How to Tug at the Viewer's Heartstrings with Your Animations

Whether they call themselves filmmakers, painters or writers, great artists know how to make fiction come alive in front of the audiences’ eyes. “Show, don’t tell” has long been the imperative of those who create new worlds for the pleasure of others, and is one of the rules that successful content marketing strategies follow as well.

Online videos might not be as easy to make, but effective social media campaigns rely on them to engage those audiences that have no time, will or patience to read 2000 word long articles. Being just as informative and attention-grabbing or even more so, online videos will continue to pamper those who prefer to scroll faster and interact exclusively with moving pictures.

Marketing aside, engaging videos will always be among most consumed types of online content, which makes them quite suitable for effective storytelling. Regardless of purpose, you’ll need to make yours creative and innovative in order to stand out from the crowd.

If looking for something different, however, a factor that will inform, delight or do both at the same time, animations are your go-to solution. Here’s how to master them.
 
Shorter is Sweeter

Being an artist in the digital era is not the easiest thing in the world, let alone the most profitable. We’re constantly reminded of how indecisive and impatient our audiences have become, but still compelled to create under the pressure of the notoriously shrunken attention span. The last time anyone bothered to measure, it was 8 seconds long.

Consequently, that’s exactly how much time you have to catch somebody’s attention before it eventually bounces away. However brilliant, your animated video story depends on how you introduce it, which is why you’ll need every trick in the book to make the very beginning as exciting and engaging as possible.

Sad Stories & Happy Ends

By definition, attention “implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others”; this means your video will have to deliver something powerful enough to silence all other thoughts and overshadow all other sources of distraction. And, what can be more powerful than emotion?

Psychologically speaking, four basic emotions that your story can and should trigger are happiness, sorrow, fear and anger. Each of them is quite potent for grabbing and retaining attention, while subtle combinations provide a truly emotionally intense ride. Though effective video editing services by video caddy can do wonders for the emotional impact of the overall story, most video-makers still choose a less risky alternative.

 
Awaken the Inner Child 

Ever wondered why children smile more often than adults? Wonderfully curious about the world that surrounds them, kids remain completely open toward all influences. Simply because they keep their inhibitory neurons off, catching their attention is so much easier than engaging adults.

Being initially created for children’s delight, animations return adults to less complicated phases of cognitive function. There’s something about animated characters that’s utterly lovely, infinitely interesting and, most importantly, harmless. By reintroducing adults with all these goofy cartoon companions, animated videos allow them to get in touch with their inner child, thus tapping straight into their long-hidden emotions.

Seeing, Hearing, Feeling

Still, emotional video stories need to affect different senses, while animations only trigger visual sensors. The choice of colors as well as the psychology behind them, allow masters of animation to suggest an endless number of messages, thus stimulating emotions on a deeper level. Apart from experiencing fictional worlds with their eyes, people often feel something only by listening.

Animated videos are quite suitable for emotional musical scores and sound effects as well. Though we are grow up now, most of us still remember – “A Whole New World” by heart and raise our cats in the air in celebration of the opening theme from Lion King. These Disney classics only prove what artist knew all along – appeal to a kid behind a man, and the man will crack open.


So, whether you’re trying to reach your bosses with a slideshow presentation or delight your social media neighborhood with another Totoro, keep in mind these simple motion design rules: squash and stretch to give your characters lifelike weight, delay action to keep them on the edge of their seats, communicate attitudes, moods and ideas through effective staging, time your action well and whatever you do, always exaggerate those big, lovely eyes.