Guide
How to write a video script
A video script isn't an essay read aloud. It's two channels — voiceover and on-screen text — running against a clock. Most first scripts fail on exactly that: they sound fine on paper and fall apart the moment someone times them. Here's the format that survives production.
Start with four business questions, not a blank page
Before a single line of voiceover, you need answers a creative director would drag out of you anyway. Write them down first — every scene you write afterwards gets tested against them.
- Who is the ONE person this video has to convince? A person, not a segment. A video aimed at two audiences convinces neither.
- What does their problem feel like today? Describe the bad day, not the market category.
- What does their life look like once your product works? That after-state is the promise the video makes.
- What is the single action they should take at the end? One action. A video with two calls to action gets neither.
Use a scene-based format
Broadcast writers use a two-column audio/visual script. For short marketing and explainer video, a scene-block format works better: the video breaks into scenes of 3–10 seconds, and every scene carries five fields — a timecode range, voiceover, on-screen text, a visual description, and animation direction. Here is one scene in that format:
- Voiceover
- It's 6 PM and you're still calling patients, one by one, trying to fill tomorrow's cancelled slots.
- On-screen text
- 6:00 PM. Still calling.
- Visual
- An office manager at a front desk, phone wedged against her shoulder, a wall clock at six and a calendar full of red gaps.
- Animation
- Flat vector style. Quick push-in on the clock; red calendar blocks pop in one by one with a snappy overshoot.
Voiceover and on-screen text are separate fields on purpose. Most video is watched muted — the voiceover carries the argument for people who listen, and the on-screen text carries the one number or phrase that must survive with the sound off. If your on-screen text is just the voiceover transcribed, the script doesn't work on mute.
Budget your words before you write
A voice actor at a natural explainer pace reads about 2.5 words per second. That number is the difference between a script that fits and one that gets butchered in the edit. Budget per scene and per video:
| Video length | Voiceover budget | Typical scene count |
|---|---|---|
| 15 seconds | ~35 words | 3 |
| 30 seconds | ~70 words | 3–4 |
| 60 seconds | ~150 words | 5–6 |
| 90 seconds | ~225 words | 7–8 |
Going over budget doesn't make the video longer — it makes the read rushed or forces cuts in the edit. Read your draft aloud with a stopwatch before anyone else sees it.
Structure: problem, product, proof, action
- Open on the viewer's pain, in their own words. Never open on your logo or your founding story.
- Show the product doing one thing — the thing that kills the pain you just showed.
- Give one piece of proof or one differentiator: why you and not the obvious alternative.
- End on the single call to action, held on screen long enough to actually read.
Write the hook for where the video will run
A landing-page video and a paid social ad are not the same script. On a landing page the viewer arrived on purpose and gives you a few seconds of patience. On paid social the video autoplays muted with a thumb hovering — the first three seconds must carry the hook visually and in text. On a trade-show screen it loops with no sound and no start point, so every scene has to stand alone. Decide the placement before you write the first scene, because it changes the first scene most of all.
The five mistakes that show up in every first draft
- Two messages in one video — pick one, make a second video later.
- On-screen text that transcribes the voiceover instead of complementing it.
- Jargon from your org chart instead of your customer's vocabulary.
- No word budget, discovered at recording time.
- A choir of calls to action: visit, follow, subscribe, book. Pick one.
Or skip the blank page entirely
The free generator asks the four business questions above (plus four more a creative director would), then writes the full scene-by-scene script — timed, word-budgeted, and placement-aware.
Generate a timed script — free