Sofala Knapton has once again shown the world her star continues to soar, winning the bronze prize for her production of Vyond’s, “Sofala Explains It All,” in the “Social Video” category at this year’s 43rd Annual Telly’s Awards.
The win marks a year-over-year Telly’s Award-winning streak for Sofala, after taking last year’s first-place gold prize in the “General – Social Video” category, for her production of Vyond’s “Black Characters In Children’s Books.”
In “Sofala Explains It All,” she covers everything from the basics of video animation to more advanced techniques. With clear and concise explanations, Sofala makes it easy for anyone to learn how to create their own stunning videos.
In this Q&A, we had the chance to get candid with Sofala about her personal approach to creating meaningful connections with her audience, and her mission to help people tell their stories in the most effective way.
A Q+A with Sofala Knapton
What’s Sofala “Explains It All” about?
“Sofala Explains It All” is a tutorial series that walks through Vyond Studio in a fun and exploratory way. The series focuses on explaining the main functions of the Studio in greater detail, but also offers when it might be best to use certain video-creating techniques over others. These videos are for Vyond users that have been using the platform for a bit but are still learning the ins and outs of the product.”
How did you come up with the idea for the series?
“One of the main intentions of this project was to create a tutorial series that was a little more casual in explanation than our help center videos or other series that we have done in the past. We realized that our customers respond well to that type of instruction and wanted to create a learning experience that centered on that. Once we had the idea, Amanda Morgan, our director of marketing came up with the name, which is a play on the show Clarissa Explains It All.”
Which steps did you take to create these videos?
“The Vyond team is always listening to and seeking out feedback from our customers. We want all our users to master the process of creating in Vyond and to feel comfortable enough to get creative. The first step we took in creating these videos was to look at some of the pain points that users were having trouble with. Once we understood what needed more explanation, and cross-referenced it with our Help Center, we were then able to start constructing a series that focused on best practices for the video-making process.”
What are the secrets to making your audience relate to animated characters?
“I feel like we as a society gravitate towards animation because, in a lot of cases, animated characters were our first introduction to storytelling. For me personally, it’s almost second nature to feel comfortable observing and learning from an animated character. My only suggestion for creating an animated video is, when you’re doing the voiceover to lip-sync to your character, try not to sound like a robot and add as much natural personality to your voice as possible.”
Which video from the series do you like the most?
“My favorite video from the Sofala Explains It All series is probably the episode about gradients. That episode is a great example of how you can get creative with your props and colors.”
Where were you when you found out you had won a Telly award?
“Joleen Richards and I were hosting a webinar called ‘Scroll Stopping Video for Social Media,’ and Kevin Doherty who’s our marketing communications manager mentioned it while he was introducing us. It was a great way to start the webinar and made me sound more official. lol.”
Will you record a season 2 for Sofala Explains It All? What upcoming projects can we expect?
“Yes, Sofala Explains It All is an ongoing series that will continue making episodes till Sofala has nothing more to explain.”
Vyond Producers Hub
“Sofala Explains It All” is hosted on Vyond’s “Producers Hub.” This new platform is packed with instructional videos from award-winning animators like Sofala, who each produce their own series teaching how to get the most out of Vyond Studio.
From instructional videos to inspiring content, the Producers Hub has everything to create stellar videos. The current lineup includes, “Director’s Cut,” “Discovering Vyond with Prakriti,” “Taylor Tinkers,” and “Vyond + Adobe.”
Get started making your own award-winning videos with Vyond today!
Visit the Producers Hub
