Advice and Tips on Brainstorming for Motion Graphics Design and Animation

Things to consider, resources and techniques to employ to get the most from your brainstorming sessions

You’ve no doubt heard the word ‘Brainstorming’ many times, but it can be used for every type of business and concept across a whole range of industries. It certainly isn’t an exclusively secret technique for ‘creative arty types’ or those ‘designers’ which again, encompasses all kinds of people and professions, who come up with the concepts that change our lives in some way. This article is written with Motion Graphics Designers in mind and those wanting to develop visual effects shots, script ideas for tv, video and film, or graphic Channel branding, the list goes on. Of course all the techniques and tips here can be applied to anyone wanting to develop their ideas individually or with other people in any constructive way.

What you need

All you really need is a place to brainstorm, somewhere relaxed and quiet, Yourself, some friends or colleagues, maybe the client, and or others. Some paper and pens, Tea, Coffee and water rounds off the essentials, but there are all kinds of gadgets that can help inspire, speed up, record and document your brainstorming session. A laptop connected to the internet is obviously great for sourcing reference and examples raised during the meeting, but ensure you have a fast internet connection, there is nothing more likely to bog down your inspiration and flow of ideas than having to wait more than a few seconds to start smoothly streaming a vimeo clip. There may be a need for music reference, so ensure everyone can hear the music properly, ideally through decent speakers. You might also consider a camera or your phone camera, even a video camera to document the meeting and be able to refer back to later. Likewise an audio recorder could be used if visuals aren’t needed, a microphone is less intrusive than a camera and the important part of the brainstorm, voice, is captured clearly.

What you don’t need

You don’t need your mobile phone ringing – put phones in silent mode or turn them off, a call will always interrupt proceedings. Also any other phones ringing or disturbing noise should try and be avoided, headphones are a no no when people are trying to converse in a group, negativity should be left at the door, every idea that is voiced should be heard even if it is crap.

Superiority or hierarchy is best dropped for the meeting to ensure that no one feels self conscious to voice their thoughts. Food or cigarettes also don’t aid the process, focus and collective thought are the key to beginning the process of your finished masterpiece. The longer you can sustain the group focus, or your own concentration, the more developed your ideas will become.

Who to brainstorm with

Brainstorm with anyone who you feel can assist the process, anyone whose opinion you respect, or whoever you are thrust into working with. An initial brainstorm with your clients or work colleagues can go so far, but consider many more little brainstorm sessions with the target audiences and people with a different view of an idea, other designers, kids, your Mum, whoever. If the client is not attending the meeting it might be wise to select someone to think with the clients view in mind as regards branding, image and the like.

In a brainstorm session, encourage others to want to contribute to show their knowledge and understanding. Make others feel involved and get passionate. Don’t allow one person to dominate the meeting, and encourage everyone to have no fear of sounding stupid and let the ideas pour out.

Working On Your Own

When you are solo, try and create a good relaxed environment for yourself to look through books or magazines, surf the internet where you can concentrate on the task at hand and try not to get sidetracked by something else online. Often the best way to develop an initial idea if you are unable to bounce thoughts off of colleagues is to just start working, drawing, writing, shooting, photoshop, flash, or after effects, whatever you are using, as you create, your mind is continually concentrating on how to improve and develop the idea. You can always ask other people’s opinions online by posting your images in a secure place.

Keep the brief in Mind

Always ensure a copy of the brief is at hand, and use a list of key words highlighted from the brief to refer back to, so not to stray too far from what the client actually wants. Show your brainstorming colleagues any client references at the start of the session, look at the company brand, logo, colours and fonts. Keep your ideas within the boundaries of what is possible for the format and budget you are working to, determine whether the result is for tv, cinema or web as this will also shape your ideas to be better suited to the medium.

Tips & Sharing

Use a camera or camera phone to snap sketches or notes that others make during the brainstorming session and grab images or videos you find online and save on a memory stick. Use your camera wherever you go looking for inspiration. On your way home from the meeting you might see the side of a bus or a poster on the tube platform that grabs your eye or seems relevant in some way. Scour books and magazines new and old for inspiration, scan the images or snap them with your camera phone. Collect all your photos and scanned images and place them in a cloud storage folder using dropbox or other file sharing service, then invite all your collaborators and brainstorming colleagues to share the folder, so that they can all look and upload their own material. Create another folder with developing artwork, script drafts or whatever is relevant to you.

