How to write a Script for an Animated Explainer Video
With the growth in animated explainer videos used for B2B as well as B2C communication worldwide, getting a decent script for your video has become a necessity. If you go to a video production house like Advids for this purpose, they generally have professional script writers in-house. But understanding the process that goes in writing a script may help you communicate more efficiently and follow the process more easily.
Script is the foundation of a video. An animated explainer video generally consists of a narrative section, instead of dialogues, and a visual section, both of which should be introduced to you in the scripting stage.
Every writer has different ways they work on a script. Every script is different and needs a slightly different workflow to make it come together as required by the writer. There is, however, a simple understandable structure to how Script Writers generally work in the animation explainer video production houses. I have noted down the oversimplified version of writing a script in this article.
A script, like most other write ups, starts with research — on the topic, the sector and industry, the client and the competition. Here is my article on basic research techniques which provides more details on the same. The more thorough the research, the better the script is going to turn out to be. A professional script writer with some experience needs comparatively less time at this stage than someone who is new to the field.
Post research, structuring a script is of utmost importance. A general script follows a simple structure — Problem or Question — Brand Introduction — Brand Offering / Solution — Call To Action (CTA). Most of the videos play along this structure, sometimes mixing it up wherever required, or adding characters to make the video more relatable.
After deciding on a structure for the script, it is necessary to jot down points of importance to the video. This can be the brand USP, the features or services in case of an overview video. It can also be the core values of the brand or the customer response or portfolio. The number of points you can effectively highlight in a video is directly related to the duration of the video. Too many points and the video will seem crowded while too few will make the video vague.
Now, this is where the actual ‘writing a script’ part comes in. You prioritize the information you have and add the structure you decided. This will help you generate the most basic script which you now need to ‘fine tune’.
The basic script you created is like placing blocks of content together in a haphazard manner. Now, you need to clean it up. Bring it all together and give it a flow. The next step depends on the tone that the brand follows or needs. If the brand is open to making the video conversational and engaging, you can add questions, exclamatory sentences, words like oh, wow, ugh, noooooo etc. This gives the narrative a very friendly, comfortable and relatable vibe. If the brand follows a professional and formal tone, it is best to work with the sentence structures. Have a mixture of long and short sentences. Be firm and to the point.
After this stage I generally like to listen to what I have written using a text to speech website. I use Microsoft Azure for this purpose. Doing this will help you look at the narrative from an audience point of view. If it seems interesting and keeps you engaged, move on to the next step in Script Writing.
This step is optional but I tend to add visual treatment or visual description for some of my projects, especially where I also act as the Creative Director. It helps move the next few stages of video making more smoothly.
Post writing this part, take a break and come back with a fresh mindset. Take a look at the script again and make changes wherever necessary. And you will have the first draft of the script ready.
