How I had a custom video made for under $300
I had a custom animated promotional video made for under $300 ($288.49, to be exact). This is how I did it.
This video project started when we added Voiceovers to Envato Studio. We were really excited about this new product and I wanted to see how I could use it to create something great, in a short deadline. With this in mind, I set out on creating a Halloween video that features a combination of Envato Market products and Envato Studio freelancers.
Step 1: The Brief
The brief was pretty basic — make a fun Halloween themed video featuring a video template from VideoHive, music from AudioJungle and voice over from Envato Studio. All of these elements would then be bought together and packaged by a freelancer on Envato Studio.
Step 2: The Stock Video Footage
First up was to find the video as this will help form the style of music and the language to be used in the voice over, so off to VideoHive it was.
A quick search for ‘Halloween’ returned a ton of results in all kinds of categories (literally, 1069+ different options). To narrow this down, I refined the results to only show After Affects Project Files, reducing my options to 247 items. Next, I sorted by ‘newest items’ as I personally love to check out the newest items on all of our sites. Plus, it means you tend to find some interesting files to check out.
Now at this stage you turn your sound up LOUD and start hovering over the thumbnails as the VideoHive team have this awesome feature that allows you to simply preview videos by hovering over them.
Through this process, I found the following video with only a single sale at the time and I thought it looked fun and perfect for our needs.
Next, I needed some spooky music to accompany our video. So, over to AudioJungle I went where I undertook a similar process as the video search. This time I searched for ‘scary’ and refining by ‘music’ and then sorting by ‘best match’. The very first result sounded great and sounded like it would go great against the animation style in the video.
Ok, so I have my video and my music and next I needed to organize a voice over but before I do, I needed to write a script.
Step 3: The Script
Below is the exact script I put together for this project. I tried to keep the sentences short so that they would suit the chosen video. Being I am not the greatest writer in the world, I did find this process a little daunting and perhaps for the next instalment I will employ someone from our Creative Writing category to assist me.
Scene 1
Music starts from the beginning along with the video. Background contains stars as per the demo on VideoHive. Witch flies across the screen to reveal the following text. Music continues till the end of the video.
Main Text — FROM THE DARKEST DEPTHS OF
Sub Text — MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Voice Over to read exact text.Scene 2
Zombie flies across the screen to reveal the following text.
Main Text — THE GOULISHLY SCARETACKULAR TEAM FROM
Sub Text — ENVATOOooooo SPOOKIOOOooo
Voice Over to read exact text.Scene 3
Pumpkin flies across the screen to reveal the following text.
Main Text — WOULD LIKE TO WISH YOU ALL A
Sub Text — FRIGHTFULLY FUN HALLOWEEN
Voice Over to read exact text.Scene 4
Ghost flies across the screen to reveal the following text.
Main Text — MAY IT BE FREE OF PESTS, PARASITES
Sub Text — AND POLTERGEISTS!
Voice Over to read exact text.Scene 5
Fade out to Envato Spookio logo and Envato Spookio URL.
Music fades out to close scene.
Step 4: The Voice
Given Halloween was fast approaching I decided that the video would simply be wishing everyone a happy Halloween. Short and sweet, nothing too fancy, but overall, fun. Now, with a video template the elements you see in the preview on VideoHive are usually quite customizable and can be used in any number of ways. But, for quickness sake and to ensure a quick turnaround, I stuck with very minimal changes from the demo.
Now it was time to source a suitably spooky voice over talent from Envato Studio. After a quick search through the Voice Over category listening to demos from a number of providers, I found the listing of PeterBakerVoiceover and was instantly impressed with his voice. Very deep and raspy, which is perfect for a Halloween video!
I contacted PeterBakerVoiceover and told him what I needed. I showed him the video on VideoHive to give him an understanding of what his voice would be used for. He replied to very quickly and even sent me a GREAT example of him doing a similar voice in a previous job. That was all I needed and I purchased his service and sent him the script.
I wanted to ensure we were both on the same page with regards to the style of voice, but also how certain words are pronounced. As such, I sent the following when ordering this service.
Style: spooky/halloween
Pace: Medium. This is just going to be a short little video to wish people a happy halloween!
Accent: As per your exampleEnvato is pronounced — En-Var-Toe
Spookio is made up, so pronounce as you would the word, spooky.
Melbourne is pronounced — Mel-Bourne
Australia is pronounced — Oz-Tray-Leear
One day later I had a number of voiceovers to consider and needless to say, PeterBakerVoiceover nailed them all. I requested one minor change and had what would become the voice over used within a further 24 hours, and it was awesome! PeterBakerVoiceover really came through with a fantastic voice over (not to mention a super creepy cackle), so thanks Peter!
Step 5: The Video
So, by this stage I had the video template, music and voice over so all I needed was someone to put them all together. This meant taking a look through the awesome services in our Video category.
Given the time constraints for this project, I sent a number of providers enquiries explaining the concept and my required turnaround time. After hearing back from a couple indicating they could make the deadline, I went with Doru and his After Effects Customization and Rendered to Optimized Video service. I sent Doru the script, video, music, voice over and my own butchered version of the Envato Studio logo to start work.
A little over 24 hours later, I had the following video and was blown away. Check it out and a big thanks to Doru for turning this around so quickly!
Step 6: The Domain
So because I’m a complete nerd (and the fact I thought Envato Spookio is a great play on our name) I purchased the domain name www.envatospookio.com and featured it at the end of the video. I then setup a simple 301 redirect to http://studio.envato.com via my registrars DNS and BAM we have a ‘working’ domain.
(note: domain has since been removed)
The Cost Breakdown
Video = $17
Music = $15
Voice Over = $75
Video Customization = $170
Domain Name = $11.49
TOTAL COST = USD$288.49
(Note: Prices correct as at October, 2015)
The Thanks
A big thanks to both BlueBeardStudio and _Blacksmith_ for their fantastic items. And a huge shoutout to PeterBakerVoiceover for giving us a great voice over (and for improvising the great cackle at the end) and also to Doru for quickly turning around this project and even including an on style Envato leaf logo at the very end.
This article was originally published on the Envato Studio blog.
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