Sources of Inspiration

Everything around you is a source of inspiration for something, so let your mind wander when you are out and about. When focussing on sourcing material and looking for style references look at other designers and studios work,  check out classic posters, film title, animation, vintage imagery and film, check out sites such as Vimeo, Motionographer, and Stash. Keep your sketchbook and camera with you at all times and document anything you find interesting that you could use on your current or future projects.

Other techniques

Think in opposites or mirrors and see if other ideas materialise. Try thinking about an idea from the opinion of a different person, gender, race, animal or being, someone very big or very small, young or old. Always look for angles from your core idea but keep your central theme intact.

Summary

Key points to bear in mind before brainstorming a new brief:

Find a good quiet place to brainstorm

Have your pen, paper and devices to document

Use all the resources for inspiration available to you

Look at the client brief, product or company brand and any supplied reference material

Encourage all the participants to get involved and contribute ideas however dumb they may seem when they are said

Keep your mind open to new ideas even after the brainstorm session has finished and continue developing the strongest concepts while they are fresh in the mind

Collate all the material and share it online with others to continue development

This guide can be downloaded as a complete pdf file here.

See also the What You Need to Know to win a Pitch article when trying to win the work.

Follow the blog here , twitter here or facebook here, to keep up with all the free resources and information at DazPix.

For your downloading gratification another set of useful hi res PSD files for use in your projects. Ideal for quickly jazzing up your storyboard frames, adding to After Effects animations as foreground elements or creating a photoshop image for print. All the dingle images have been taken with a Nikon D40 at high resolution, then keyed, cleaned up and layered into psd files with transparent backgrounds and alpha channels for your convenience. You can quickly grab a pre cutout PSD, copy the layer and paste it into whatever project or document you are working on. They are completely royalty free for you to use as you will, full high resolution colour with cleaned alpha channels. Click on the image to download them, Enjoy.

Advice and Tips on writing a Motion Graphics Design Treatment

Give Yourself the best chance of winning the project

Title & Introduction

The first thing you will write on any treatment is the name of the project, so it is highly advisable to ensure you get this part correct. When taking a brief it is always a good idea to take as detailed notes as possible about all aspects of the project including the personnel involved, key words, references, technical requirements, audio preferences and working titles. These notes will help when putting the basics into a treatment, and showing your full understanding of the brief, like the correct title, or key words that the client was clear to describe the project with.

Once you have a clean leading page with the clients name, the name of the project, and any subtitle, you are ready to add the first and most important body of text, the introduction or approach.

The introduction, premise, outline or approach to a treatment is a vital and concise 2 or 3 line paragraph, plainly telling the reader what it is they are about to read, and the reason for the document they are reading. It will ideally ‘grab’ the reader immediately and arouse their interest, wanting to read the rest of the document

Writing Style

The use of descriptive language is a very important part of the art of all writing, no less with treatments, where you have (ideally) one or two sides of a4 paper to paint a clear picture in the readers mind of exactly what they can expect the final piece to look like.

When describing your brainchild, try and use flowing and elegant phrasing while being descriptive and to the point. A good use of language will keep the reader interested and their brain visualising the result using the imaginatively written definition of the concept.

For example, The brief is for a tv murder mystery drama title sequence, and the Director wants the style of the title sequence to reflect the period, atmosphere and subject matter of the script. The Director may use quite descriptive words in a brief like, dark or chilling, ensure to re-use these words in the treatment and add some of your own to further embellish the treatment. For example, dark foreboding blackness, or chilling, spine tingling crescendo.

Try not to repeat the same word too many times, and think of alternative ways to describe the same or similar part of the project. For example; when mentioning a transitional effect in the animation or film, try and find new ways to write that effect.

