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Our animation process
Our process is collaborative and iterative, meaning you and your team will be with us through every step of production, from the initial concept to final delivery.
Brief
Where it all begins. We’ll hear from you about your goals for the project and what story and messages you want to convey. You’ll also let us know who your target audience is, what deliverables are required and any budget and timeframe considerations you have. We’ll ask questions to make sure we fully understand what is required and to make sure that everyone is on the same page before starting out.
Script
You may have a script ready to go or would like us to write one from scratch, we’re happy to work either way. If we’re writing the script we will work with you to develop a bullet point list of the key messages you want included and then we will craft structure and storytelling around them. This process can go back and forth through a few revisions to make sure your messages are clear and the tone feels right.
Style development
Early on in the project we will produce some initial still frames to show what the visual style of the finished animation will look like. We’ll consult your brand guidelines as part of this process to make sure tone, colours and fonts all work together with your brand identity. If no clear direction has been set then we might pull together a moodboard with a few pages of reference images to help guide the visual aesthetic.
Storyboards
This is where we visualise the script and match imagery to the words. We break the script up into short chunks and pair them with pencil sketches and written descriptions of what the action will be. We explore visual transitions between scenes to improve the flow between scripting concepts.
Voice-over
We’ll find options for voice actors that match your audience and budget. We’ll shortlist some options and get you voice samples to review. Once you’ve selected the talent we’ll invite you to attend the recording session either in person or via a video call. This is a great opportunity to hear your project coming to life and give any feedback on tone and pacing.
Illustration/design
We apply the illustration style we developed earlier to the pencil storyboards to create the final illustrated frames for the animation. Here you get an opportunity to give feedback on these illustrated frames before they are animated.
Animatic
This is a rough video edit of the animation that uses still images timed to the voice-over and music. Depending on the project this step might be based on the storyboard stills or the final illustrations. The animatic gives a really clear understanding of the overall timing and storytelling choices before we start animating.
Animation
This is where the magic happens and is usually the most time consuming part of the process. Because you’ve been kept in the loop and given feedback on all the stages up to this point the actual animation is like the icing on the cake.
Sound design
The animation is done and it looks amazing! Now we make sure it sounds amazing too. The voice-over and music are balanced and mixed together with sound effects that help punctuate the action and reinforce the storytelling.
Delivery
It’s finished! Once everything is signed off we provide the completed work in any digital formats you requested, including captions, versions in different ratios and cutdowns if required.
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