When it comes to product release, video production is one of the crucial things to make it successful. Whether these are games, movies, trailers, or other kinds of videos, visual content helps reveal its best sides to the audience. That’s why animated video production is essential for companies and their products.
When we want to bring unique visual content that can represent the product to people and provide them with a great watching experience, we need not only the idea but also a professional crew. With the right vision and skilled creative and technical teams, it becomes possible to create an aesthetically pleasing image and shape the target audience’s perception.
What Is Video Production?
Generally, it is a visual content creation process, where the studio makes a video for a potential consumer. The video may have different purposes, whether it is about demonstrating the advantages of the product, describing it, or drawing attention to some specific features.
The main factors that should be taken into account when creating a video are the client’s goals, the possible expectations of the audience, and the primary purpose the content is designed for.
High-quality video production means prompting the consumer to make an action, evoke emotions and draw attention. To guarantee the hoped-for result, the whole working model consists of a few stages that are executed step by step to bring off each goal (attention, motivation, action).
Video Production Services
Since It is multi-tasking and includes several stages, we can find different types of services and methods that can be applied in video creation.
Generally, animated video production includes:
- Concept Art
- Storyboarding
- Animatic
- 2D/3D animation
- VFX and visual effects
The types of services may vary depending on studios, and the aims, purposes, and stylization of the specific video, however, most often services like these are involved in the process.
How It Works
Production is an integral part of the overall concept of the product, as it reveals its features and shapes a perception among the audience. The whole process consists of three key stages:
- The first stage is pre-production. Here the team writes the script for the future video, selects which visual effects will be used for the best results (animation, VFX), and the studio estimates the approximate budget of the video.
- The second stage is production. This is where all the main work is done. The technical and creative departments start creating visual and audio content for the future video. At this stage, all team members are involved in the process, including sound engineers, actors, 3D modelers, artists, motion designers, etc.
- The third stage is post-production. This is the last step before the release when all the main work has already been done. At this stage, all the content is edited and assigned with visual effects, audio tracks, etc. Here, all efforts are aimed at providing the video with the most attractive and interesting appearance that will draw attention and be well perceived by the audience.
Commonly, the whole process can be divided into 4 main parts:
- Audio tracks
- Visual effects
- 2D/3D graphics
- Animation
Let’s take a closer look at each of these
Audio
When making a video, not only voice acting but soundtracks are used to create an ambiance. In the first stage, a technical task for audio content is agreed upon, which takes into account several factors:
- The number, order, and timing of scenes
- Roles and voice actors
- Target audience preferences
- The goal and purpose of the video
- Similar products and videos that are already on the market
During this step, an audio sequence is created to accompany the video. Also, when dubbing, the announcer reads out the already finished text, which should be written at the pre-production stage. Typically the text also takes into account previous aspects in order to be suitable for the video style.
Visual
Before starting to create visual effects, the crew makes a concept. Visual specialists consider which effects should be added, also where and how to use them, and what style there will be (casual, realism, etc).
At this stage, artists do some research related to the video, for example, if there would be fire, water, leaves moving from the wind, etc, in the frame, then it is necessary to properly show these motions in the animation.
Then the team of VFX artists, 3D modelers, motion designers, etc, is working on adding visual effects like VFX motion and CG objects to the video.
2D/3D
Depending on whether 2D or 3D graphics or a combination of both will be selected to be used, the process may slightly differ.
In the case of 2D, artists and designers make illustrations in a particular style based on a storyboard.
When it is 3D, style frames are used for illustrations, on which one can see the visual of the scene with animation.
Once illustration or style frames are good with the client, artists start creating graphics for the whole video.
Animation
The main purpose of the animation is to set static frames in motion. This stage can be divided into two steps.
- Step 1. The sketch is created but without details such as lighting, colors, and textures. Based on this, one can evaluate the timing of frames, characters’ movements, their interaction with the environment, etc, which allows us to get a preliminary assessment of the animation.
- Step 2. The sketch is enhanced with colors, properly selected lighting, movements are completed, or improved, etc, which then helps to get the alpha version of the animation that will be used.
In Conclusion
As we can see, video production is a truly multi-tasking thing involving several stages and steps that must be accomplished to guarantee the desired result.
When creating video, studios use all of the power of their resources to create the kind of video content that can attract the audience, evoke emotions and encourage the consumer to take action.
The way how the product would be perceived in many cases depends on how that product was presented to the people. That’s why video production is such a crucial detail.
Get more at Walla Walla Studio.