Branding

Ensure that your studio, company or organisation logo and branding is clearly marked on the front of the treatment, as well as the body of the treatment to ensure that all who read it will know where it is from. It will also help ensure your ideas stay as your ideas and are not snaffled by an eager to please other. Another consideration is to flatten your document to ensure that the logo and graphics are displayed properly and no one is able to edit your treatment or take paragraphs for re purposing into another document. Saving your MS Word or other word processor document as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file is an ideal way of achieving this.

Concept

This is the main body of text where you can flesh out the idea in more detail. It is important to ensure that this paragraph is easy to read and to the point. Use this part of the treatment as a way of quickly describing the rest of the information that you eloquently included in your Introduction. Try and keep the sentences short with enough space around them to be absorbed easily by the brain. Allow the sentences to flow together easily to ensure the reader does not get lost partway through, it is vital that your idea makes sense from start to finish giving your reader the chance of constructing the piece in their own minds eye.

Imagery

Consider including images to assist your concept.

You will probably be producing a storyboard separately to your treatment, but using additional reference images, character illustrations, environment simulations or mood board images in your treatment can really help the reader to grasp what you are saying. Positioning the images is also important, breaking up the paragraphs can lose the readers flow, so try adding an image or series of images under a paragraph. Using a large image under the Introduction can act as a real eye grabber.

Reference

Reference material is key to helping sell your idea, especially if you can reference your own previous work. It is another chance to showcase your work and give the client every confidence in your ability to deliver what you are writing about. References can be url links, embedded links, images, sounds, music tracks, illustration or video. If possible, try and collate it all into one place, an ftp location, your website, a file share location or as zipped attachments to make it easy for the client to explore your references and not have to go all over the internet to many different sites. Again, keeping the treatment easy to read, follow and absorb is paramount.

Technical Breakdown

The technical section of a treatment should be very factual, very brief and very clear. The clarity will, once again, illustrate to the reader that you have carefully thought the process through and understand exactly what it will take to achieve the finished result. You will always be able to change your thinking with kit later, but at least at this early stage you have approached the idea with a way of technically creating your masterpiece. This paragraph will also illustrate your ability to handle both aspects of any motion graphics project, creativity and technical knowhow, the core components to any motion graphics designer.

Think about outlining what and how many workstations you will need, how much storage space and backup will be required, which software packages will you be using and are there any specific plug-ins or presets that are relevant. Also take into account the amount of rendering time and hardware that will be needed, archiving considerations, and final delivery formats and other aspects.

Audio

As we all know, music and sound effects can really bring animation and video to life and is a major part of any visual experience. Touch on ideas you have for the music and sound effects approach, include references to other similarly styled pieces and describe the tone and atmosphere that the music will evoke with your visuals.

Budget & Costs

Costs and quotes are also a huge factor in whether you will succeed in getting the project you desire, but refrain from including any mention of money in the treatment. Instead provide a separate quotation document including any elements technically and creatively referred to in the treatment.

Conclusion / Summary

The final part of your treatment should act in a similar way to the introduction.

It is a short paragraph that allows you to quickly remind the reader of the key points you discussed in the rest of the document. It is also a chance to use good language to leave the reader wanting to see what you have described, wanting to explore further, wanting to make it come to life.

List of Components

INTRODUCTION – short and sweet

CONCEPT – main descriptive body of text

IMAGES – reference material

TECHNICAL – geeky but essential breakdown

AUDIO – style and reference guide

SUMMARY – the final roundup

This guide can be downloaded as a complete pdf file here.

See also the What You Need to Know to win a Pitch article when trying to win the work.

There will be separate and more detailed articles about Interpreting a Brief, Brainstorming techniques, and Storyboarding coming soon, follow the blog here to keep up with all the free resources and information downloadable for free on the DazPix site.

After having a bit of fun in Photoshop, here are 3 different widescreen desktop wallpaper designs for you to use freely. There are 2 size options for you to choose from depending on the size of your screen either 1920×1200 or 1280×800.

Please leave a comment if you like them.

Download your choice below using ‘right-click save as’ ……..

