How to Make an Animatic: The Complete Guide

An animatic is one of the most useful tools in advertising and one of the least discussed outside production circles. It sits between the storyboard and the finished ad. Its job: show how the ad will feel when it moves. The sequence, the timing, the rhythm of the edit, the emotional arc.

If you have never made one, this guide walks through everything. If you have made plenty and you are here out of curiosity, skip to the tips section near the end. Some of the lessons are counterintuitive, and the AI section may update your thinking on what is possible.

What an animatic is (and is not)

An animatic is a video assembled from storyboard frames or generated images, timed to a soundtrack or voiceover. It communicates the sequence, pacing, and editorial flow of an ad before the ad is produced.

Three main uses: presenting a concept to clients who need to see the idea in motion, testing a concept with consumers in research, and aligning a production team (director, DP, editor) on shot structure before a shoot.

It is not a finished ad. It is not an animation. It is not a mood film. And it is not a storyboard, though it is usually built from one.

Quality ranges from minimal (pencil sketches on a timeline with a rough voiceover) to highly polished (AI-generated cinematic frames with professional sound design). The right quality level depends entirely on who is watching and why.

The traditional method, step by step

This process has been standard in advertising for decades. It still works well for the right projects.

Start with storyboards. Frames produced by a storyboard artist from the script and the creative director's guidance. Could be rough sketches. Could be fully rendered.

Digitise. Paper boards scanned at 150+ DPI. Digital boards skip this.

Build the timeline. Import frames into After Effects (the industry standard for animatic work because it handles editorial and camera moves in one environment), Premiere Pro, Final Cut, or DaVinci Resolve.

Time each shot. This is the craft. Each frame gets a duration matched to the script or voiceover. The difference between an ad that feels urgent and one that drags is often a matter of frames. Timing is the single most important variable in animatic production, more important than the quality of the images.

Add camera moves. Pans, pushes, parallax. These should reflect the planned camera work for the finished ad, not just be decorative.

Cut it together. Transitions between shots. Match the intended editorial style.

Add the voice. A scratch voiceover or a professional read. The VO drives the timing, so ideally it exists before the editorial assembly begins.

Layer in sound. Temp music and sound effects. Even basic ambient audio makes an animatic feel dramatically more real.

Review and revise. First cut, notes, adjustments, repeat.

Deliver. Final export in the required format.

The AI method, step by step

Same structural logic, different visual content.

Start with whatever you have. AI animatics can begin from boards, a script, moodboards, or a verbal brief. Finished storyboards are not required. Our guide to turning storyboards into animatics with AI covers the starting-point options in detail.

Break it down. Every concept gets decomposed into individual shots with detailed visual specifications: composition, camera angle, lighting, atmosphere, colour palette, and the narrative beat each shot needs to hit.

Generate. AI tools produce multiple visual options per shot. The generation step is fast, but the output varies in quality and relevance. Not everything is usable.

Curate and refine. This is where production experience matters most. Selecting the right frames, adjusting compositions, ensuring consistency across the sequence. AI generation is a tool. The editorial judgement is human.

Assemble. Same process as traditional: timeline, timing, camera moves, transitions, VO, music, sound design.

Review and deliver. Same as traditional. The output format and delivery are identical.

Production tips that are easy to overlook

Get the VO first. Or at least a scratch read. Building an animatic without audio is like editing a film without the script. The voiceover drives the pacing, and retrofitting a VO to a locked edit almost always produces awkward timing.

Cut tight, then loosen. The first assembly will almost certainly run long. Cut aggressively to find the natural rhythm, then add back the beats that genuinely need breathing room. It is much easier to add time than to find where to remove it.

Do not over-animate. An animatic is not an animation. Excessive camera moves, transitions, and visual effects distract from the purpose: testing whether the idea, the sequence, and the timing work. If the animatic needs elaborate animation to feel compelling, the concept may not be strong enough.

Sound matters more than visuals. A well-timed animatic with rough drawings and good audio will communicate more effectively than a beautifully illustrated animatic with no sound. This is consistently underestimated.

Watch it at real speed, once, cold. Before showing it to anyone, play it once at normal speed without pausing. That is the experience the viewer will have. If anything feels off, trust that instinct.

Make it yourself or hire someone?

Do it yourself if: it is internal, budget is tight, someone knows After Effects, boards are done. A capable editor can assemble a serviceable animatic from finished boards in a day.

Hire a production company if: it is going in front of consumers, it is for a client, you want AI-generated frames, you need multiple variants, or nobody on the team has the time or skills.

Cost ranges: £2,000-5,000 for a traditional editorial assembly. £15,000-40,000+ for a fully illustrated traditional animatic. £5,000-12,500 for an AI-generated animatic. Our guide to choosing an animatic production company in the UK goes deeper on evaluation criteria.

Common questions

How long does the whole process take? Traditional editorial from boards: 1-3 days. Fully illustrated traditional: 3-6 weeks. AI-generated: 3-7 days.

What resolution? 1080p for most uses. 4K for large-screen presentations.

Do I need a finished script? It helps enormously. But animatics can be made from partial scripts or visual concepts. The less defined the script, the more interpretive the process.

Can an animatic be the final ad? Increasingly, yes, for digital and social. For broadcast, it is still primarily a pre-production tool.

Animatic vs pre-viz? Overlap, but different emphasis. "Animatic" means a timed frame sequence for creative review. "Pre-viz" is a more detailed shot representation for production planning. AI-generated animatics are closing the gap.

Making an animatic is part craft, part instinct, and part discipline. The tools have changed more in the last two years than in the previous twenty. The fundamentals have not: understand the idea, find the right rhythm, keep it clear, and resist the temptation to overcomplicate.

If you would rather someone else handle it, that is what we do every day.