How to write an explainer video script: A clear guide for motion designers

Create more value for your clients by learning how to write an explainer video script for your clients.

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How to write an explainer video script

About the script writing guide:

Any animated explainer video without a good structure and story will fail the fundamental goal of teaching the audience something.

This guide runs through the process for working with your client to establish what needs to be said and outlines a potential story structure you can use as an explainer video script template across all your product and service explainer videos.

The guide includes a collection of workshop tasks throughout, each designed to help you work with your client to write a great script.

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Who's this for?

This guide has been designed for freelance motion designers interested in writing scripts for explainer videos.

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Learn more about the script writing guide:

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Sample chapter from the how to write an explainer video guide:

The 5 questions to ask before writing an explainer video script

In order to write a good script, we need to start by learning more about the client’s world. We need to understand what they do, how they do it, the market they exist in, and then crucially: the key information they actually need in a video.

Don’t worry if you have no prior experience of what a client does, this can actually work to your advantage when writing a script - if at the end of the process you’ve written something that you can understand and learn from, then others will be able to learn from it too.

At the start of the project, ask your client the following five questions:

  1. Who is the audience for the video?
  2. What’s the key point people should remember after they’ve watched the video?
  3. How should they feel after watching the video?
  4. In your market, what are the challenges and problems people face?
  5. How does your product or service solve or alleviate the problems?

Tip: Put these questions in an online questionnaire format using a service like typeform or google forms, that way your client can fill the answers in online.

It may be that the client doesn’t actually know the answers to the 5 questions, if this is the case then more research is needed especially when figuring out the client’s market and any existing problems out there.

Working with your client to figure out the answers to the five questions together is a great starting point for a project, not only will it help build your working relationship, it can actually be incredibly valuable for your client’s business overall.

The answers to these questions will form the content of our script later in the guide, in the next section we’ll look at what makes a good script structure.

Writing a good script for animation videos

Animated videos, and especially animated explainer videos, need a good script right from the start.

As a motion designer, knowing what makes a good script can help boost your work and help you to create a better end product for your clients. This guide aims to teach you how to create a great animated explainer video script, that's structured well, and ultimately teaches your audience something.

The how to write an explainer video script guide:

The guide runs through a popular explainer video script, and explains why it works so well. The guide then has a number of workshop tasks to complete that will allow you to write your own explainer video script in a similar structure.

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Does the guide include an explainer video script template?

Rather than having a specific explainer video script template, the guide runs through a structure you can use for your explainer video scripts, it's not a specific "explainer video script template" that you can fill in the blanks with but rather an overall template for how to create a good script for an explainer video.

I've never written an explainer video script before, will this help?

Absolutely! There's something for everyone in this guide, whether you've been creating animated explainer videos for years or if you're only just starting out. The guide looks at a popular animated explainer video script and breaks it down to explain why it works, and how you can create something that works just as well.

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Business resources for motion designers

The business of motion design goes far beyond After Effects and animation programs. Our collection of business resources for motion designers are designed to help with the admin side of motion design, like making a motion design proposal, as well as helping with the creative side of things like how to write an explainer video script.

You may also be interested in our After Effects Scripts

Save time in motion with our selection of scripts for After Effects! Ideal for boosting your motion design workflow.

Much like our presets, our After Effects scripts are great for saving time and effort in your motion design projects.