How to Make an Explainer Video in 6 Steps, with a Script Template

Explainer video styles, including animated explainers

The style is what the viewer looks at while the narrator talks. Choose it by what the subject is, not by what looks impressive.

An animated explainer, or explainer animation, is an explainer whose visuals are drawn or generated rather than filmed. Character animation, motion graphics and whiteboard are its common forms. Animation’s advantage is that it can show what a camera can’t: a password traveling to a server, a payment moving between accounts, a step that happens inside a machine. Live action and screencasts need something to point a camera at; animation needs only a clear idea of what each scene should show.

One video can mix styles. A software explainer might open with a short animated scene of the problem and switch to a screencast for the steps.

How to make an explainer video in 6 steps

The steps below go from an idea to a finished video:

1. Choose one viewer and one question.
2. Outline the problem, the solution, how it works and the call to action.
3. Write the narration and the visuals side by side.
4. Pick a style that shows what the narration says.
5. Turn the script into a video, or start from a template.
6. Watch it cold, then revise.

Each step uses the same example: a video that explains to everyday account holders how two-step verification keeps a stolen password from being enough to sign in. A bank, a software company or an IT team could send a video like this to get people to turn a security feature on.

Step 1: Choose one viewer and one question

Before writing anything, decide who will watch and which single question the video answers. “Explain account security” could fill an hour. “Why does two-step verification stop someone who has my password?” fits in a minute.

Writing down what the viewer already knows tells you where to start. These viewers don’t need to be told what a password is, but they may not know why passwords end up in the wrong hands, so the video starts there.

Step 2: Outline the problem, the solution, how it works and the call to action

Map the four parts to your topic before you write full sentences. Each part should answer the question the viewer has at that moment.

Nearly half of the 48 seconds goes to “how it works”. The problem only needs to be specific enough for the viewer to recognize it, and the call to action should be a single step. In the finished video, each part is also labeled on screen (The problem, The fix, How it works, Why it works, Do this now), so a viewer who looks away for a moment can tell where they are.

Step 3: Write the narration and the visuals side by side

An explainer script has two tracks: what the viewer hears and what the viewer sees. Writing them in the same row keeps each sentence tied to a picture, and shows you early where a line has nothing to show or a scene has too much to read.

Here is a script template you can copy:

Title:
Viewer:
The one question:
The action at the end:

Part | Scene | Narration (what the viewer hears) | On screen (what the viewer sees)
Problem | 1 | |
Solution | 2 | |
How it works | 3 | |
How it works | 4 | |
Call to action | 5 | |

This is the example’s script. The narration was used word for word; the start times and the on-screen column describe the finished video.

A few habits make the script easier to watch:

• Write for the ear. Use short sentences and “you”. The viewer can’t scroll back to reread a long sentence the way a reader can.
• Give each scene one idea. If a sentence needs two pictures, split it into two scenes.
• Keep on-screen text to a few words. The narration carries the explanation; the text marks the point to remember, such as “Step 2: A one-time code”.
• Check facts against a source before production. The example’s split between “something you know” and “something you have” follows how NIST describes authentication factors in its Digital Identity Guidelines.

Estimate the length from the word count. The example’s narration is 134 words and the finished video runs 48 seconds, a pace of about 170 words a minute including the pauses between scenes. Published advice on explainer length ranges from about 40 seconds to two minutes; at the example’s pace, a 60-second video holds about 170 words of narration. If your draft runs much longer, the video is probably answering more than one question, and splitting it into two videos is usually clearer than speeding up the narration.

Step 4: Pick a style that shows what the narration says

Go through the script line by line and ask what the viewer needs to see to follow that line. The answers point to a style.

Nothing in the example can be filmed in a useful way: a password leaking, a code being checked, a second lock. So it uses motion graphics. A padlock stands for each check, a hooded figure for the stranger and a phone for the second factor, and their positions carry the explanation: the stranger’s stolen password opens the first lock and fails at the second. A screencast of a real sign-in page would have shown one company’s screen rather than the idea, and live action would have needed a staged scene for something that happens on a server.

Whatever the style, keep the layout steady from scene to scene. In most scenes of the example, the part label sits at the top left, the heading at the top center and the subtitles at the bottom, so when the diagram in the middle changes, the viewer’s eyes go straight to what changed.

Step 5: Turn the script into a video, or start from a template

With a script and a style, you can produce the video in whichever way fits your team: animate it yourself in a video editor, brief a studio, or generate it from the script with an AI video tool. The example was made in NoLang from the script in step 3 and saved as a template, so you can open it and replace the topic with your own.

To make your own version from the template:

1. Click Create a Video with This Template. NoLang opens with the example attached to the input box as a Reference Video.
2. In Video Generation Instructions, describe your topic and viewer, and paste your script if you have one.
3. Choose the orientation (Horizontal 16:9 for a website or YouTube, Vertical 9:16 for social feeds) and the duration (Auto, or a length from 30 seconds to 5 minutes).
4. Click the arrow button (Generate a video).

The red box marks the input box after opening the example’s template. The example sits at the top as the Reference Video, and your own instructions go underneath, followed by the orientation (Desktop), the duration (Auto) and the arrow button.

You can also start from the home screen. Create from a script takes your script, then asks you to pick a template before generating. Create from files does the same with a PDF or PowerPoint (.pptx) file you already have, followed by a short instruction about the video you want.

Step 6: Watch it cold, then revise

When the first version is ready, watch it from the start as if you had never seen the script. You know what every scene is supposed to mean, so you will fill gaps the viewer can’t. If you can, show it to someone who fits the viewer from step 1 and ask what the video was about and where they got lost.

Most fixes from this review are small: a word in a heading, the size of a label, the position of an icon. In NoLang you make them in the video editor rather than starting over. Pick the scene from the thumbnails along the bottom, then double-click the text in the preview to type the correction. To change how the text looks, click it once and choose Detail Settings; the Text style panel sets the font, size and effects, and Position & Size below it moves or resizes the element.

Here the heading “Step 2: A one-time code” is selected in the fifth scene. The red boxes mark the heading and the Text style panel that opened from Detail Settings.

After a fix, play the scenes before and after it as well, to make sure the explanation still flows.

Make your first explainer video

Start with one viewer and one question, outline it as problem, solution, how it works and call to action, and write the narration and the visuals in the same rows. With that script, the production step becomes a matter of choosing how to build the scenes, and the review step has something concrete to check against.

With NoLang, a team can turn a script, a PDF or a PowerPoint deck into a narrated explainer video, and when the product or policy changes, edit the script and generate the video again. To talk about using it across your company, contact us, or download the materials below.