Briefing: How to Start an Animation Project Successfully

They say: the more accurate the brief, the more creative the project. This statement is vital because not knowing the details and features of a project at the beginning of the animation process can cause mistakes and waste of resources later. Moreover, you will have a ruined impression of your contractors as experts, and by trying to change the company, you can often incur financial losses.

To avoid such a situation, it is necessary to communicate your goals, objectives, and wishes before starting a project with your contractor. The more precise the understanding about your needs will be, the more details he receives from you, the better the result of the animation production will be. 

Make it a rule to prepare before your first call or meeting with an animation studio. Typically, you will be faced with the standard briefing procedure as a part of the process of animation for clarifying the input data and details of the project. The documented result of the briefing – a brief – will be a starting point in finding the best solution for your needs!

Since you are a co-author of the project, the information in the brief directly depends on your request and specific tasks of the project: so, think about the key points to share in order to carry out the project efficiently. Meanwhile, there are several universal points that must be covered before the beginning animation development we would like to draw your attention to.

Tell us about your company

So, you made an appointment with an animation studio. Now they need to get to know you and learn as much as possible about your company and product. Remember, that 99% of the clients know their product or service better than any contractor (we usually do not work with the remaining 1%).

1. Tell us about your company. We are highly interested in your unique experience, sales geography, structure, areas of activity and development plans. They are important in defining the main goals and objectives of the future project and will allow us to understand how to make an animated video competitive and selling for your exact field.
2. Describe your target audience and its difficulties. It is not just a gender ratio and age, but some deeper features like portraits, sites of the highest concentration of the target audience, and their interests.
3. Tell us about your main competitors. Let us know your opinion on this matter, and we will also conduct our own research before the call to understand your company’s position on the market.

State the real goals of the project

Statistically proven that in 90% of the cases the real reason why you are turning to an animation studio with a request to develop an animation project is to increase your company’s level of sales. We are ready to help you to indicate the final points from the common requests.

1. Let’s formulate the main task. There can be several tasks in a project: to create a 2D explainer video, a 3D promo video, or game art illustration, for instance. It is highly important to write down and approve everything that needs to be done.
2. Define features and limitations. It is essential to share all the guidelines, brand books, logos, fonts, descriptions etc. needed for the animation process.
3. Show us the examples of your old projects and references you like if there are any. At this stage, it is necessary to tell us, what these works are good or bad at, what you like more, and what you would like to repeat. If there are no such examples, we will be glad to prepare some options for you.

We know that each client prefers to be briefed in his own way: someone likes to talk in detail about the project on the call, asking his questions and answering ours, sharing wishes along the way. Some clients find it more convenient to fill out the brief on their own, indicating the details in writing. Finally, someone prefers that the agency manager fills out the brief himself, sending it only for verification. We are ready for any of the options described in order to end up with a completed brief that captures all the features of the animation project.

Take our first meeting as the first breath of our future project! Finding out even the details that seem simple and understandable to you, can make a significant contribution to the start and development of the project. All this will help our team to estimate the task accurately at the very beginning and to perform the project efficiently.

We always adapt any brief to the specifics and tasks of each client and company. Check out the Wow-How Creative brief via the link to improve your brief or discuss how to make an animation perfect for your needs with our team.

Bob

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Сreative animation specialist and your provider inside Wow-How Studio