The animation process

First, we'll do a call to establish exactly what your needs are.

We'll ask many questions, review your website, review any previously designed content you have, etc.

We'll go over what your objectives are with animation, and consult on what style, length, general mood, and whatever other factors are necessary to achieve your goals.

Next, we'll research your competitors, or any other similar organizations.

We'll look at hundreds of other animations and select a few that we feel would match stylistically to what you need.

We'll then create a presentation that shows exactly what we like about each animation, and coordinate with you to ensure we're moving in the right direction.

Once we've established a direction, we'll begin script writing and mocking up style frames.

These style frames are essentially a "freeze frame" of a piece of your animation so you can see nearly exactly what it will look like.

We'll then adjust these till we've concluded a style that will remain consistent throughout your animation.

During this process we'll also be writing and editing your animation's voice over script.

Then we storyboard. 

A storyboard is a sequence of images that run against your final approved script.

Storyboarding consists of two phases: the rough thumbnail phase and the refined phase.

During the rough phase we create a scribbled series of drawings that runs against the approved script so we can get the exact visual communication laid out from a high-level perspective. We'll then walk you through the rough storyboard and make any adjustments.

Once approved we create a refined storyboard that matches the style frames approved earlier. This phase serves two purposes. The first is so you can see instantly what the entire animation will look like at a glance, and secondly this is what the animator will use as the basis for the final animation.

While all this is going on we will receive a casting audition for voice overs, which we'll then show to you for selection and get an approved voice over recording.

Finally, once we have the refined storyboard and the approved voice over, we create what's called an "animatic". This is essentially your storyboard playing against the approved voice over recording. This will ensure all of the timing works and is the final step before actual animation.

This is where the rubber meets the road. With style, voice over, timing, music, etc. all approved this is where the animator brings everything to life.

If all of the above is done correctly and to 100% satisfaction then this is very often the shortest step. Usually it's a slight visual change to text, or an added line at the end during the call-to-action.

We're proud to say that we're so thorough in our pre-production that we rarely have any revisions to our animations.