Certainly, a whiteboard animation comes in handy when you want to explain something to someone that you cannot illustrate using words. It can be a concept or idea, which might be hard to transfer by mere words. A whiteboard animation is an excellent tool of sharing knowledge and thoughts. It allows you to tell a story.
However, for this animation presentation to be effective, you must learn how to do a whiteboard animation. The first thing you need to do is learn how to make a professional animation. The key to such an animation is proper lighting.
Setting up the light
Lighting setup is the very first step of making an animation video. In this stage, you need to get the lamps in place. If your lamps are setup correctly, it will be easier to set up the camera and perform the post-processing. In general, you need to pay attention to several things when setting up the whole thing.
You must have a whiteboard that is illuminated evenly, adequate light on your talent, whiteboard that has no glare and an animation that has no shadows, which are distracting while drawing. Here are five steps to help you setup the lighting:
1. Blind the room – The first thing you should do is cutoff all sources of light from the room. You can achieve this by shutting the doors, blinding the windows and covering any parts that let in light. Ensure the room is completely dark.
2. Switch on your overhead lighting – Your next step is to turn on your overhead lighting in the room. This kind of light illuminates your talent perfectly, eliminates rough shadows and gives your whiteboard an even fill. Hence, they should not miss.
3. Illuminate your whiteboard – This is where things start to get complicated. Start by building two diffusers for the construction lamps then hang them cleverly from the ceiling to put them into position. You may need professional help for this step but if you are up to it, you can find detailed instructions on the web on how to perform it.
4. Illuminate your talent – The third step ensures that your whiteboard has sufficient lighting. Nevertheless, you want your talent to look good as well. You can achieve this by illuminating it with a more powerful construction lamp and two softboxes.
5. Fine-tuning – The final step is to fine-tune your lighting setup. Once you have all the lamps in place, examine the overall lighting of the whiteboard and the talent. Make a few adjustments if necessary.
