First, we create a sketch. Based on it, the illustrator made concept art. That’s the visual style we’ll have in the final video.

Concept Art is an illustration that contains a vision of the world in your animated video takes place. In the animation, all the worlds are entirely fictional – even if the action of your video takes place in a well-known city, its illustration will not be a direct copy of reality. Your city will always look stylized, or a bit caricatured, depending on your campaign needs and tone of communication.

It is important to create concept art for every animated video that uses the original illustration. This type of illustration contains the visual appearance of the environment and the characters that will be part of your animated video. When creating concept art, the illustrator is guided by the script because the illustration should be in the service of the story.

Let’s explain this with an example. Suppose the video’s plot is set in the world of the Addams family. In that case, the illustrator will design characters that reflect the combination of horror and humour inherent in the story of this strange family. This will mean that the characters will look fantastic and have sharp teeth and creepy eyes, but some caricatured detail will always inspire them with a humorous note. The environment in which the action takes place will also reflect the spirit of the story – the houses will undoubtedly be built in Victorian style, the gardens will be decorated with skulls, the light will be gloomy, but the illustrator will add visual details to let you know that it is a comedy, not a horror.

Concept art is an illustration that embodies the core of the story!

Before we start animating the video, it was necessary to arrange the shots. That’s what a storyboard is for. As you can see, the storyboard does not focus on visual details; it is important to match the sketches of the shots with the story optimally.

An animated video always begins with a script that contains dialogues and a detailed description of the course of the story. But the road from the script to the final animated video is long, and many creatives take part in it.

Sometimes it is not easy for film professionals to imagine all the scenes of the script. More importantly, someone’s vision is only in his head, and he can’t share it with other creatives on the team. Therefore, at the beginning of the production of an animated video, a storyboard is created.

A storyboard is a comic book-shaped script. It is placed in rectangles of equal size (frames) according to the format that will be the format of the final. It contains sketches of video frames, followed by dialogue segments. The emphasis is not on the final visual appearance but on the direction of the story itself, so the drawings are often one-colour line illustrations whose primary function is to explain the positions and actions of the characters.

We approach the storyboard as a team, with a director, copywriter, art director, and illustrator.

When we agreed with the client about the storyboard, the animation process starts. The video storyboard and animator help us choose the optimal rhythm and style of changing the animation frames. These are simple animations that give us the impression of the final video.

Good animation inspires the audience and arouses emotions. But to achieve this effect, it is necessary to harmonize many elements: the appearance of the characters and the background, the fluidity of the movement, the rhythm of the animation, the music, the dialogues, the special effects.

A video storyboard is a revived storyboard in which shots alternate according to the rhythm of music and dialogue. Simple character movements are included in the animation, in addition to all the above.

The animator lasts as long as the final video and contains all the situations and characters. It is an unfinished version of the final video. It serves the animators to decide how best to produce specific movements of the characters and align them with the music and dialogue.

The animator allows the creative team to speed up the production process – working in parallel – while the illustrators complete the background illustrations, the animators can already animate the characters, and the director can do the first shots of the dialogue with the actors. That is why often not all final illustrations, music or dialogues are included in the animation. All these details will fall into place later.

• inventing the world and characters of an animated video
• choosing the style of illustration that best fits the core of the story and the values of the brand
• as a reference for comparison, to make sure you use an original visual style that is different enough from the competition
• as a template for making other illustrations needed for animation

• scenario visualization with a selection of frame types (close-up, medium plan, total, )
• it gives a first impression of the rhythm of the animation
• it gives the impression of the optimal length of voice-over or dialogue, which can be subsequently shortened and refined
• as a document that gives the entire creative team a shared vision of the final video

• Art Director to choose the optimal direction of visualization of characters and backgrounds to fit into the selected types of frames
• to help the client see at an early stage whether the final video will match the brand values and strategic goals of the campaign

• defines the duration of the shots – lasts the same as the final video, giving an accurate impression of the duration of individual scenes and indicating the possible need to shorten
• creating the impression of the final video – the last step of previsualization
• enables parallel work of the creative team – the animator can deal with animation and composing the whole, while all the illustrations, dialogues and music are not yet
• allows you to harmonize the visual and sound part – the rhythm of the animation blends with the dialogues and music