Looking for an Animation Studio in South Africa
As a foreign company, you might find yourself looking for new potential suppliers in a different country. With the adoption of a remote-work culture on a global level, the opportunities to take advantage of foreign suppliers is optimal. Especially countries that have favourable exchange rates and limited language barriers. This is why South Africa is such a hotbed for content production. We have incredibly favourable exchange rates, allowing companies to push their marketing budgets. We also have strong infrastructure and English is our predominant business language. Of course, taking advantage of the potential labour of a foreign country, requires finding the right supplier. In this article we will be breaking down tips for looking for an animation studio in South Africa, beginning with where to start your search:
Finding an Animation Studio in South Africa
South Africa is a goldmine for content production provided you know where to look. The country is broken up into nine provinces, however two of them house the most competitive markets. Namely the Gauteng Province and the Western Cape, or more specifically: Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town. These cities are home to the country’s most competitive markets, an as such will have the most experienced animation studios. This experience applies across every element of animation production, right down to meeting your deadlines and bespoke offerings to simplify the production process.
Qualifying Portfolios of Work
Once you have refined your list of locations, it is time to peruse the potential suppliers and create a short list to peruse. Now when it comes to qualifying a potential supplier’s portfolio, we have a couple of suggestions:
- Is there portfolio diverse? Animation comes in multiple styles and deliveries, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. You might have an idea in mind for your animation production, but there maybe a better style suited to the messages you are trying to convey. Make sure their portfolio is diverse to ensure you have options on the most optimal way to be communicating your video goals.
- Do they handle traditional video? Despite looking for animation production, an experienced animation studio understands the importance of traditional video and how it can complement animation.
- Is their service bespoke? A strong animation studio will be able to provide a bespoke service from start to finish, which is essential considering you will be working remotely. Every additional potential supplier involved in your project, the higher your capacity for error, so keep your circle small to maintain a clear project plan.
Animation for eLearning
If you are looking to enhance your eLearning using animation, there are a couple of vital considerations to look for in each potential supplier’s portfolio. They are the following:
The correct formats – eLearning has very specialised formats depending on the type of LMS and the platform from which the learning will be accessed. An animation studio in South Africa that understands eLearning, will be able to provide examples in various eLearning formats, including SCORM. The formats also apply to the assets being created, often with eLearning production there is a great deal of collaboration. So make sure you create all your shared assets in formats that ‘play nicely’ with the rest of your team and their corresponding tools.
File Sizes – Keep in mind that all eLearning is typically accessed through an online portal which hosts various courses, that are streamed from the server. This means you need to very aware of your animation file sizes to ensure that your courses stream flawlessly regardless of how many users are accessing the system. This technicality goes further than just file sizes though. There are a variety of industry specific eLearning tools which help optimise your elearning content file sizes, quality and accessibility. Keep in mind that compressing files can go very badly if not done properly, especially when you consider the efforts put into the production of the animation.
Live Demos – If your potential animation studio is experienced integrating animation into eLearning, then they should have many live examples to show you. It’s one thing to produce an animation, but a whole other ‘ball game’ when it comes to producing animation for eLearning. When perusing their training material we recommend keeping an eye out for how they use animation to complement the lesson. If the animation is being used to mirror the rest of the training module, that is a clear sign there is a lack of nuance.
Elearning and animation production each have their own set of intricacies and nuance that take time and resources to develop. You want to make sure you find an animation studio that has put in ‘the time’ in both, to ensure your animation is being used optimally in your eLearning.
Looking for an Animation Studio in South Africa with over three decades of experience? Get in touch with us today!
We are a full-service Web development and Content Production Agency in Gauteng specialising in Video Production, Animation, eLearning Content Development, Learning Management Systems, Content Production. Contact us for a quote. | Info@soundidea.co.za | www.soundidea.co.za | +27 82 491 5824 |