An explainer about explainer videos: educating clients on the process behind their animations - Zetanimo

Save time explaining your offering by using video to represent it.

Take a look into how I made an explainer video to explain how explainer videos are made, quite the mouthful, but with this resource, clients can learn about the process beforehand so they don’t have to sit through an explanation every time, saving time for all parts and we all know that time = money.

THE MISSION

The main goal behind this project was to create an educational resource to teach people about the process behind creating animated projects, using abstract shapes to simplify the concepts, the idea was to pair this resource with some blog posts detailing each step so that way clients could inform themselves of the basics before getting into the sales process, saving time for both me and the prospect.

THE OUTCOME

The result, in the end, was a 1-minute minimalist video relying on basic shapes (similar to how a lot of tech companies promote abstract services) going step by step through the process using scenes that represent each step.

I was also able to extract a collection of animated GIFs that will serve really useful in creating articles regarding the process, blog posts coming soon.

SERVICES

Creative/Art Direction
Animation
Video editing/Sound Design
My partner took care of the illustration work.

THE IMPACT

As soon as I implement these into my sales process I will bring back some statistics and results.

The first section covered by the video represents the writing of the script for the video.

Using video to optimize client conversations

Every time a new prospect contacts me it’s always the same process, giving them a free consultancy to figure out their needs, quantifying their goals so that was we can frame the problem into numbers, then figuring out the best solution and setting a price range, however, I often find myself having to explain my process to new clients every time, spending valuable time.

It is wise instead to have available resources that prospects can check out before the call, in order to both educate themselves, and qualify themselves, by witnessing the intricacies of the process (this will filter off people that only want templates and copy-paste solutions).

So to achieve that I decided to create a fully fledge explainer video for myself, that alongside some online articles could help educate clients so that I don’t have to waste their time explaining it every time.

That is what animations are for anyways, educating customers.

Here are some of the storyboards I drew in the planning phase:

A few of the storyboards

Representing animation

I really wanted the shot that represent the animation step to be the star of the video, so I though that having simulated physics could really sell the idea of making graphics come to life and feel as part of the world.

Representing VFX

VFX is not always involved in creating videos, but when it is, it is often what brings it to the next level, making it look real, impactful, and stand out from just being a video to being something more, that’s why this is the only section that has a sense of being real, with simulated light and moving highlights and shadows.

Representing sound.

A really important step in every project is balancing the audio as well as sourcing and creating sounds, to represent it, I thought about just simulating balls falling to signal to the viewer that sounds are happening on every interaction.