Video scripts

What a video script is

A video script is the full text of what will be said in a video, written to be spoken rather than read, and timed so that the finished recording runs to the length agreed before anyone starts. It also carries, beside the spoken words, what the viewer sees at each moment: the shot, the on-screen text, the product on the table.

It is not a web page read aloud. Copy written for the eye has long sentences, parenthetical asides and headings that do not survive being spoken. A script is also not an interview outline, which gives a conversation a shape but leaves the words to the people in it. If you are recording a conversation rather than a presentation, you want the outline.

When you need one

You need a script when a person will speak to a camera or over pictures and the result has to be short, in order and finished in one or two takes. That covers a home-page explainer, a promotional piece for a launch, a product demo, a training module, and the video a sales team sends before a call. It also covers the case where the owner is a fine talker in a room and freezes when the red light comes on. A script fixes that, because the words are already decided.

You do not need one for a recorded conversation, a webinar you have given many times, or a live event. Those need an interview outline or an episode outline, and then the recording is worth cutting into clips afterwards.

What goes in it

A script arrives as a two-column document. The left column is what the viewer hears; the right column is what the viewer sees. Every line on the left is read aloud against a stopwatch before you see it, and the running time is marked at every change of shot.

• The hook. The first sentence, written to give a reason to keep watching before the viewer scrolls on. It is the hardest line and it is rewritten most.
• The spoken text. Short sentences. Words the presenter would use in a meeting. No sentence a presenter has to read twice to get the emphasis right.
• On-screen text and lower thirds. The words that appear in the picture, written in the right column, so a viewer with the sound off still gets the point.
• The shot list. What is on screen at each line: presenter, product, hands, screen recording, a still. Enough for an editor to work from without a meeting.
• The close. One thing you want the viewer to do next, said once, with the page or the address named on screen.
• The read notes. Where to pause, where to slow down, which word carries the sentence. One page, for the presenter only.

For a demo, the right column also holds the click path so the screen recording matches the words. For a training video, each section ends with the one thing the viewer should now be able to do.

What you get

The script. One document, two columns, two to four pages for anything under five minutes. Timed and marked. You own it, and you can shoot it with a phone or a crew.

The on-screen text file. One page listing every title, caption and lower third in order, so an editor can drop them in without reading the whole script.

The teleprompter version. The spoken column alone, in large type, formatted for a prompter app or a printed sheet beside the lens.

One round of changes. After your read-through, the lines that do not sound like you are rewritten. A second round is included if the presenter changes.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A two-partner bookkeeping practice wants a video for the top of its home page. The first draft they wrote themselves is four minutes long, opens with the founding year, and explains three services in the order they appear in the menu. The owner reads it in one take and it sounds like a brochure.

The rewrite makes three decisions. It runs ninety seconds, because the page has to load and be understood before a visitor scrolls. It opens on the one question every inquiry asks, which is whether the practice will take a business that is eighteen months behind on its books. And it says the answer, shows a real monthly report on screen for six seconds, and ends with the phrase the practice wants remembered and the contact page address in a lower third. The script is two hundred and ten words. The owner records it in two takes, and the same script gives the editor the caption text without a separate transcript.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What the video is for, who will present, where it will be shown, and how long it can run. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Scope, run time and number of scripts, agreed before anything starts.
3. The brief. You send the three things the video must say and anything it must not. If there is a product, I see it working.
4. The draft. Five working days for a single script under five minutes. Read aloud and timed before it is sent.
5. Your read-through. The presenter reads it out loud, on a call or on a phone recording. Anything that does not sound like them is changed.
6. The final. Script, on-screen text file and prompter version, delivered together.

What it costs

A video script is quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call. The price depends on the run time, whether it is one script or a series that shares a structure, and whether a demo click path or a training module's exercises have to be written alongside the words. The pricing page explains how fixed pricing works. The number does not change after it is agreed unless you change the brief.

What happens next

Once the video is recorded, the same script becomes the source for captions, so the caption text is exact rather than guessed by software. The titles and descriptions around the video are usually written from the same brief in the same week. And if the video sits on a page that has not been written yet, the service page and the script are better written together so they make the same promise.