DazPix Wallpaper 01 – 1920×1200

DazPix Wallpaper 01 – 1280×800

DazPix Wallpaper 02 – 1920×1200

DazPix Wallpaper 02 – 1280×800

DazPix Wallpaper 03 – 1920×1200

DazPix Wallpaper 03 – 1280×800

What you need to know when considering going Freelance and

Setting Up on your own in Motion Graphics

This guide can be downloaded as a complete pdf file here.

THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE QUITTING THE JOB AND TAKING THE PLUNGE

Starting a freelance Motion Graphics or Design business can be a daunting, scary, fun, exciting, anxiety filled, but very rewarding step in your career. You’ll need to be able to cope with everything yourself, there will be no backup or other staff members, and you will need to find the right balance between the administrative side and the creative side. You may well find that your emotions see-saw from the pleasure of working from home, to the nightmare that your client won’t leave you alone for a minute, or your computer breaks down.

However, there are a few more important things you should think about before starting your freelance business and this is what we will briefly look at here.

Startup Finances

Many people think that they need to borrow a large sum of money to start-up their business, but this is wrong. Any good business should start with as little debt as possible and grow when the time is right. Don’t go out and buy everything you think you need immediately, buy kit, software and office supplies as you need them, and budget for them in a job to make the costs easier to swallow. Start with the basics, a computer, a good screen, a decent desk and chair, and the software you need to create your work. You probably already have these if you are considering going freelance, so maybe just get a couple of essentials like a decent photo printer/scanner and perhaps a DSLR camera. Consider starting a new business or current account at your bank to keep your business finances separate, and to make the paperwork easier when it comes to vat and income tax.

Getting your freelance business set up can be a quick and painless process if you know what you’re doing – so read on and see what else you should consider.

If you don’t have a huge Portfolio, don’t worry, keep it lean and mean

Starting your freelance business doesn’t mean you need a huge array of client projects on your reel immediately. Edit together your best pieces of work and keep it short, no longer than 1 minute 30 seconds is a good guide. See what is missing, what isn’t strong enough and what you have too much of in your showreel and be brutal with it, chop it out. Consider spending a couple of weeks working on unpaid self commissioned projects to fill the gaps and give yourself the best chances of winning work by showing the full array of skills you can offer your potential clients. Get your showreel online, then scour the job boards, various sites and newsletters out there with job news that you can contact potential clients through once you get your showreel where you are happy and proud to show it off. Confidence in your abilities and passion breeds work.

Ensure your Value relates to your Quality

A common mistake that Freelancers make, happens at the very beginning when they start out, or when cash is in short supply. Reducing your rates is the worst thing you can do, as well as allowing yourself to be talked down from your original quote – although there must be some small level of flexibility in this. Know our value and stick with it, the moment you drop your rates you are undervaluing yourself and your work and it will be difficult to raise your rates back to where they were. Clients you’ll want to avoid at all costs are those ‘looking for something for nothing’ and will almost never be of any good use to your business future. Some have been known to get freelancers to work for nothing speculatively, to win a project, and then as soon as the budget materialises, they are somewhere else with your ideas.

Also remember that your rates will dictate what type of clients you attract. if your rates are too low, then you’ll be attracting bottom end clients. Likewise if your rates are too high, you will miss out on a lot of middle budget work. Look at what you produce and charge the rates accordingly. If you aren’t sure what to charge, talk to other Freelancers, look at small studio ratecards and see what you offer that is similar. Most Motion Graphics artists in the UK charge somewhere between £150-£400 ($225-$600) per day, but this is a loose guide and is dependent upon the experience, skill, client and project criteria.

Too Much Work or Too Little

As we are all painfully aware, the economy can fluctuate greatly, budgets can rise and fall and work can materialise and disappear as fast as you can say Freelance Motion Graphics Designer. Planning properly for the times when you will suddenly be short of work will help keep your business and your sanity afloat during those difficult times. But, by understanding that this will happen, you’re able to plan better and keep better control of your money and spending.

Force yourself to keep some money by for the leaner weeks, don’t buy kit until you need it, and remember you have bills to pay. If you are currently employed and thinking of going Freelance, consider saving all the money you would spend as an employee ie. travel costs, lunches out etc. and squirrel that money away every week or month as a little reserve.

The Dreaded Paperwork – Invoicing and Accounts

These two essential requirements were always the aspects that scared most creatives wanting to go Freelance, after all it goes against the grain to enjoy using spreadsheets, we would much rather use After Effects. Today, there are a vast array of invoicing and accounting applications and websites out there that will help take the pain out of keeping track of the books. It is actually quite simple if you stay on top of it and do a little bit of organised number recording as you go along. Once things are going well in the business, consider getting an accountant to handle your tax return and (if necessary) vat accounts, it is most likely they will actually save you money as well as time even after their fees.

Clients by nature, Never pay on time – be warned

Like any business, cash flow is an important part of keeping afloat. Just because you have lots of money owed to you, doesn’t mean you have done well until it arrives in your bank account. Clients will delay paying as long as possible, especially if they are a large organisation with their own accounts department. After all, their accountants are paid to save them money and would never be applauded for quick payment. Most Freelancers specify 30 days from date of invoice as a payment request or requirement. If you get paid in this period count yourself very fortunate. Most of the time you will need to gently remind them to pay, be courteous and ensure you resend the information such as the amount owing, invoice number etc. to make their job as easy as possible. If you make it difficult for them to pay you then they may just delay further and put your invoice to the bottom of the pile.

The most important thing to remember is to make sure you write and send your invoice the moment you complete the job – no one will pay until they’ve got that!

What You’ll miss about being employed

There are certain drawbacks with Freelancing like anything in this world, but they are outweighed by the positives in setting up on your own. Consider what will change from the office or studio environment. There won’t be others around to bounce ideas off and have a laugh with, you might feel a little isolated. There won’t be any backup in terms of somebody to help you with a piece of software or technical issue. There won’t be other equipment to use if you have a problem. You won’t have access to vtr’s, huge storage systems, or superfast networks. It’s also worth remembering what you will lose out on financially by quitting your job. There won’t be any paid holiday, no life insurance, pension contributions or healthcare. You will of course earn for what you do instead of lining your bosses pocket, and you won’t be bogged down in endless meetings.

Just because you have a Computer and a copy of….

The hard truth is that Freelancing isn’t right for everyone. Just because you have a computer, some software, read all the freelancing advice, doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to cut it. Spending 4 hours a day working and 6 hours surfing or playing games isn’t going to get you anywhere. Downloading all the best plugins isn’t going to make you the best designer, and watching the best creative videos on vimeo isn’t necessarily going to give you the creative ideas you need to be one of the best in your field and make a good living.

Some people have it and some people don’t. It takes discipline and dedication to build a freelance business, especially if you are working from home, surrounded by your comforts and distractions. Keeping track of clients, payments, open jobs and potential leads can be a daunting but necessary task. Bear in mind the countless emails you’ll receive the social networking, the constant phone calls direct to your mobile (no reception to take them). Think about these aspects before taking the plunge.

If you want to go Freelance…GO FOR IT!

Your freelance business will be incredibly rewarding, different every day, hard work and fun. Working from home (or your own office) can be really excellent if you are dedicated and disciplined enough to make the best use of your time. The freedom that comes with freelancing is amazing and something you will not want to give up. If you make a success of it, you are going to wish you had done this earlier, it really is a wonderful way of working. The hours are your own to choose, you can take certain projects or leave them, as you wish, you can take a holiday when you want (unfortunately unpaid of course), and spend more time doing what you love and less time with office politics and travelling.

Remember the things above and keep a level head and you’ll be able to accomplish anything you set out to do, and do it on your own time. If you feel you want to go Freelance after all the considerations above – then make the most of it and you’ll never turn back.

This guide can be downloaded as a complete pdf file here.

See also the What You Need to Know to win a Pitch article when trying to win the work.

There will be separate and more detailed articles about Interpreting a Brief, Brainstorming techniques, Writing a Treatment and Storyboarding coming soon, follow the blog here to keep up with all the free resources and information downloadable for free on the DazPix site.

