I recently had to create a web promo video for Recensus from scratch and I’m pretty happy with the result (see below).
As I was paying for this project I wanted to keep the costs to a minimum, therefore I used a couple of online services and about 8 hours of my time.
The Script
The first step was to create a script, which hopefully told a story, presented the problem and solution in a simple maner, was less than a minute long (user’s attention span are very short) and related to the potential viewers. I’ve never been particularly creative when it comes to writing but once I got started it really was pretty straight forward.
Voice Over
It was an easy decision to outsource the voice over as I definitely don’t possess a cinematic voice. I chose to go to fiverr.com (a marketplace for services that cost $5) as I’d been to the website when it first launched and remember seeing a lot of people offering voice overs or video testimonials. I got an excellent service; the script was turned into a mp3 and returned within a couple of hours and the voice over girl sounds very professional.
Video Animation
This was the hardest step as apart from some simple flash animations, I’ve never done anything like this before. I had a quick look around for some external companies (wyzowl.com and demoduck.com to name a couple) but the majority wanted to charge in excess of $1500 (which, if I was funded I would have done). So I went in search for easy to use, free or open source animation software and I found nothing. However, I did come across xtranormal.com (which ended up being too basic) and goanimate.com which, I ened up learning and signing up to their business edition. If you signup to their free edition you’ll find the the character and backdrops too limiting but don’t let this put you off, the business package has everything you need for most business type videos. Total time to learn and design the video was about 6 hours.
However, heed this serious warning, their licence agreement states that if you cancel your subscription you no longer have any right to use the video, which seems crazy as I only wanted one video and I’ll have to pay $59 every month just to use it? I’ve question this via email as they offer a reseller plan, which Im not sure can have the same limitations but I await their response. If you decide you use then make sure you check this first!
Conclusion
I’m very happy with the results and I’m tempted to create a few more for Recensus and other businesses.