The different Kinds
of Explainer Videos

Explainer videos is a general term that en-globe many different kinds, depending on the nature of the style, technology, drawing and animation, we can classify:

• Screencast video ($)

  Also known as a video screen capture, and it often contains audio narration. It is a essentially, the capture of a computer screen or a smartphone, to showcase how a product or service works. This type of explainer videos is an ideal low-budget solution.

• Whiteboard animation ($$)

  Also known as fast drawing videos or hand drawing videos, the technique use to rely on camera recording an artist while he/she draws the doodles on an actual whiteboard. Since then, these videos have evolved to become mostly digital, all while keeping the same original look and feel.
  These videos are very affordable, because the speeding up of the video would influence the quantity of content that is actually created, thus with lower budgets video is sped up less than with higher budget.
  an example of such videos can found below:

  
  

• Character animated video ($$$)

  Also known as cartoon explainer video or doodle video, it have became recently the most popular video explainer style. Like a cartoon video, storytelling is the essence of such videos, where usually the colorful animation, background music and sound effects catch viewers’ attention quickly. These videos are affordable and usually brands tend to have custom animated characters designed specially for their video, thus bringing emotion and personality to the brand.
  an example of such videos can found below:

• Motion graphics ($$$)

  The motion graphic is similar to the previous kind of videos, with the exception that it is text and graphic based instead of character based, it is the art of bringing graphic elements (such as shapes, colors and patterns) and text to life through animation. This style is ideal for explaining abstract or complex concepts, where numbers and charts have a big importance, and this in a comprehensible and interesting way.

• Live action ($$ , $$$$)

  This type of video production rely on real actors speaking in front of a camera, live action is one of the styles where everything is recorded with a real camera ($$), or performing a short demonstration to the use of the product ($$$$), it is basically a short film that can be used for marketing purposes. The most famous examples of such style are the Mac VS Pc ads launched by apple. The line between explainer and ads get often blurred in such videos, this is usually the choice of companies that want to build a relationship with their audience.

• Live Actor / person on websites ($$$$$)

  Like the previous style, and maybe a subdivision of it, this style rely on real people to convey the message, but this kind of explainers is usually created in flash technology, and consists of a person, usually a model, walking into the scene (the website page), and appearing to talk to the user, this type of explainers are not suitable for presentations.
  

• Claymation ($$$$$)

  Also known as stop-motion, is one of the oldest video techniques and, one of the lengthiest videos to craft. It rely on photographed frames, and moving objects between them, thus creating the illusion of movement when played continuously.
  a simple example, can be found below: