Some of us are blessed with the gift of gab. But even the best of commentators and most prolific talkers sometimes stumble, misspeak, or ramble on when faced with an open mic, a recording camera, and the bright backlight. When making videos, this isn’t ideal, however. Not only does it potentially require additional takes, but it can cause a need for far more extensive and time-consuming editing.
One thing that helps with staying on course is the essential action of writing a video script before recording. These scripts should feature all of the most important actions, lines, and visual queues that you wish to include in your video.
When sticking to a script, your videos flow more smoothly, allowing you to gain more confidence and driving your ability to relay your ideas more clearly and coherently. That’s before even mentioning that it expedites the process of creating your video since all the lines you have to say are right in front of you.
Whether you are simply dipping your toes into video making or if you are a seasoned creator looking to improve the quality of your content, writing a script for your video is a process that can be simplified for you with this helpful guide.
It will address 4 different video script formats, provide tips on writing your next script, and even provide free video script templates. Once you have completed this post, you will know how to best approach scriptwriting for your video. Ready?
Video Script Format (+ Video Script Templates)
The style of video you are creating should dictate the video script format you choose. Selecting the right format will greatly ease the process of setting up the video scenes and helping you accomplish the goal of the video. There are 4 different formats for video scripts to choose from. Next, we will go over each of them, and provide a helpful template that you can use to follow when putting the script together.
Scripted Sketch Video Script template
A scripted sketch video script is likely to be the best fit for your video if it is setting a scene filled with dialogue and actions. This script type is ideal for Tik Toks, YouTube Shorts, short or long-form films, new thriller series like Unseen, or any other video type where voice-overs or lines are necessary.
With this format, you can lay out the necessary details about the action occurring on the screen as well as any dialogue or narration that accompany them. Let’s assume that your videos are comedy sketches for kids, and your next video is about a spy who plays the hero by saving a princess from some villains.
Let’s say that your video’s first scene is of the spy climbing a rope into a tower where the princess is trapped, but the rope is starting to fray and tear. You would address the details and specifics of the visuals of that scene to lay out every step of the action that will be visually displayed to the viewer, and the lines that accompany that.
The script will feature a descriptive narrative, if you wish to include one, to assist in establishing a clear depiction of the story. You can add extra columns to the script to denote the location, props, costumes, and spoken lines by the characters on the screen.
Audio-Visual Script template
The videos best suited for an audio-visual script include product tour videos, how-to videos, day-in-the-life vlogs, and tutorials, as well as any other video form where the video is guided along by audio. So how do these script formats work?
For an audio-visual script, all the details about every scene (zooms, actions, camera movements, etc.) are included in the script. Any of the above effects on a shot add a particular emphasis to the scenes’ tension or drama. Additionally, the script will include the audio that will be heard at the time of the particular scene, whether it is a voice-over monologue, dialogue conversation, voice-over narration, or just background music.
For instance, if the video you are looking to make is a how-to-type video on baking blueberry muffins for a learning platform, you will want to start by showing a b-roll of your freshly baked muffins to some calm background music. Once you whet the viewers’ appetites, you can move on to going over the recipe for making them narrated by a voice-over.
By writing all of the shot’s details, including camera movements and sounds, you can piece the otherwise disjointed pieces together at the end succinctly. The details of the shot can be as extensive as you would like. Generally, the more detail that is provided, the easier it is for the camera crew and yourself to be ready with the directions when it comes time to put the shot pieces of your video together in editing.
Interview Video Script template
Any interviewer worth their salt knows that the questions, and specifically the order in which they are asked, help to create a logical, intuitive flow for a viewer or listener consuming it. The questions should serve as fundamental building blocks that comprise a story. Such a logical progression is very tough to assess on the spot, which is why having an interview video script is essential for a smoothly flowing-interview video. The script helps to serve as a roadmap for the interview’s introduction, the order of questions, and the conclusion.
The way this type of script format works is the script begins with an introduction that addresses the person being interviewed, the topic being discussed or the goal behind the interview. The next part is the most time-consuming to put together, listing the order of questions that will be asked. These should be ordered cohesively, starting from simpler, more basic questions that allow the interviewed party to share information about themselves and their background. The questions get more nuanced and specific from there.
The basic strategy for planning interview questions includes:
- Warm-up questions to break the ice
- Steering clear of “yes or no” questions
- Keeping the questions relevant to the interview goals
- Seeking specifics and drilling down into topics if need be
- Asking follow-up questions to secure additional context
The script can be as detailed as you would want to make it. You can even add space for additional commentary when writing it. Additionally, you should add instructions for the visuals of what will be rendered on the screen during the interview.
Storyboard Video Script template
We are willing to bet that you have heard of a storyboard script before, but have you ever tried to write one for a video? This type of script format is excellent for visual formats, where you can illustrate your skill level of drawing even if it’s with mere stick figures. The important thing is to visually guide the video through every scene. But while this makes it sound like storyboards are only for animation, that isn’t at all an accurate representation of its prowess. Storyboard scripts work exceptionally well for:
- Theater production work
- Videos with complicated scene sequencing
- Special effect-filled sketches
- Advertising videos
Let’s consider how this works in the following scenario: you want to film yourself playing guitar, while the lyrics flow from inside of it. The lyrics begin to slowly morph into a shape until you reach the next verse, and the effect repeats. Did you get all that? If that sounded a bit complicated in text, rest assured that a storyboard video script would lay this out much more coherently. In other words, visualizations of actions are a lot more clear than writing about them. They can also be a great communication method for anyone who is helping you put the video together.
