Generic Animation: Another Toy You Don't Need

In a Facebook thread last week after my Marketingprofs.com seminar one person bemoaned the expense of shooting live action. "Maybe post production animation is cheaper?" he wondered. Someone else jumped in and recommended Flixpress.com– a place you can get very inexpensive (sometimes free!) customized animations.

I took a look, and created the sample animation above.  Although I just threw in images and titles at random, you get the idea.  Almost everything on the site is similarly slick, similarly constructed and similarly long and boring. Sure, it's cheap, but so is fast food.

Here's the problem with generic animation:  it looks generic.  It's simultaneously glossy and empty.  Because the animation wasn't created with YOUR story in mind, it doesn't tell any story at all.  Even if you load it with your images. Instead of knocking your audience dead, the only thing it kills is time.

Ironically, if you think using generic animation is a good idea, that's a pretty good sign that you shouldn't use it.  Every moment of your video should carry your intent, your story, the emotion of the tale you should be telling.  Instead of adding pointless decoration, you need to make your video stronger.  Which doesn't cost money– just thought.  Go back to the drawing board and make sure every single element grabs the audience by the eyeballs and makes them watch.