Creating A 60 Second Explainer In 6 Days

Timing is a huge factor that decides the quality of your explainer.

Most premium and customized animated videos take about 3-8 weeks to produce from scratch. However, with the use of predesigned templates they can be created within a few days.

In this scenario, we were tasked to create a custom explainer video, in a very tight timeline. How can a studio accomplish this, with a small team and on a nearly impossible timeline? Let's find out!

The Client

FlocknGo aims to solve the pain people face in planning and executing group activities, while using existing methods of group chats and spreadsheets. Their platform is flexible and transparent, allowing groups to collate demand and procure the best deals in the market, whether it be for something as simple as planning a trip with your friends or a big decision like buying your dream car. To learn more, you can watch the explainer video that we created for them:

The Challenge

The Co-founders of FlocknGo reached out to us less than a week from when they were going to meet up with beta-testers, CPA's, investors, and more. They needed an explainer video that could successfully communicate the concept of FlocknGo to pitch to their target audience.

The catch was, the process to make an explainer video can take up to 6 weeks or more. We had a total of 6 days to create the perfect explainer video for them.

The Solution

You might wonder what the factors are that contribute to an explainer video’s time and cost. Let us break down the variables for you.

1. Research and Script Writing This is the foundation for a good explainer video. The purpose of an explainer video is to make an idea clear to someone. To do this well, we facilitate sessions to gain a deep understanding of the client’s products, brand identity, and target customers. We use all the information gathered to work on the script. This process in itself can take two weeks but we had two days to finalize the script for FlocknGo’s condensed timeline. This would have been impossible to meet without the FlocknGo team having a lot of research material for us to utilize. They had already taken a jab at an explainer script few months prior to the project, and thus had a fair idea of the scenarios they wanted us to focus on. It helped us understand their core target groups and craft a story that spoke directly to them. Since the product was backed with months of research, interviews and documentation, we were confident that the target audience being spoken to would strongly relate to the product. The script length determines the duration of the video. Longer the video, the more time and resources it would take to create it. A rule of thumb, 180 words equals a minute of video.
   

2. Animation Complexity and Quality Certain animation techniques are more complex to do such as Frame By Frame Animation and Character Animation. This does not mean that simple animation = bad quality. We can create good animations even if they are simple by being skilled in applying Design and Animation Principles. But one should note that even a complex 15 second animation can be priced exponentially higher than a 60 second low-complexity animation due to the time and skill level required to produce them. We went with vector shape based designs for this project as it is suitable to create high quality animations and illustrate app-based scenarios effectively within a short deadline.
   

3. Feedback Creating an explainer video is not a continuous sprint from scripting to final video output, we have multiple stages in-between that require a dialogue between the client and studio to make sure it is headed in the right direction. There is a considerable amount of effort being put in by the studio and costs being covered by the client. It is of paramount importance to make sure both sides are aligned at every major step so as to get the best final output. Studios usually provide clients a 2 day deadline for giving feedback, but in this case we needed immediate feedback from FlocknGo.
   

4. Timeline It takes the teamwork of people with different skill-sets to create an explainer video, and naturally each stage of the process takes a set amount of time. When you are working with a standard timeline for an explainer video, the team has enough time to work on each of the stages. Now, when you compress the timeline, naturally either the quality will suffer or the costs will increase due to hiring extra team members to delegate parts of the work. For FlocknGo’s explainer video, we got the opportunity to work with a couple of very talented designers and animators to help bring the project to life without any reduction in quality due to the timeline. There are other miscellaneous costs that go into packaging an explainer such as Voiceover, Music, Sound Design, etc. But these four provide the major levers that we can push and pull to fit the project’s cost and time requirements. One more thing to take note of that is rarely talked about is originality. The creative process is iterative in nature, the more time an artist is given, the more explorations and iterations that can be done, and hence the project becomes more original. Lesser time and costs can affect the originality of the project as the artists go with what they have done and know already. It is important to question whether originality matters to the client.

The Impact

1. Video delivered in time for FlocknGo’s meeting with investors. FlocknGo were able to showcase the explainer video to investors and capture their attention.

2. Reduced the explanation time for founders by 10x, and made subsequent conversations richer.

3. Assets have wielded high ROI as they have been used in other marketing objectives, such as events where FlocknGo was a sponsor.