Our numbers
What our film engine has made so far
Every Explain a Paper film is drawn by our own software, not generated by a video model. Here is how much it has made, and what we estimate that saved, counted from the films themselves on 1 October 2026.
Our engine has rendered 514 films and Shorts (811 minutes) since 22 September 2026, including 165 regenerated versions as films were revised or remade in a new style. Making them with a video model instead would have used an estimated 690 kWh more electricity, on our September 2026 measurement. That already takes off our own electricity, including the AI that helps draft each script.
Of those, 324 films and Shorts (451 minutes) have been published or delivered, one current version of each, for Explain a Paper, Digital Tactics and the research projects and authors we work with.
How we count
- We count every finished film and Short our engine has rendered since its first version on 22 September 2026: 349 different films and Shorts, and the versions we made of them as scripts, pictures and pronunciation were revised. A version counts once, however many copies of it exist.
- A version counts only if we still have the finished file, on disk or in the history of the websites that show it. Earlier takes that a later render overwrote are not counted, even where a render log records them, so the true number is higher.
- We leave out test renders, previews, the intermediate files our software makes on the way to a film, films made before the engine existed, and the silent loops we make for exhibition stands, which reuse scenes from our films.
- Minutes are the measured length of each finished file. A script recounts them from the files each time we update this page (method version 2.0.0).
How we estimate the electricity
- The alternative we compare with: one take of AI-generated footage for each version of each film from an open video model (Wan2.2-TI2V-5B), run on the same computer as ours. We measured it in September 2026 at 1.4 kWh for each minute of footage, and scale it by each version's length.
- Conservative on purpose: we assume the video model gets every version right first time, with no retakes; we use its lowest measured rate and the top of our own range; and a Short cut down from one of our films counts as no saving at all.
- Our own footprint is taken off first: an estimated 362 kWh at most. That counts drafting every version's script with an AI language model as a whole working session of its own, and rendering everything we rendered, including the takes we later replaced.
- An estimate, and here is its weak point: the AI drafting figure is estimated from the words the model wrote, not measured, because the provider does not publish it. On the most pessimistic model in the estimating tool we use (EcoLogits), drafting would cost more than the footage it replaces, and there would be no saving. The figure above uses its central model.
- Not included, on either side: training the AI models, making the hardware, streaming the films, and people's time.
Against a traditional animator: an estimate
Estimated, from published studio guides, not measured. Studio guides put a one-minute 2D animated explainer at 40 to 140 hours of skilled work. On an office workstation, at the UK government's figure of 150 watts, that is 6 to 21 kWh of electricity. One of our 70-second films takes up to two hours of our staff's time and an estimated 0.2 to 1 kWh in all, counting the AI that helps draft the script as a whole working session. So even our highest estimate uses at least 6 times less electricity than the studio's lowest.
On price, a film is £39 before VAT, and UK animation studios' own price guides put a 60 to 90 second explainer in the thousands of pounds (how we compare).
The assumptions: 40 hours is the lowest published figure for a minute of 2D work, before revisions, and 140 hours the top of the basic tier; premium work takes longer. The workstation figure is the one the UK government uses for an office computer, screen and printer. Travel, heating, a voice-over studio and your own time are left out on both sides. Hand animation is a different product, with a storyboard you shape and a human voice.
What this does not mean
Our films still use electricity, and so does the AI that helps write their scripts. These are estimates of electricity not used compared with one alternative, not a claim that our films have no impact. The footage a video model makes also could not show your paper's text, data or charts, which is why we draw ours in code. For where AI is and is not used in a film, see AI and ethics.