We’ve developed our process through experience, having produced hundreds of animations over the years. It’s designed to protect everyone involved as it helps avoid changes being requested at a point in time when they’d incur additional time/costs, beyond the initial brief.
We start by producing a mood board and/or presenting 2 or 3 projects from our portfolio which are comparable to what we’re proposing for your project. We may also provide a small script sample. The aim here is to get your buy-in on the visual style and tone of voice we’re proposing.
If you’re not happy, then we ask for specific guidance, including references of work you like. Usually this does the trick, but if we don’t nail it the second time, then we’ll hold further discussion with you and decide how to proceed. If we haven’t got it right by the third attempt then there’s something wrong! (This is highly unusual, in our experience.)
Once we’re agreed, we write the full script, for your comments & approval. At this point, we provide you with some voice artist samples and you select the one you want to use. We work with them to deliver a script read. At this point you’re able to ask for small tweaks on a second read, if necessary. Small tweaks are things like adding/subtracting a few words in a couple of lines. Anything more substantial – a number of new lines, for example – would incur additional charges for the artist’s studio time.
We then either:
• design your key character, and present it within the background from key scene, or
• produce a short (>10 seconds) proof of concept clip
Either way, you should by this point be getting a very clear idea of how the end-product animation will look. Once that’s signed off, we progress to the main design & animation phase, where the video really comes together. As part of this process we’ll select a music track which we think works for the project.
Our goal for the first cut is always to hear you say “this is even better than I was expecting!” You do though have two feedback & amendment loops if you need them. Modifications to the scenes count as amendments – deciding at this point to insert new scenes, for example, would count as a brief change, and would incur extra time/costs. Changing the music at this stage doesn’t count as a brief change. Once we’re all agreed on the edit, we do our final sound mix and export the finished animation.