If you were about to film a video to camera how would you got about prepare what you want to say?
Do you script your message to the last word?
Or do you film without a script?
This video looks at the benefits of each approach and what types of videos you use a script versus no script.
Scripting Your Video
Scripting your video is when you write word for word what you want to say in front of the camera, and then record that message word for word.
There are lots of benefits to scripting your videos. It means you’ve got a planned message. So you’ll stick to your message. And you are less likely to umm and ahh..
When you don’t have a scripted message, you may lose your thought pattern and waffle more. And this can be a bit of a dangerous because you’ll end up extending that video more than you planned to. And before you know you may lose the purpose of your what you want to say in your video.
So if you’ve have a specific message that you want to cover in your video, and you want to be certain that you remember everything, then I would suggest scripting your videos. You may want to:
- Script every word.
- Create an outline of points that you can follow during filming.
Scripting your video works well for videos:
- Which are how-to videos.
- Where you are answering your customer’s questions.
- Doing product demos.
- Big announcements.
- And lots more.
These are just some ideas.
Scripting also helps certain kinds of people – like me. So for me I prefer to script my videos for all the reasons that I’ve just mentioned. But I also like to be organised and I like the structure a script gives me.
Unscripted videos
Unscripted videos work well if you have a story to tell.
Stories come out more naturally when you let the details flow. Stories are embedded in your brain, which means you can show the natural emotion coming out with a story.
Film unscripted if you’re sharing some deep reflections. Your audience will connect with you more if you let those reflections unravel as you talk.
Interview style videos are also unscripted in the sense that the person being interviewed will answer questions one at a time. There’s still some planning around the questions you’ll be asking in the interview.
So if I was going to be interviewing somebody about their story, I would plan the questions and get the person to perhaps think about them before the interview.
So there you go. Some reasons for making videos scripted versus unscripted videos.
If you found this helpful, please consider sharing it with someone who may also find it useful.