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How much time do you spend creating motion graphics?
Hey all –
I’ve kind of stumbled into motion graphics and have been creating videos for my work for about 4 months. I’ve pretty much lived on this site and few others as I learn my way around.
I just finished a 4 minute video animating a company overview. The piece included some charts, a dozen or so icons, some photos, lots of text, and everything was broken into 8 different sections of information. The project took me right at 40 hours from start to finish. I’ve since gotten some flack about taking too long on that project.
I’m wondering what kinds of guidelines you all use when estimating the time it will take to create a mo-graph project. I realize this is like asking “How long does it take to build a house?” so I expect a variety of answers. I’d really just like to know that I’m not the slowest guy on earth 🙂
replied 10 years, 5 months ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
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3 Replies
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Depending on the projects but almost always is 30+hours. I estimate the time a motion graphic will take after I make a detailed script, a storyboard and sometimes a rough guideline on a piece of paper with a couple of notes. One of the most important things for me is spending a couple of hours organising all the assets in folders and subfolders because that saves a ton of time later on.
One thing that I am doing now is creating After Effects and Premiere project templates to use in the future. That way I can easily modify them to new needs and save a lot of time.
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The meaning of a movie are the characters, the life of the movie is the music, but the magic is in the editing. – @lomaymi
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Without having seen your work, I’d say that 40 hours is a totally reasonable amount of time to spend on a several-minute mograph piece. You are not the slowest guy on the earth. That said, sometimes the deadline is more important than any incremental improvement you may make by spending more time on a project.
You’ve probably heard of the iron triangle good. Good, fast, cheap: pick two. I prefer this alternate formulation.
Calendar, budget, reality: pick two.
If calendar is the most important, your client may have to adjust their expectations on budget or reality.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Boy that answer is a “just depends”, I’m working on one today that will be about 6 minutes long, but it’s just a product video with the same repeated formula over and over—probably take 8 hours. Worked on an animation last month that took over 80 hours for 1.5 minutes.
Without seeing the video, it’s impossible to tell, but if you only been doing this for 4 months, your speed will undoubtedly improve as you learn the program, familiarize your self with shortcuts(invaluable)…and just as importantly learning what not to do.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.
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