How Do You Make an Explainer Video?

It is not easy to sell a product. Especially in today’s market that’s oversaturated with goods and services provided to the customer by companies from all around the world. You need to stand out from the competition. How do you do that? By telling an engaging story about whatever you are selling. Best way to do that? An explainer video.

An explainer video is a relatively new art of storytelling. It emerged from the internet and that’s where it works best. You may see explainer videos on TV or screens inside stores but the world-wide-web is its original habitat. That’s good news, though. The internet is where all of us spend most of our time.

Explainer video production is a growing business all around the world. There are lots of companies that specialize in making explainer videos, but basically, they all have developed the same process of doing that. What makes some of those companies stand out then? As always, the devil is in the details.

The Script

You won’t have an engaging explainer video without a good script. It’s as simple as that. Explainer videos are usually narrated by a voice actor. The voice-over narration plays a key part in making a good marketing video. Bear in mind, every word counts. And there are not a lot of them to use. Usually, a 30-second video voice over is only 75 words long.

Professional explainer video production companies all have seasoned copywriters on board. Their job is to make sure the story your short animation is telling is a thrill for the audience. The development of the script is a process of finding out what the client wants to tell their customers and finding the best words to do that.

Illustrate First, Animate Later

As good as your script may look like, it’s just a piece of paper or a .doc file on the computer. It needs to be brought to life by skilled, talented artists known as illustrators and animators. Provided with visual references from the client or the copywriter, those hard-working people do their best to turn words into images.

Also, that’s when the voice-over artists come in. The studio always animates after they have the voice-over recorded. There are all sorts of voices you can choose from. You want a clean, beautiful female voice to narrate your story? You got it. Or maybe an older guy with a deep voice would do the job better? No problem. 

Once the illustrations are approved, having recorded the VO before, we can jump right into the animation. There are many styles you can illustrate and animate your explainer video in.

You may want to have characters in it. Or maybe just colorful dots, bouncing all over the screen. Anything works, just as long as the world the visual artists create is a place you want to take your customers to.

Recording and Editing

As soon as you have the script, the illustrations, and the animation done, it’s time to put it all together. The editing is the last step in explainer video production. The voice-over narration, the animation, and the music all finally come together. Now’s the time to fine-tune all the elements. Everything needs to be just right. A few more minutes and there, done! After a couple of weeks, your video is ready to be shared with the world. It wasn’t that hard, was it? 

Share It!

Upload it to your YouTube page, your website, or wherever you like. Then, take a quick look at the comments. Seems like everybody’s loving it. Good job! You just made your very first explainer video. Now get ready for those orders coming in.