The folks at MyPromoVideos.com love WorkFlowy, so they reached out to us and offered to create a video for us. We were touched by the offer and accepted. The result is a cute, funny cartoon introducing WorkFlowy that you can watch above.
Below is an interview with Gopal, one of the guys behind mypromovideos.com. It’s about how they use WorkFlowy and how they make these animated videos. They’re a bootstrapped startup out of India, and I think it’s pretty interesting.
What inspired you to do this video for Workflowy?
One of my friends was using WorkFlowy to manage his projects and spoke highly about its virtues. He suggested that I try it out too. At first, I was sceptical but I thought I would give it a try anyway. Soon WorkFlowy became a part of my life and it became indispensable. It doubled my productivity! In fact it became my home page and I introduced it to all my team members.
This video was made by a true fan in our own MyPromoVideos way.
How do you use WorkFlowy internally?
Every member of our team uses WorkFlowy to manage daily tasks. We initially started using WorkFlowy to share ideas. Then we started collaborating on our daily updates. Now we use it for brainstorming the plots and characters of our screenplay, to get ideas from the team, to plan our actions, to record our weekly meetings and to give feedback. We use it to coordinate between various department in our team- like production, screenplay writing, marketing and management. We use it in a number of ways and we are discovering new ways of using WorkFlowy everyday!
How did MyPromoVideos get started? Who started it, where did the idea come from, and how did you find your first customers?
MyPromoVideos was started by 4 movie buffs who just had a passion for videos and animation. We were discussing a problem a common friend of ours had. He was promoting an online library for kids bed-time stories and had a website in place. It used a lot of text to explain things and our friend was not getting as many conversions as he would have wanted. The concept of online library was itself spectacular so he wondered what could be wrong
We thought that maybe people were not understanding what was being said, or maybe they didn’t have the patience to read through all the text in the website. Suddenly we had a spark- what if the site used a short demo video to explain the features and the schemes? It would be simpler and definitely more interesting. We spoke with our friend who decided to give it a try.
Within a few days we had a video ready and running on his website. He really saw a substantial increase in conversion rates!
Now an idea began to take shape- if a video could help one person, surely it could help others too? Well, thankfully for us, others too started seeing the potential- because we started getting offers through word-of-mouth publicity. Soon we were freelancing. And before we knew it, we had quit our day jobs to develop our own animation studio.
From a high level, how does the demo video creation process work? Who does what, in what order?
A demo video should be approached like making a mini-movie. It should be moving and at the same time logical. The video creation process looks something like below
Plot -> Screenplay -> Storyboard -> Illustrations -> Animations —> Sound Design
The most important part is the Plot and the screenplay.
At MyPromoVideos, the plot is usually the result of a group-brainstorming. The plot is then logically developed into a screenplay by the screenplay writer. You can download the screenplay we did for Workflowy, to see what one looks like.
Based on the screenplay, our designers create a storyboard and illustrations. This then gets animated by animators and sounds are added to it. Now the final mini-movie is ready.
What pieces of software do you use to do your videos?
We use Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects.
How many people work for you guys?
We currently have 7 Animators and 1 Screenplay Writer. We also have 3 Voice-over artists who work for us from remote locations.
If someone wanted to get started making their own animated videos, how should they start?
Theoretically, anyone with a good story-telling ability and an understanding of animation software can make an animated video.
You have to have a good grounding in softwares like After Effects, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop etc. If you are not familiar with these, making an animated video could be tougher. But even then, you could search online for tutorials of the required software. But you have to understand that learning the nitty-gritty could be a time-taking business.
If you intend to have a voice-over for the video, the cheapest method would be to do it for yourself. You can also outsource a voice-over artists using websites like Voice.com or other freelancing sites.
But the most important part of the video is the point I mentioned right at the beginning- it is the story-telling ability. You need to understand your product and you should have the ability to weave the various features into a captivating story. So a good script is of essence. If you are confident that you have a good creative vision, then making an animated video should be snap for you.
How can others contact you about having a demo video created?
You can contact me at gopalg@mypromovideos.com to discuss your video requirements.
[…] a free explainer video for them. In exchange, Workflowy agreed to promote Mypromovideos in their blog. It worked! With a client like Workflowy and tons of newly found confidence in the kitty, our […]
Holy cow! This is the worst promo video I have ever seen. it is like an anti-promo video. Amazing!