How Much Does Animation Cost Per Minute? (2024 Update)
This article breaks down different tiers of animation from amateur and free tools through high-end broadcast quality prices. This shows more of what you get at each tier of pricing. It will be interesting to see how AI tools affect these prices moving forward, although I think most of the AI video tools aren't quite there for production yet.
Animated Video Price: How To Calculate The Price For Your Animated Video
Pricing for animated videos based on length, animation style, and other variable. It's helpful to have some benchmarks to compare pricing to, even though this is more focused on custom animation rather than tools like Vyond.
AnimateAI
Create animated videos with AI. Start by generating characters, which the site says will be consistent throughout your story. You can turn scripts into storyboards and customize them. Then, create videos in 30-second clips. The voice syncing doesn't look great in their demo videos, but this still might be worth experimenting with. The free plan should be enough to test it out.
ViddyScribe
AI-generated audio descriptions for videos. This is a way to improve accessibility and make videos more available to blind and low-vision users. Audio descriptions are time-consuming to create manually, which means most orgs skip them. This could potentially be a way to improve accessibility quickly and cheaply.
DeepBrain AI
Generate avatar videos from text. This tool lets you adjust the gestures for the presentation, as well as generating scripts from links or PowerPoint presentations. These videos definitely hit the uncanny valley and are clearly AI. Plus, how useful are talking head videos even when it's a real person, let alone an AI talking head? However, the free test might be worthwhile if you're interested in experimenting with these sorts of AI video avatars.
(PDF) Storifying Instructional Videos on Online Credibility Evaluation: Examining Engagement and Learning
This study researched whether adding story elements to an instructional video affects motivation, emotional engagement, and learning. In the research, they explain that they did not find any difference between a well-produced instructional video and a storified instructional video.
However, the storified video feels very artificial to me. This isn't a story about a relevant character the learners can identify with who uses the concepts in realistic situations (or even slightly exaggerated ones). This is about a fake detective agency. I'd be cautious about assuming this research applies to realistic stories as well.
Hedra
Image to video creation tool. This might be interesting to experiment with for scenarios. It should be possible to create a character image in Midjourney, and then turn it into a video with this tool. This is probably going to work best with talking head videos, at least right now. h/t Josh Cavalier
Free Stock Video Footage HD 4K Download Royalty-Free Clips
Collection of stock videos, music, and sound effects. Some are available with a free CC-By or attribution required license; other premium assets are only available for purchase. This would be a good source to check for B-roll footage or free videos for portfolio samples.
Vidnoz AI Tools: Create FREE Engaging AI Videos 10X Faster
Vidnoz AI has several tools. Their AI video generator is similar to Synthesia, although the voices and avatars seem to be not quite as good. if you want to try out AI video generation, this looks like a great option for experimenting and exploring because you can generate 3 minutes of video for free. This site also has other tools, some with a freemium model, such as face swapping and background removal.
Visla: All-in-one Video Storytelling.
AI video tool for video editing and generation. Specifically, one of the features lets you edit videos by editing the transcript. This tool has a free plan with some limitations which look like plenty to at least test it out and potentially use if you need something quick.
Should Instructional Videos Include a Talking Head?
The research on the value of a talking head with instructional videos is mixed. It can improve the sense of teacher presence and learner satisfaction, but it may also increase cognitive load and interfere with remembering.
Results revealed detrimental effects of talking heads on the recall of factual knowledge covered in the videos. Interestingly, participants rated their perceived learning as being higher for videos with talking head. Furthermore, participants assigned higher satisfaction scores to videos with talking heads and selected them more frequently when choosing between different formats.
<span>Higher levels of teacher presence have been positively associated with student satisfaction and student </span><em>perceptions</em><span> of learning.</span>
Findings suggest that combining talking heads and annotations in asynchronous video lectures yielded the longest watch time, and highest satisfaction, engagement, and attitude scores.
HOME | Pika Labs
Text to video tool. This works like Midjourney where you add text prompts in a Discord channel on the Pika Labs server. You can use either a text prompt by itself or provide a starting image to animate. This still feels like a tool in beta to me, and the results often have noticeable AI weirdness in them. But, maybe you could use this for a snippet of B roll or to add slight animation to an existing image.
ChatGPT Prompts for Business Videos | ChatGPT Script Prompts
20 sample prompts for scripting animated videos. 5 of these are specifically in their L&D category; some of the HR and other prompts are also relevant to training. The most useful part of this article may be the Sample Script Makeover at the end though, showing the process of using ChatGPT for a first draft but also explaining how to revise and improve the script. That's how many of us will be using these tools: as a first draft that we need to revise.
Standard or Extended Audio Description: Which Do You Need?
Explanation of the difference between standard and extended audio description for making videos accessible. Extended audio descriptions pause the original content to allow more time for description, extending the overall time of the video.
Videos that lack natural pauses or contain a lot of important visual information can be tricky to describe without interrupting the original audio. In these cases, extended audio description is necessary.
VEED Online Video Editor
I haven't tried this tool, but it looks like a decent tool for creating or subtitling a quick video with a free tool. The free version has limits in video length and only exports to 780p, but that might be enough for a quick portfolio sample. As a paid tool, I think most elearning folks would probably be better off paying a little more to get Camtasia instead.
VEED
This browser-based video editing tool is aimed at marketers for creating quick social media videos. They have a free account level which includes a watermark. This might be helpful to students or others looking for a way to create a quick sample for their portfolio without spending money.