Characters Telling Stories: Animation Types

Once upon a time...

When someone on the Internet wants an animation, there are a few kinds to choose from.  Any of those kinds can have characters, but the importance of those characters can change depending on the type of animation they're in.  To be clear, this is a post about animation and character types.  To read about animation detail and quality, see "Characters on the Grid" in this same blog.

Character Animation

If you ask an animator what character animation is.  They would tell you that character animation is the animation that is done to make a character come to life.  Animating a character.  That animator would be right, but that's not what we're talking about here.  What we're talking about is an animation that is driven by a character, and that's really quite different.  

Usually, it's pretty simple.  Got a story?  Got a  situation?  If the answer is yes, then you probably have a main character, and that means you probably have a character animation.  But, don't get carried away because its not always that simple.  A storyline with a character may not necessarily be a character based animation, especially if the individual characters aren't all that important.  Sometimes, informational or explainer videos, which will be described in more detail later, can have characters and storylines, but they may not actually be character animations because the character isn't really what you're there for.

Character consideration: Arnold

Arnold is a little boy, singing and dancing in his kitchen.  Sometimes he drums on a pot with a spatual.  Sometimes he plays macaroni and cheese boxes like marachas.  He does silly dances and sings a silly song for about two and a half minutes.  

The Novamation MEDIA character animation, "Everybody Dance" features a nameless little boy (we gave him the working name, Arnold) singing a song and dancing in a kitchen.  The child is the main character, and the prime subject is the song.  The character here is important.  Novamation MEDIA engaged in an intense character design process with the client to get this character just right.  In the end, the character's design carried the entire feel of the animation. 

 

Character animations are often children's stories, silly songs, situational sketches or historical accounts that somebody wants animated.  They are not usually designed to sell or influence.  Character animations are the show, not the commercial.

Demonstration

Sometimes you may want to show a product without actually having the product on hand or shooting actual video of the product.  You may want to show the product in action, or show areas of the product working where a video camera just wouldn't be practical.  This would call for a product animation.  Product animations require the product and its function to be recreated in an animated environment.  Sometimes, these animations require a lot of detail in the way the product looks, or the way the product works, or both.

"Kitchen Interior Design" is an animation created for an interior designer.  The video focused on the demonstration of a particular Samsung refrigerator.  Novamation MEDIA created an animation to showcase the refrigerator in the kitchen environment.  

Explainer and Training

Explainer videos are an internet specialty.  Designed to be instructional, and can be used for marketing or training, the explainer video can vary from a something that is all text, text and still pictures, or full animation.  The presentations are usually simple, and can often look like a PowerPoint presentation that runs all by itself.  An explainer video can have a character in it, but that character isn't really unique.  They just fit a specific character type.

Character consideration: Steve

Steve is a pest management professional who needs to inspect the roof of a building that he can't get access to.  Steve uses a drone to get a close look at possible rodent entry areas on his client's roof.  Steve saves time and money by using a drone to get access to high areas where he often can't go himself. 

The Novamation MEDIA explainer animation called "Advanced Inspection Tools" featured Steve and his challenges in inspecting client locations, but it was in no way a character animation.  Steve's identity comes from his uniform and hat.  He doesn't even have a face.  He is an icon that represents a kind of human being.  

Often training and promotional videos will have a storyline where a character experiences some sort of problem that is usually solved with a particular process or product.  There is a storyline here, but it's not a character driven storyline.  

These types of stories may begin something like this:

"This is Steve.  Steve is an IPM professional with a real problem..."  

And, the story ends something like this:

"Now, Steve is doing great because he uses [INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE]".  Join Steve and thousands of others who lead happy lives  because they use [INSERT PRODUCT NAME HERE].

Infographic and Motion Graphic

Sometimes an animation is useful to show statistics or illustrate a concept.  There can be characters in this type of animation, but those characters are usually just representations of a part of the population. Animated logos also tend to fall into this category.  These animations tend to make up the largest part of Internet animation, and often customer needs can be easily handled by software animation packages that a client can use to animate a piece of clip art, or animate text.  

That being said, creation of these animations shouldn't be taken lightly.  Often, These tiny animations can carry a great deal of emotion, and can do more to reach potential customers than a long explainer or demonstration video.  They are often small enough to place in emails and presentations, as well as web pages and blog posts.