Good scripting

A good script doesn't always have the structure you'd expect. In fact, the best ones wander off the beaten path just enough to keep people curious. There's a tough balance to strike between being informative and being engaging — and our best advice is: just be personable.

People can tell when you're just reading lines, and their eyes glaze over when there's too much industry jargon. Speak to the camera the way you would to a real person — someone you know and like, who needs you to break the ideas down simply for them. To do this, you'll need to break them down simply for yourself.

Video scripts always seem simple enough until you actually have to deliver them on-camera. At that point, trying to remember a few specific sentences feels like trying to quote Shakespeare. You want bite-size statements that you can deliver a little at a time, or better yet, bullet points that you can use as guide posts for an authentic delivery. You won't always remember exactly what you said in the previous take, but you can always review the tape, and stitch the best ones together during editing.

Think about what you want that final edit to look like before you even start writing the script. What points does it need to bring across? How concise do you want it to be? What kind of tone should it have, or feeling should it invoke in the viewer? Once you have a draft, give it a couple of practice runs before you start recording — see if it feels like it's hitting the mark, or still needs tweaking.

Finally, spend some time practicing with your editing platform, no matter what that may be. Good videos can be created using anything from CapCut to Adobe Premiere, as long as the content itself is good. And a solid script goes a long way toward that end.