Explainer Video: How It Is Produced and What It Costs

Which style is the right one? Which skills are important to produce an explanatory video? What are the costs? What are the advantages of Explainer Tools and which ones are handmade?

Explainer videos have created completely new visual styles. These in turn have an impact on other genres today. This becomes visible in advertising. It eagerly absorbs the new forms and adapts them.

Laying technique supplement

An originally strongly reduced style is the laying technique. A hand pushes figures and icons back and forth on a white background. To make it more varied, it can be supplemented by other styles. „But this should not be exaggerated,“ editor and motion designer Richard Santiburcio Miranda points out. Otherwise, a confusion of styles would result.

Miranda studied at the mhmk, the Munich University for Media and Communication. Today he is a freelancer and works successfully with VORSATZ.MEDIA. For years he has gained experience with programs like After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator for his animations.

Technology and Dramaturgy

However, he says that the technical implementation is sometimes overrated as a skill. „It needs to be complemented by dramaturgical skills.“  Even if Miranda is provided with a detailed storyboard, each frame requires her own creativity. A motion designer is always a storyteller, just like the author.

There are special tools available today for creating explanatory video-style animations. Go Animate, Animoto or Pootown for example. So videos in the style of laying technique or Scribble are created faster. But these programs have their limits.

Every customer is unique

„Every company tells me: we are unique. And that’s what our video should represent,“ says Miranda. The programs do have a more or less wide range of design elements. But they are not individual. At some point, the customer finds „his“ figures somewhere else.

Of course, in terms of sound production, such programs cannot compete with professional audio programs such as ProTools or Audition.

Handmade is labour-intensive

If you want to have a professional and unique video in the Explainer Style, there is no way around a „handmade“ production. However, this is and remains labour-intensive.

First a creative concept is needed. As weird and funny as the film may be in the end, the first priority is always the goal of the video. This is also the basis for the chosen style. The storyboard is then derived from this.

One minute not in one minute

On this basis, the illustrator suggests patterns and finally develops style frames. Next, the sound is produced. Then the actual motion design begins. The elements have to be rigged and then the parts have to be moved individually.

Even a small one-minute movie will keep any video production busy for weeks. But the result is worth it, if everything was done right. Through its abstractions, an explanatory film can make complicated things simple.

Therefore, well thought-out and creatively inspired video in Explainer Style is almost a guarantee for success.