How To Write A Video Script
Now that we covered the varieties of video script types, let’s talk next about how to actually write a script for a video being produced. First the short version:
- Find the best keyword for your video script
- Write A Brief
- Set Up A Rough Outline
- Write The Script
- Add Audio And Video Elements
- Trims And Revisions
Now let’s take a deeper dive into each of these script writing steps to get you up to speed on the process of putting together a script for your next video.
Find the best keyword for your video script:
Finding the best keywords to use in your video script is crucial for ensuring that your content is seen by the right audience. Two great tools for identifying popular keywords related to your topic are VidIQ and TubeBuddy.
VidIQ: offers a suite of tools that allow you to research and analyze YouTube search data, including a keyword explorer that shows you the volume and competition for different keywords.
TubeBuddy: is a browser extension that provides a wealth of information about the performance of your own videos, as well as those of your competitors.
Using VidIQ and TubeBuddy together can give you a comprehensive understanding of what keywords are most likely to drive traffic to your videos and help you create content that is both relevant and engaging.
Write A Brief
The brief is the piece of written material through which you will establish your video’s purpose, goals, and plan for creation. How you structure the brief is subjective, so you can make it as simplistic or complex as you feel. However, the brief must address a certain set of questions so it can be leveraged to put together an ultimately effective video script.
- Who is the audience the video is for?
- Why is the video being created in the first place?
- What is the intent of the video in terms of what it aims to teach the viewers?
- How should the video make the viewers feel?
Now that the brief has been put together, time to get to the meat and potatoes of writing the script.
Set Up A Rough Outline
Once the brief is completed, you should have a clear goal for your project in mind. Remember when you put together research papers in school? Before you went after the details, you started with an outline to help you achieve structure. The same concept applies to a video script. Think of this outline as a skeleton of your script.
The outline will feature the topics and subtopics of all the points you intend to have your script touch upon, as well as help to set up a nice connection of your script to its video topic. While this can be a rough outline, a few best practices are useful in order to bolster audience engagement.
- Grab viewers with a starting hook
- Reengage to keep their attention
- Set the story up to transition into the purpose of the video
- Bring back the re-engagement, establishing a pattern that helps keep the viewer’s attention.
- Achieve your story’s goal, peaking it at its climax
- Tie up any loose ends and wrap up the video with a call to action
Which of those options you choose to include really depends on what your video needs, but the important part is to set your goals. Once you are happy with the outline, it’s time to get the script written.
Write The Script
We have now reached the real highlight of the process: writing the script. You will want to start by building every section of the script, even if each of them is simple. The important thing is to keep in mind your goal and how you want to navigate to achieve it.
The script should be written in a conversational tone as if you are having a discourse with the viewer. It really helps to be detailed and specific, by adding the types of shots currently on the screen, adding lines, and any visual queues to look for. Also, keep in mind how an audience will want to hear you speak in your video, and write in a manner that you believe would be appealing and engaging.
By writing the script in sections, you will be able to address all of your points to make sure you are getting the full idea of the video across coherently and concisely while doing so. The main thing is to keep the viewer’s attention throughout the video to guide them to the end where you will reach your call to action, which can be whatever you want them to do after watching your video (subscribe to your channel, turn on notifications, watch more of your videos, etc.)
Add Audio And Visual Elements
As mentioned earlier, adding visual and audio elements from the video to the script is pivotal to its efficacy. It will allow you to connect the text to the video footage it pairs with. These elements include sets, costumes, sound effects, music, shot and B-roll styles, etc, with each of the script’s sections having a matching visual and audio depiction. This will help you know when to add particular sounds or elements during both the filming and editing of the video.
Let’s say you are making a tutorial video for selling your online course. You can add audio and visual elements that correlate to every shot in the form of a background track from royalty-free music, a close-up shot of the course content plan, a screen recording of the membership site where the course is sold, and a cash register sound when a sale is made, etc.
Trims And Revisions
Once the steps are completed, the video script is nearly done, requiring only some finishing touches. Read the script aloud to see if there are any mistakes or phrases that could be reworked for clarity. Next, figure out the desired length of the video and see if any parts can be trimmed from the script to get it down to that desired length. Finally, rehearse the script a few times before you start the recording process.
Final Thought
The help that a video script would provide for your video content is immeasurable. By leveraging a video script template you can jumpstart your creative process and have a roadmap about exactly what you want to say. Happy writing
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn how to make money on YouTube without creating videos! Click now to read our next article and discover the secrets to monetizing your channel without breaking a sweat.
Frequently asked questions:
How to get the script of a YouTube video?
1- Use a third-party website such as “YouTubetoText” or “DownSub” to download the video’s subtitles or transcript.
2- Use a web scraping tool such as Python’s “BeautifulSoup” library to extract the video’s caption text from the YouTube website.
3- Ask the video’s creator if they can provide you with a copy of the script.
Hi, my name is Idammah, and I am the founder of Vid Gators, a website dedicated to helping people make money through YouTube. I have always been fascinated by the potential for success on the platform and the power of video as a medium for communication and entertainment. That's why I started this blog – to share my own experiences and the strategies that have worked for me with others who are looking to do the same. I have personally tried a variety of methods for making money through YouTube, including creating and monetizing my own channels, collaborating with brands, and using video content to drive traffic to my website. While some methods have been more successful than others, I have learned a lot along the way and am constantly experimenting with new ways to earn an income through video. I am excited to share my knowledge and experiences with my readers, and I hope that my blog can be a helpful resource for anyone looking to make money through YouTube. Thanks for stopping by!
