Animated Explainer Video Script: How to Brief, Review and Approve One

What this article covers: How an explainer video script is structured, timed, reviewed and signed off before 2D animation production begins.

Who this is for: Marketing managers, SME owners, brand managers and training leads commissioning an explainer in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ireland or the wider UK.

Key takeaway: The script is the cheapest place to change an explainer video. Lock it before voice-over recording and animation start, and every later stage runs to plan.

Expert insight: “The strongest explainer scripts leave room for the pictures. If the voice-over is doing every job, the animation has nothing left to explain,” Michelle Connolly, Founder and Director, Educational Voice

Quick facts:

• At a conversational pace, 60 seconds of voice-over holds roughly 130 to 150 spoken words.
• Most explainer scripts follow five parts: hook, problem, solution, how it works and call to action.
• Educational Voice, a 2D animation studio in Belfast, has produced over 3,300 educational animations for LearningMole.

Every animated explainer starts as a page of words. That page decides how long the video runs, what the animator draws and what your viewers take away. Strong design can’t rescue a weak explainer video script. A clear one makes every later stage faster. For marketing and training teams, the script is also the point where you hold the most control over cost and timing.

Educational Voice is a 2D animation studio based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We write and produce explainer videos for businesses across Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK. Some clients arrive with a finished explainer video script. Others bring a rough brief and a launch date. Either way, the script gets careful scrutiny before a single frame is animated. This guide explains what that scrutiny involves.

You’ll find a five-part structure, a words-per-minute table and a two-column layout you can copy for your own animated explainer video script. We also cover the review and approval steps that commissioning teams skip. Sector notes follow for finance, healthcare, workplace training and education. Whether you plan to draft in-house or judge a studio’s first draft, the same principles apply from brief to final sign-off.

Why the Script Controls Your Animation Budget and Timeline

The explainer video script is the one production document that every later stage depends on. Change it during drafting and the cost is a few minutes of rewriting. Change it after voice-over and animation have started, and several people have to redo finished work.

Here’s why. The voice artist records the exact wording of the approved script. Animators then time every scene to that recording, frame by frame. Storyboard panels are drawn to match specific lines. If one sentence changes late, the studio may need to rebook the voice artist, retime the affected scenes and redraw the frames around them.

That’s why studios treat script approval as a gate. Nothing moves to voice-over until the wording is agreed.

If your team has drafted a script in-house, an animation consultation is a sensible first step. It lets you talk through scope, approach and how your draft will work as animation before you commit to full production.

When Educational Voice writes the script itself, the work starts earlier with a discovery stage. The team looks at who the video is for, what problem it solves for them and which objections stop them buying. That research decides what the explainer video script needs to explain, and what it can safely leave out.

Animated Explainer Video Script Length: The Words-Per-Minute Guide

Plan for roughly 130 to 150 spoken words per minute of finished animation. For a 60-second explainer, that means an explainer video script of about 130 to 150 words, and often fewer.

The US National Center for Voice and Speech puts average conversational English at around 150 words per minute. We’d suggest planning a little below that for animation. Viewers are watching the visuals while they listen, so a slightly slower read gives each scene time to land.

The table below converts common runtimes into spoken word counts. Use it to check explainer video script length before anyone starts recording.

Runtime	Spoken words at 130 per minute	Spoken words at 150 per minute	Common use
30 seconds	65	75	Social clip with a single message
60 seconds	130	150	Product or service explainer
90 seconds	195	225	Process explainer or onboarding module
120 seconds	260	300	Training or educational topic

Treat those figures as ceilings. A good animated explainer leaves some seconds unvoiced. Those pauses let the animation build a diagram, show a product in use or put a number on screen without competing narration.

Delivery affects pace too. A measured, warm read usually runs slower than a brisk commercial read. Regional accents also carry different rhythms, which matters if your audience spans Belfast, Dublin and London. Longer runtimes suit process content such as employee onboarding modules, where each step needs its own scene.

