The short answer
About six weeks, four stages
Chat, script and storyboard, animation, delivery. You see the work at every stage, so nothing is a surprise at the end.
Hiring an animation studio for the first time can feel like a black box. You hand over a brief, wait a few weeks and hope for the best. That's how projects go sideways. Here's exactly how mine run, with real work from real projects.
No slow agency process. No endless presentations. No surprises.
The six weeks, stage by stage
Tap through the stages.
Chat and proposal
We talk through what you're explaining, who's watching and what you want them to do afterwards. Then I send a proposal with a fixed quote and a plan. No pressure to go ahead.
Bring: a rough idea, any brand guidelines, and a couple of videos you like, even from a totally different industry.
Script and storyboard
Bring your own script, or we shape it together. A 60-second video is about 150 words, so every word earns its place. Once the words are locked, I draw every scene so you can see the whole video before anything moves.
You get: a script, then a frame-by-frame storyboard, with two rounds of changes at each.
Animation
The voiceover gets recorded and I animate to it. You've already signed off every scene, so this stage is about timing, motion and polish. You review the whole video moving, and I refine it with your feedback until it's right.
You get: a review link with the full animation, then a final with your notes in.
Delivery
Sound, captions and every size you need: widescreen for the website, square and vertical for social, short cut-downs, and other languages if you need them.
You get: a master file, social cuts, SRT captions and anything else we agreed up front.
What a storyboard actually looks like
This is the actual storyboard from an Amazon Alexa explainer I made via STN Digital. Eight panels a page, each with the line of narration it sits under. It even plans the regional versions: the same scene gets a basketball for the US, a soccer ball for Europe and Japan, a cricket bat for India and a footy for Australia. Tap to flick between pages.
The Amazon Alexa explainer storyboard, eight panels a page.
This is the stage where changes are quick and cheap, so it's where I want your honest feedback. And here's what those panels turned into once they moved.
The finished Amazon Alexa explainer.
One animation, every format
Tell me where it's running before we start and I build for every format from day one, so nothing gets awkwardly cropped at the end. This Indiana Pacers season ticket sizzle, made via STN Digital, was built in three sizes from the start, and it ended up running as a TV ad too. Tap a size to see the real version.
One sizzle delivered in 16:9, 4:5 and 9:16.
What I need from you
- One person who can make the final call.
- Feedback within a couple of days at each stage.
- Brand guides and any must-say lines up front.
No rush, though. If approvals take longer on your side, I go at your pace.
Questions to ask any studio
- Do they write scripts, or expect you to bring one?
- How many rounds of changes are included, and at which stages?
- Will you see a storyboard before anything is animated?
- Are voiceover, music and sound in the quote?
- Who will you actually deal with day to day?
- Is the fee fixed, or hourly?
Explainers I've made
Got something that needs explaining? Start a project.