Layer 03 Titles and captions
We write, animate and deliver the short piece that gets a product across to somebody who has never seen it: a script built from what you tell us, and your own interface animated on screen.
Layer 02 Motion
Layer 01 Interface
Playhead 00:00 / 00:12
Where somebody is, and what they are trying to get done, before the product appears.
Scenes in this loop
What we make
The shape is chosen at the brief, because it changes how the script is written, not just how long the piece runs.
One idea, held for as long as it takes to land
One thing your product or service does, one audience, one thing to do next. The script carries a single argument from the opening frame to the closing card, and the animation is built to keep that argument moving rather than to show every screen you have.
Suits A landing page, an advertisement cut, or an idea that has to survive being watched with the sound off.
A job inside your software, step by step
A sequence through your interface: where somebody starts, what they press, what changes on the screen and what they end up with. Screens are rebuilt as vector artwork wherever a step needs elements to move on their own, so the pace follows the explanation rather than a recording.
Suits Onboarding, a help centre, a sales call that keeps having to walk through the same thing.
Several features or audiences in one script
More than one idea in a single piece, with the structure to keep them apart: chapters, a returning device between sections, and a close that pulls them together. Cut-downs for separate features and a captioned version for silent playback are made from the same build rather than started again.
Suits A launch, a conference reel, or a product with distinct audiences who each need their own part of the story.
Animation
Which one a scene uses is settled at storyboard and written into the quotation, because the answer decides both what the scene can do and what it takes to make.
Build 01
Your screens are redrawn as vector artwork, so a button, a row, a cursor and a panel are separate objects that can move, appear and change on their own. Text stays crisp at any size and a step can be slowed down or held without going soft.
Build 02
Screenshots, exports and artwork you send are animated as they are: panned, scaled, masked, revealed and annotated with on-screen text and pointers.
Build 03
Shapes, diagrams, icons and figures drawn for the script where there is no interface to show: the situation before the product, a comparison, a flow between people or systems, a number made visible.
The whole of it, scene by scene, is on the Explainer Videos page.
Packages
We quote per piece rather than from a price list, because the same runtime can be a straightforward job or a long one depending on what is in it. These are the six things that decide which.
01
Runtime is the first thing that moves everything else: every second on screen is a second that has to be drawn, timed and narrated. We agree a target length at the brief and the script is written to it rather than trimmed to fit afterwards.
02
Two pieces of the same length can be very different jobs. A handful of long, calm scenes costs less to build than the same time cut into many short ones, each with its own artwork and move.
03
Rebuilding an interface as vector is drawing work; animating what you send is not; illustration sits between the two. The storyboard settles which of the three every scene uses, and that is where most of the difference lives.
04
Narration by a voice artist brings auditions, a recording session and a licence for the recording. Narration you record yourself brings none of that. A piece carried by on-screen text alone brings neither, and is written differently from the start.
05
A licensed music track and sound design are chosen for the piece, and the licence is bought for the use you need. Which licence that is - and what it allows - is named in the quotation, because a licence for internal use and one for paid advertising are not the same purchase.
06
Cut-downs, square and upright crops, a silent captioned version, subtitle files, other languages and handover of the project files are each their own item. They are cheaper ordered with the piece than commissioned after it has been closed.
No figures are published here. Work is quoted in pounds sterling (GBP) against your brief, and the quotation is the whole of what is payable, taxes included. It names what the piece covers, how each scene is built, what is included at every stage and what is handed over at the end. Nothing is added to it afterwards, and this site takes no payments.
Process
Every stage is built on the one approved before it. That is the whole reason a change is cheap early and expensive late, and why we say which it is before doing anything.
01 Brief
We go through what the product does, who the piece is for, what they already know and what they should do at the end. Anything you already have - screens, decks, help pages, an existing script - is read at this point rather than later.
Closes with A written quotation: what the piece covers, how it will be built, what is included at each stage and what it costs.
02 Script
The narration and on-screen text are written from the brief, scene by scene, with nothing in them that you have not told us or approved. Claims about the product are yours to confirm: we do not write a benefit we cannot source.
Closes with Your written approval of the script. Everything after this is built on these words.
03 Storyboard
Each scene is drawn as a still frame with its narration line underneath, and the way it will be built is settled here: rebuilt as vector, animated from what you send, or illustrated. This is the cheapest place to change your mind, and the last easy one.
Closes with Your written approval of the storyboard, including how each scene is to be built.
04 Animation
The approved frames are built and timed: movement, transitions, on-screen text, and the audio agreed for the piece. If narration is recorded by a voice artist, the session happens against the approved script, which is why the script is locked first.
Closes with A first cut for review, delivered as a link you can share with the people who have to see it.
05 Review
You watch the cut and send notes. Notes about timing, wording on screen, colour and pace are what this stage is for. Notes that change the script belong to stage 02 and are treated as such: we say so, quote for it, and change nothing until you agree.
Closes with Your written approval of the cut.
06 Export
The approved cut is exported in the formats and frame sizes agreed: the master, any cut-downs, a captioned or silent version, subtitle files where they are part of the order. Project files and artwork are handed over if the quotation says so.
Closes with Delivery by email or a download link, and the invoice settled as the order confirmation sets out.
What each stage asks of you, and what changing an approved script actually means, is set out on the Process page.
Questions
Next step
That is enough to come back with a written quotation: what the piece would cover, how each scene would be built and what it would cost. Edumovies replies by email.