A practical test helps here. Read the draft aloud at the pace you’d want to hear it, with a stopwatch running. If you’re rushing to fit the runtime, cut words rather than speeding up.

Casting shapes the final pace too. Educational Voice matches voice talent to the brand: an authoritative read for B2B software, a friendlier one for consumer services, a warmer tone for healthcare. The recording session then focuses on stressing the right points and pronouncing technical terms clearly.

Scene count follows the same logic. Each scene in an explainer video script should carry one idea. A longer runtime simply means more scenes rather than busier ones, which keeps every moment easy to follow.

The Five-Part Explainer Video Script Structure

Most scripts follow five parts in a fixed order: hook, problem, solution, how it works and call to action. The timings below assume a 60-second video.

The Hook (0 to 8 Seconds)

Name the viewer’s problem in one line. The hook of an explainer video script works when your audience recognises their own situation straight away. A question can work, but a plain statement of the problem often lands harder.

Skip jokes that need explaining and statistics that need a source on screen. You have about eight seconds before attention drifts.

The Problem (8 to 20 Seconds)

Show what the problem costs the viewer. That might be time, money, missed sales or a compliance risk. Keep it specific to one audience.

This is where animation earns its keep. A cluttered inbox, a queue of unanswered calls or a stack of paper forms can say more than a sentence of narration.

The Solution (20 to 35 Seconds)

Introduce your product, service or initiative as the answer. Name it once, clearly, and say what it does in plain words.

Be careful with claims here. The ASA’s substantiation guidance explains that marketers must hold documentary evidence for objective claims before an ad runs. If your explainer video script says “cuts admin time in half”, someone needs the evidence on file.

How It Works (35 to 50 Seconds)

Show the mechanism in three steps or fewer. Viewers follow a short sequence far more easily than a feature list.

In sales animations, this section often carries the most visual weight. It’s the moment a buyer decides whether the product fits their business. Let the visuals do the demonstrating while the voice-over keeps pace.

The Call to Action (50 to 60 Seconds)

End the explainer video script by asking for one action. Book a demo, visit a page or speak to the team. Two competing requests weaken both.

Tone matters at this point. Keep the close restrained and specific. Hard-sell lines and invented deadlines can sound out of place in a boardroom, and they undermine the trust the first 50 seconds built.

The spine stays the same across explainer types, but the weight shifts. Educational Voice writes product, service, software, process, concept and comparison explainers.

A software explainer usually spends longest on how it works. A service explainer shows what happens once a client signs up, because the offer itself can’t be seen. A comparison explainer sets out why one approach suits a particular need, without criticising the alternatives.

Scripting for the Eye: The Two-Column AV Format

A two-column AV script puts the spoken audio on the left and the visuals on the right, line by line. Animation studios favour this layout because it shows exactly what appears on screen while each line is heard.

A single-column explainer video script only tells the voice artist what to say. The two-column version also tells the animator what to draw, and the reviewer what the viewer will actually see.

The Audio Column

In an explainer video script, the audio column holds everything the viewer hears. That includes voice-over lines, sound effects and music cues. Mark tone notes in brackets, such as “warm” or “urgent”, so the voice artist knows the intent.

The Visual Column

The visual column describes what appears on screen. That covers character action, on-screen text, diagrams and transitions between scenes. On-screen text can carry a whole idea, which is why kinetic typography suits explainers built around short phrases.

The animation style changes how this column is written. Character animation needs actions and reactions. Motion graphics need shapes, data and text cues. Whiteboard animation needs the order in which each drawing builds. Educational Voice settles the style during visual concept development, before storyboarding, so the visual column describes the look the video will actually have.

This column is where you cut narration. If a figure appears on screen, the voice-over doesn’t need to read it out. If a character’s frustration is visible, the script doesn’t need to describe it. Writing for the eye first usually shortens the audio column of an animated video script by a noticeable margin.

Explainer Video Script Example: A 30-Second AV Layout

The illustration below uses placeholder names. It isn’t a client project. Use it as an explainer video script template for your own first draft. For finished work showing how scripts become animation, see our portfolio.