Here we are with another set of useful hi res PSD files for use in your projects. Ideal for quickly jazzing up your storyboard frames, adding to After Effects animations as foreground elements or creating a photoshop image for print. All the dingle images have been taken with a Nikon D40 at high resolution, then keyed, cleaned up and layered into psd files for your convenience. You can quickly grab a pre cutout PSD, copy the layer and paste it into whatever project or document you are working on. They are completely royalty free for you to use as you will, full colour with cleaned alpha channels. Make good use of them, and if there is anything you particularly want, make sure to leave a comment or contact via email at hello@dazpix.co.uk.

GET THE INFO YOU NEED TO WIN THE PITCH

We have all been in the frustrating position of spending days working tirelessly on a concept, writing a treatment, illustrating a storyboard, or all of these – for free, only to come away from the pitch meeting with nothing except that sinking feeling that your time and effort has been wasted. In fact, the idea of working speculatively, or pitching without charging, is not working for free – it’s actually working at a loss. You still have to keep yourself fed, pay your rent, bills and any other office costs while you were working on the pitch. What about all the materials you used?
Maybe it was only some board, glue and paper, but a printer isn’t cheap to run, cartridges, glossy paper, even scalpel blades and light bulbs, it all adds up.

This article is written to ensure you give yourself the best chance of winning the project you are pitching on, to keep the wastage of time and resources down to a minimum and to put yourselves in the best position for future work when it surfaces. Even if you aren’t successful on the pitch, this information should help you make the right impression, so that the client remembers you for next occasion.

Getting the initial Brief
The phone rings, or an email appears in your inbox with a vague description about a new series being commissioned, asking whether you would like to pitch for the titles and graphics for the show. There is no detailed information about budget, duration, schedule or what the production company wants. Sound familiar? It seems to be common practice that motion graphics and design studios often need to do the thinking for the client when it comes to a brief, and not just the creative aspects, when it comes to the opening title sequence – the first impression the TV programme, Broadcast documentary or corporate film wants to put across to the viewer. This can often be a blessing rather than a curse, as it allows you to be more creative and expansive in your thinking, but it is also sometimes the case when a client really does want something specific, it’s just that they haven’t told you what it is. The art is to extract this information from their skulls without them feeling interrogated. Often, it is helpful to suggest something else you have seen as a reference, or ask them to think of something they like, or something that has triggered their thought process to this point.

The first thing to do when receiving the opportunity to pitch is decide whether you really want to undertake the job. Assuming that you do, the next stage is to ask the essential questions that will help you understand what you are being requested to do, and how to get the most from the opportunity, with a mind to winning the pitch.
Read What You Need to Know from a Client for more helpful information.

Contact Names
The next vital thing to do right at the outset is get some names. Start with the person who contacted you and find out their position in the client hierarchy. Often, the person who called or emailed you won’t be involved in the pitch itself or the decision making process, they are most likely a Production Manager or Assistant who has been given the task of doing the contacting and handling the financial aspects of the production, and they rarely know much more about the graphics side of the project than they tell you at the outset. Find out who the Producer and Director is, who the decision maker is and even the commissioning editor and the channel or company they work for. You may be able to speak to the Director or Producer directly and get some extra clues or information about the project to help your brainstorming, you may also, with a little research, be able to get a good idea of what they have worked on in the past and see if there is a certain medium, style or format they appear to favour or shun. This is especially true when it comes to deciding on using animation techniques, particularly the more traditional styles.

Who Else is Pitching?
While you are asking all the key questions up front, it is always useful, intriguing, and enlightening, to find out who else is pitching for the same project. Sometimes the client will be illusive when it comes to stating names or numbers, but other times they are perfectly happy to share the list of other companies you are in competition with. This information is useful in various ways, firstly knowing how your chances stack up, who else is on their books, and the size of the studios involved. Sometimes the larger studios will only put their junior staff on the smaller budget projects, giving the smaller studios a better chance of success, if the effort is put in. Don’t give up just because one of the big hitters is involved, more likely than not they won’t put the same level of effort into their pitch. You may also have a contact working in a competitors studio, talking with them may allow you to avoid going for a similar concept and nullifying yourselves.

