The Objective.
—
This animation is the first in a series of animated explainer videos we have been commissioned to create for Cardiff council. It was important that we create a set of animations that clearly belong to a larger family of content, incorporating the Meet in Cardiff brand guidelines. Designed with future projects in mind, we set out to create a custom set of characters that will be used throughout the series.
The animated explainer video needed to be short, punchy and engaging; while delivering all the key pieces of information to allow the viewer to quickly understand the process, and service offering.
The Process.
—
We kicked off the project as we do with every project; by running a creative development workshop to identify all the important creative decisions and considerations for the animated explainer video. These sessions are a fundamental part of our process, allowing us to explore each area of the project in detail before we lift a pencil to start illustrating. We worked closely with the Meet in Cardiff team to develop the script and create an engaging and informative narrative for the animated explainer video. With the script signed off, we cast a voiceover artist and managed to the direction, making sure the vocal delivery and tone were on-point.
Before jumping into the animation phase we produced a storyboard and an animatic. The storyboard is useful in so many ways. It helps the client imagine the narrative in a much more visual way than a script, it’s also a good way to test the water with rough illustration styles before we work on the final artwork, and obviously, it’s where our illustration and animation teams come together to get creative!
When we were all happy with how the storyboard and animatic were looking our illustration team got working on building the final artwork for the animation before passing it onto the animation team to get things moving. The animation team worked on rigging up the characters before bringing the rest of the elements together. The aim was to use lots of energetic, fluid motion to keep the viewer engaged throughout.
Take a look at some early sketches and our animatic below.
