STEP 01 pre-production PLANNING

Pre-production planning for creating vector videos is more than a time-saver: It's essential. Several pre-production tips come into play:

• Storyboarding helps you stick to the message and reduces the amount of work at each phase of creation.

• Location scouting and/or set design help to make the background as neutral as possible. For the FeedRoom spot, much of the action was shot against plain white backgrounds or outside on a gray sidewalk under bright sunny skies.

• Costuming is used to distinguish the actors from the setting with solid colors that contrast sharply with the background. Actors in the FeedRoom ad were dressed in black, which further served to reduce the number of post-production steps.

• Lighting is key for cleanly delineating foreground from background and, just as importantly, eliminating or minimizing shadows.

The goal is to capture moving shapes , not images. To reduce your workload, keep that goal in mind every step of the way.