Simon van Wyk

1. What Makes an Explainer… Good?

If you’re looking at making an explainer video the chances are you have something you’re keen to explain.

Maybe you want to explain your new start-up? Or how your company works? Maybe you’ve got an exciting new product or service? Maybe you want to make something complicated sound easy? Or maybe you want to make something easy, hard to forget?

Whether you’re explaining a ground breaking new medical trial to patients, or how to use the TV remote to your mom, an explainer video’s job is to explain things.

So, how do you measure its success? Well, on a very basic level, a good explainer video is one that is able to explain something clearly. If the viewer finishes the video with a greater understanding of the subject in hand, then the explainer has done its job. If you finish the video more confused than a David Lynch movie, then it’s probably missed the mark.

When reviewing an explainer, good questions to ask are… is it easy to understand? Is the messaging clear and concise? What are my takeaways from the video? If the answers to those questions reflect what you were trying to achieve, then well done - you’ve made a good explainer.

‍

‍

‍

2. Why Animation Can Go Further

But the question isn’t just what makes a good explainer video… the question is what makes a good animated explainer video?

Good animated explainers make the most of animation’s strengths to increase engagement. They use animation to convey information in a way that might be too expensive to film if it were live action… or perhaps too bland if it were merely a Powerpoint slideshow.

Animation is built from nothing. Everything you see on the screen is a choice. It’s been specifically illustrated that way. That’s not to say that live-action film isn’t meticulously crafted from the ground up, but with animation you undoubtedly have more control because everything is able to be created from scratch, free from the constraints of live action. Do you need a character to look a certain way? Easy - you can illustrate them however you chose, without needing to spend endless hours trying to cast the right actor, and then dress them accordingly. Do you need a scene to take place in a specific location? Easy - you can illustrate any place in or out of this world, at any point of history, without needing location scouts, travel budgets, expensive sets, etc.

3. Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

But it’s not just about being able to create scenes that are harder to do in live action, animation is also great at removing unnecessary clutter and bringing focus to specific visual information. So for example, if you’re explaining how your app or website works, you could do a screen recording of someone talking you through it, but… often apps and websites contain visual clutter that isn’t relevant to what you might be trying to explain. Animation allows you to rebuild your UI in a simpler way with a sharper focus on what is important for your exact communication needs.

If you’re deciding whether your explainer needs to be animated or not, a good place to start is by trying to ask the question, “Does this need to be animated?”

If a talking-head will do the trick, maybe that’s a better route for you.

If you’re wanting to show people what’s going on in cells inside the human body… that’s a little harder to do in live action. There's a reason Osmosis Jones was a live-action animation hybrid!

‍

‍

‍

4. Get in touch

At Studio Bo we’re here to help you make an informed decision about your explainer video needs. We’re not going to upsell you unnecessarily. We also know that sometimes the solution isn’t straight forward. You might need a combination of a filmed explainer, with motion graphics, and animated cut-scenes. The good news is that our pipeline is flexible, our quotes and solutions can scale to fit your desired budget, and if we run into something we can’t do, we’re more than happy to point you in the right direction.

‍

Contact us for help on your explainer journey today.