animation you wish to use and stick with it. Having a consistent style tends to display a more dynamic look. With OnlineVideoEditor, you have access to many different animated libraries and over 1 million free media assets, from illustrations and cartoons in many styles to tons of photos, motion graphics, stock videos and thousands of sounds and music to support your animations. Take a look!
A few final words
OnlineVideoEditor has a free version that gives you access to the full library and all available animation effects to create your first videos. All you need is a browser and an internet connection for you to get started on creating your animated videos like a pro!
