So, you’re interested in producing an animation video for your company, but you’ve heard they take oh so long and are expensive to produce. You haven’t heard wrong. However, it isn’t so simple!
I could go the typical, annoying way and tell you, “it depends” or I could just spin you in circles and stop you from understanding or reaching the point. I’m going to take the former route.
Creating an explainer video is no simple feat. It takes huge amounts of effort and patience to come up with a high-quality explainer video. I wish I could give you an exact figure of how long producing a 5-minute animation, video takes, but alas, I can’t.
What I can do, is guide you throughout the whole process and tell you what the length of an animation video depends on!
1. Type of video
By now you must know that there is no single type of animated explainer video. We have 2D, 3D, and motion graphics, animated explainer video to name a few.
Creating a 3D explainer video will significantly take longer than creating and 2D explainer video.
2. Skillset
This one is pretty straightforward. The higher the skillset the lesser the time is taken to create animated explainer videos. It also depends on how many animators are working on the same project together.
3. Company
Most companies can take 2-4 months to create a simple video, others can take a couple of weeks! It depends on the workforce and workflow they have. Maybe they are a very popular company already invested in a few projects?
It all boils down to these factors. Although a typical 5-minute 2D animation, video can take 2-5 months to produce. The average time to produce a 60-90 second explainer video is 6 weeks.
What is the time distribution across the stages? Let’s take a look.
1. Writing the Script
Since most companies opt for hiring a professional scriptwriter to write their script, it can take anywhere from 3-7 days to finalize the script.
This is because of the communication, revision, and feedback time it takes between the writer and the company.
2. Storyboard
This is where the animator creates the outline, or a comic strip, for the explainer video. It contains camera stills and is almost like a review of the future explainer video.
Since it’s very important, a significant amount of time must be allotted to it as the whole explainer video rides on it. If not done right, revisions will be required which will definitely prove to be time costly. A minimum of 1-2 weeks time is dedicated to making the storyboard, free of any imperfections.
3. Character and graphic design
This stage can take anywhere between 5 days to 12 days, depending on the complexity and skill od the design and animator respectively.
Since this is where the vision comes to life, a lot of thought is put into the making of it!
4. Animation
Again, one of the most tricky and hard part! This is where you need to focus on making the characters and other animations look real and human. Depending on the frames per second, it can take anywhere between 5 to 15 days to get the animation running smoothly.
5. Music and sound effects
Finally, the last part of creating an explainer video! In this staged, the animator will compile the voice-over, music and other sound effects to make the explainer video as engaging as possible!
Balancing and syncing the whole process can take 1-3 days to complete.
So there you have it! The time distribution of a standard 60-90 seconds video! Your video could be produced in 2 weeks or 2 months, it all depends on how much you’re willing to spend, the Video Animation Company and the type of the video!
