Creating an Animated Educational Video

Typically, I work with small businesses and brands to create marketing and event content for their websites and social media. I’ve even worked with However, when Kidney Donor Conversations reached out about creating some videos to help share on their social media and in presentations we decided that an animated video would be our best option.

I’ve worked with non-profit organizations in the past, but this video was different. The goal wasn’t just to make a quick promo video about the organization or to try to increase donations, the goal of KDC’s videos was to be used in place of slide show presentations that are given to educate people on the process of live kidney donation. We had to take a lengthy presentation with complex concepts and create something that was easy to understand and engaging. That is why we settled on animation, to be able to explain some of these more complicated medical procedures and language in a way that was fun to watch and easy to understand.

Here is the original presentation this project was based around. KDC wanted to take this content and update it to be a more interesting and engaging presentation.

Here is the final video we created using animation and motion graphics to update the video to the left and make it easier to understand and fun to watch.

The Process

So let’s dive in to the process of how we took the presentation above on the left and created the final video on the right. Since we already had a presentation we were basing this on, we had most of the ‘script’ already in place. Glenna Frey at KDC updated and re-wrote the presentation so that it read more as a script for a voiceover. I then met with KDC to review the script and discuss different options for the visuals we would be basing our style of animation on. They have a super cute logo of two cartoon kidneys talking to each other, and really wanted that to be incorporated, so it became the cornerstone of how all the animated elements of the video were created.

Once we had our style of animation and an idea of what we wanted the visuals to look like, I broke the script up into a ‘two-column script’ which shows the written script on the left-hand side, and the corresponding visuals on the right-hand side. All of this is part of the pre-production process that starts every video project, animated or not. Below is an example of the two-column script for this project.

Once we had our style and script, it was time to get animating. Since we started with just two kidneys and two speech bubbles, I had a lot of additional elements that needed to be created to add to the animation. While I was creating additional animated elements, Amanda Frey at KDC started recording the voiceover. Once I had all the graphic elements together and the voiceover, it was time to start animating!

Once we had our animation going, it was time to think about audio. We had the voiceover from Amanda, but it still needed something else to stay interesting. The first thing to do was find various music tracks that match the tone of the video, upbeat and educational. Once a few music tracks were added in the background, I also added sound effects to certain moments to add even more life and interest into the video. The video below shows the same clip with just the voiceover, then added music, and finally the sound effects.

What’s Next?

This video was created with the intent of sharing during presentations, both online and in person. However, since it’s hosted online, it provided a great opportunity for us to make a shorter version of the video to share on social media to help drive people to the KDC website to watch the full video and learn more about living kidney donation. We selected a part of the video that we felt would be the most impactful and provided a brief intro to the longer video and created a social media clip that could be shared online.

Once this video was complete, KDC realized other areas that they could utilize video to help with their outreach and education. We created another video using many of the same elements and a few new ones to dive into one of the topics mentioned in the Understanding Living Kidney Donation video - voucher programs. We created an in-depth video about voucher programs, and a shorter version for sharing online. In my opinion, these two videos are event better than the original. There are a lot more animated elements and different kidney characters to follow, and dives deep into one subject.