How Much Time Required To Produce an Animation?
When you’re about to start a new animation project, one of the first questions on your mind will be how long does it take to produce an animation?
A simple animated video with superficial details and without animated characters can be completed in under 1 week
Generally, the average time to produce an animation of around 60-90 seconds is 6 weeks.
The Standard Timeline
The standard timeline of 6 weeks to completion of the entire animation process can be broken down into a number of stages: briefing, brainstorming, scriptwriting, concept art, storyboard, illustration, animation, and sound design.
Step-by-Step Breakdown
Briefing
The first stage of producing an animation is designing a creative brief. A well-defined brief will help your designers to better understand what you’re looking to achieve with your project.
A clear brief will take the target audience into consideration and help to focus the rest of the project on the desired demographic. A detailed brief will take around 3-6 days to complete.
Brainstorming and Script Writing
The whole brainstorming process begins with copywriters, who work together with art directors to choose the stylistics before the rest of the team starts on the concepts.
Next, the script will be produced. The script will communicate your message and narrate the overall animation. Brainstorming and scriptwriting will take 3-6 days to complete.
Voice Over
Now when the script is ready, projects including dialogues will be passed to the VO artists. It determines what a final effect will look like, affecting the length and rhythm of the animation.
It takes around 1-3 days to complete this stage, however, it can be processed parallelly to the concept art stage.
Concept Art
Concept art aims to create a rough visual representation of your ideas before they are put into the final product.
This part of the process takes an average of around 1-3 days to complete.
Storyboard
Once your script and your concept art have been sketched up, a storyboard will be drawn up to detail the visual components of the video scene-to-scene. It will enable you to see how the overall animation is structured, down to the scene design and the progression of the story.
At this stage, you’ll see a rudimentary skeleton of the final product before the details are finalized. Most storyboards can be completed within 1-5 days.
Illustrations
This is where the specifics of your character design and features will be narrowed in on.
This will be one of the first stages where your artistic vision starts to be realized. The illustrations will be completed in around 5-12 days.
Animation
At this point, the design studio will be using earlier illustrations and storyboards to create dynamic animated scenes.
The studio will use animation software to bring character designs and other models to life with authentic movement and articulation scene by scene. Each scene will need to be reviewed vigorously in order to ensure the scenes run smoothly. This can take between 5-15 days.
Sound design
To complete your animation, it’s time to add sound effects and a professional music track. The design team will make use of music sound effects and production software to add audio to your animation.
Quality sound design sets the mood for your target audience. The sound design can be completed in 1-3 days.
The 6-week Animation Process
The 6-week animation process is more than enough to produce a high-quality product that captivates viewers and gets your message across. There’s a fine line between keeping the animation process prompt and rushing through compromising your creative vision.