Brainstorming
When it comes to conceiving the actual idea that you are going to pitch there are no hard and fast rules. It’s a matter of whatever works best for you, but having a structured brainstorming session has a few plusses over a naturally developing concept. Firstly, it puts all the people involved in the project in the same space. Here you can see that you have the right team (or not) for the project and bounce your ideas around, or if working alone it gives you a period of time to allocate to a specific task. Sometimes, forcing ourselves to work within confines of time makes for a more productive result, how many times have you been playing around with a concept for so long that you hadn’t left enough time to put the storyboards together and ended up staying awake all night to get them finished and presented correctly. You manage it, but how much better would the pitch have been if you weren’t so tired, and you had structured your design and brainstorming time better?

The Storyboard
The storyboard is perhaps the most valuable and important tangible element of the pitch, and the single item that the client will want to keep and refer back to at a later date. With this in mind it needs to be concise and easy to follow, fit easily on one piece of A2 board (maximum size) and not look too busy and cramped. Layout and presentation is key, after all, you are a designer, so it is well worth making the storyboard a beautifully presented piece that your client will WANT to keep, and keep looking at.
It is always a good idea to put your studio or company branding somewhere on the board, usually the bottom right hand corner, and it may be worth considering placing your clients branding on there too, just to make them feel loved and to allow them to see how their logo sits with the programme or film they are making.

Animation Video Test or Reference Material
It may also be appropriate to provide a video file, either to show an animation test you have made to illustrate more precisely the idea or concept you are pitching, or a similar style you wish to emulate as a reference. Usually the pitching process will take place at the clients offices, therefore it is important to prepare as fully as possible and ensure that you have everything you need to make the presentation, including not relying on the client supplying a screen or projector. A laptop is the most common way to present video, perhaps connected to a larger screen or display in the room, but if you do use a laptop, ensure that it is booted and fully powered up, operational and ready to go before starting your pitch, and that the video files and media player are easy to access, allowing you to make a seamless transition from verbal presentation to video presentation without any of those ‘hang on the laptop has gone to sleep’ moments. One other thing to consider, it may be an idea to burn a batch of CD or DVD disks or similar data units, containing the video material as well as all the other assets – storyboard, treatment and technical breakdown, to give to your clients at the end of the pitch. The disks act as another branding opportunity for your studio, can include your showreel and any other material you want the client to see, to give you the best chances of success, and to plant you and your company firmly into their memory. Besides, having everything in one place, and making things easy for a client can only be a good thing, right?

The Treatment
Writing a treatment is a healthy and concise way of explaining your ideas, and often makes it easier to reiterate your idea vocally once you have taken the time to put it to paper first.
It also allows your audience to fully understand the images you are presenting on the storyboard. A treatment should contain every aspect of the design process, including style, pace and technique. It should also describe in detail how you aim to build the project with a full, but concise and easy to understand technical breakdown.
It is also advisable to include a section about music and audio sound design where it relates to your idea, atmosphere and style. Although you may print multiple copies of the treatment and hand them out at the start of the pitch, the likely hood is that they won’t be read immediately, it’s just good to have hard copies that they can refer to later that relates directly to what you were talking about in your pitch presentation. Again, it’s another branding opportunity sitting on their desk.

The Pitch Itself
Decide early on who will attend the pitch on your companies behalf. Are you going alone or are you taking another Designer and a Producer perhaps? Be careful not to go in too heavy handed, it is always advisable to have less people pitching than there are people being presented to. Clients don’t like to feel outnumbered or pressured in any way. Also, it is well worth a quick dry run in the coffee shop before hand, so everyone knows who is presenting what and when. You need to give an aura of relaxed professionalism where everyone is working as one, towards the same goal – which is of course, the very best job that the client can get for their money.
When it comes to explaining your ideas, and how you intend to create them, try and use language that the client will fully understand, after all they aren’t all used to the same jargon that creative’s use day to day. Be clear, informative and creative in your words, but make it simple to grasp. It’s blatantly obvious, but if the client doesn’t fully comprehend your idea, then you aren’t going to get the job. Be enthusiastic, knowledgeable and passionate, but controlled.
It may be mostly irrelevant and even offensive to suggest, but also consider the impression you are making as an individual by what you are wearing. Sometimes a certain type of client may be less impressed with you if you are very scruffy, it all depends what sacrifices you are prepared to make to ensure you win the project, sometimes washing your hair and having a shave can make the difference….! It should be all about the work, but it’s not always that simple and personalities are important, so try and get on with everyone you meet, have conviction in your views that relate to your ideas but flexible with other aspects of the project and the people involved. At the end of your pitch, try to answer as clearly as possible any questions that arise or are asked during your spiel. Be confident with your answers and don’t be pressured for more and more extras by the client. Being too much of a ‘yes’ man/woman may have just blown the budget before you start the job!

