When creating videos, having a script comes in handy. Scripts serve as a guide for one of the most powerful elements to an effective video- the human voice. There’s something powerful behind hearing an actual person speak words. Others might argue that written text is more effective. An actual human speak in a video has a profound effect on people.
When it comes to preparing a script, a lot of factors come into play. One of course would be content, and I write about content and context a lot in many blogs. But today, I thought I’d focus on something that gets a lot of attention among my clients- video length.
One question that clients who would like to make scripts on their own is “how long should my script be?” The general rule of thumb of course is shorter is always better. But sometimes it can be hard to deliver a message with so little words.
I came across this article that gave a helpful guide. This bit of information will help you measure the average length of videos given the amount of words you have in your script. According to Digital Splash Media, every seventy five (75) spoken words will amount to about thirty seconds on film. While this may all vary depending on the pace of the person delivering the script generally.
Here’s a quick table by Digital Splash Media that will give you an idea how long your video might be.
Now, we all know how short videos are always better most of the time. But some producers make the mistake of shaving off a significant amount of text off their scripts. All this done to make videos shorter. But this doesn’t always work. While short is always good, clear is way better at any given day.
So my encouragement is to make your scripts as short as possible. But also not undermining the clarity of the content and the context you provide. We always want to make our content compelling but relevant as well. This may sometimes take more words than we’d like, but at least now you have this guide to go with.
What do you think of this tiny bit of information? Is it helpful in any way? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