Schedule, Time allocation and Budgets
If you take a graphics or post Producer with you, or you are a Producer, it is most likely that you will be handling this aspect of the project and will want to talk briefly at the end of the creative presentation about time and money. Again, be flexible to a point here and ensure that you have enough time to create what you or your team are proposing within the clients brief, which may change as time progresses. Key approval points are always a good idea so everyone knows where they stand during production and ensure the goal posts don’t get moved too far at the end of the project. When it comes to budgets, your client may give you a ballpark figure to work to, if not you must try and be competitive. but not cheap. Very low costs give the impression of lesser quality work, and costs that are too high just scare clients away. A balanced and well broken down budget is an essential tool, and something that will be carefully scrutinised by the client Producer. It may also benefit you to make creative and technical suggestions as to how the client can stretch their budget further, either at the shoot or graphics stage. It would be a surprise to hear of a client who isn’t looking to save money, and they are sure to thank you if you suggest it in a professional, helpful and easy manner.

After the Pitch
Hopefully you will get a call or email soon after your pitch to congratulate you on winning the project and you can begin full production in earnest, but sometimes the confirmation can be delayed, reducing your production time and causing your carefully planned schedule to go out of the window before you have even started. Occasionally you may even be asked to re pitch your idea once the client has adjusted the brief, this can be frustrating but at least you know that you have made it to the next stage, usually with less competition, probably only one other company. You will then need to spend even more of your unpaid time, making a new or adjusted storyboard and treatment, as well as re-thinking the schedule and costs.

It is a good idea to follow up your pitch a day or two after your meeting to ask if a decision has been reached. Don’t harass the client, but a gentle nudge can work wonders, good communication is everything. Sometimes of course you can be strung along and then get told that the job went to a competitor, or worse still, you may never be told and find out in the trade magazine of all places! Whatever happens, try and treat each pitch as a learning curve to further master your skills in this vital area, and a way of building up your client network each and every time you make a good account of yourself or your company.
Next time the pitch may be against fewer competitors, or the client may come back directly to you.

This guide can be downloaded as a complete pdf file here.

See also the What You Need to Know from a Client article when taking on a new project.

There will be separate and more detailed articles about Interpreting a Brief, Brainstorming techniques, Writing a Treatment and Storyboarding coming soon, follow the blog here to keep up with all the free resources and information downloadable for free on the DazPix site.

Here are some more useful hi res PSD files for use in your projects. Ideal for quickly jazzing up your storyboard frames, adding to After Effects animations as foreground elements or creating a photoshop image for print. All the dingle images have been taken with a Nikon D40 at high resolution, then keyed, cleaned up and layered into psd files for your convenience. You can quickly grab a pre cutout PSD, copy the layer and paste it into whatever project or document you are working on. They are completely royalty free for you to use as you will, full colour with cleaned alpha channels. Hope these are useful, there will be more coming soon.

Here are some useful hi res PSD files for use in your projects. You may find them ideal for quickly jazzing up your storyboard frames, adding to After Effects animations as foreground elements or creating a photoshop image for print. All the dingle images have been taken with a Nikon D40 at high resolution, then keyed, cleaned up and layered into psd files for your convenience. You can quickly grab a pre cutout PSD, copy the layer and paste it into whatever project or document you are working on. They are completely royalty free for you to use as you will, full colour with cleaned alpha channels. Make good use of them, there will be more coming for you to download soon.

A small collection of free sand textures taken in the Arabian desert. These are high res jpeg files 4256×2848. Please use them however you like, more will be added to the resources page in due course, so sign up to the blog or follow us on twitter to make sure you get all the free stuff as it is posted.