Time	Audio	Visual
0:00 to 0:06	VO (warm): “Chasing late invoices shouldn’t take up your whole Friday.” SFX: phone buzzing.	A business owner at a desk. Sticky notes multiply across the screen.
0:06 to 0:14	VO: “Every overdue payment means another email, another call and another delay.”	Three envelopes fly out and return stamped “unpaid”. A clock spins forward.
0:14 to 0:22	VO: “[Product] sends reminders for you and tracks who has paid.”	The notes clear. A simple dashboard slides in with green ticks appearing.
0:22 to 0:30	VO: “See how it works at [website].” Music lifts, then settles.	Logo animates in. On-screen text shows the web address.

That excerpt runs to around 45 spoken words. There’s room left for the visuals to breathe, which is exactly the point.

Accessibility belongs in this layout too. The W3C’s guidance on accessible video media advises planning for accessibility from the start. It notes that integrated description needs to be written into the script. For explainers, that means narration which names anything essential that only appears visually.

Sector-Specific Scripting: Compliance and Complex Ideas

Regulated and specialist sectors add review layers to an explainer video script. Plan for them at the brief stage so they don’t delay approval later.

Financial Services

Financial services scripts sit under the FCA’s Consumer Duty. Its consumer understanding outcome expects customers to get the information they need, presented in a way they can understand.

The FCA’s March 2026 consumer understanding review described firms testing videos and walkthroughs for comprehension. One example involved simplifying a video explainer and retesting it. The review also said promotions should give risks equal prominence to benefits.

For your explainer video script, that means risk lines get proper airtime and visual weight. Tucking them into fast narration at the end won’t meet that standard. Build a compliance review round into the schedule from the start.

We write any required disclaimers into the script from the first draft. That way they read as part of the explanation, rather than a rushed line added to the final seconds.

Healthcare

Healthcare scripts need clinical accuracy and plain language at the same time. A clinician or medical adviser should review the explainer video script before storyboarding begins.

Swap technical terms for everyday words where accuracy allows. Where a technical term must stay, define it on screen the first time it appears. Patients and carers often watch these videos while anxious, so a steady pace matters. Educational Voice produces healthcare animation and recommends building this review step into every schedule.

Workplace Training and Safety

Training scripts should cover one procedure or idea per scene. Learners need time to absorb each step before the next one starts.

The Health and Safety Executive’s training guidance says information and training should be easy to understand. That guidance covers Great Britain, and HSENI is the equivalent regulator in Northern Ireland. For corporate training animation, the explainer video script should also match your written procedures word for word where safety is involved.

Education

Educational scripts work to a different register again. Sentences stay shorter. Each scene carries one concept. Vocabulary is pitched at the age or level of the learner.

Educational Voice has produced over 3,300 educational animations for LearningMole. That volume of educational animation work has shaped how our team paces scripts for learners.

Writing In-House or Commissioning a Studio

Your team can write its own explainer video script, and plenty of businesses do. The strongest results tend to come when an in-house draft is reviewed by people who know how scripts behave once animated.

Your team knows the product, the customer and the compliance rules better than anyone. A studio knows how long a line takes to animate, which ideas need a visual metaphor and where narration can be cut. Explainer video script writing goes best when both sets of knowledge meet early.

If you’re working out how to write an explainer video script for the first time, start with a brief rather than the words. Write down the audience, the single message and the one action you want viewers to take. An explainer video script built from a one-page brief is far easier to review, because everyone can test each line against it.

Generative AI tools can produce a first draft quickly. Treat that draft as raw material. It won’t know your product’s limits, your regulator’s expectations or how a scene will look on screen.

Educational Voice can talk through an in-house draft during an animation consultation, or write the script from scratch as part of a full explainer project.

For a wider view of the craft, our guide to scriptwriting for animation explains how professional scripts move from brief to storyboard.

How to Review and Approve an Explainer Video Script

Review the script in three passes: read it aloud, consolidate everyone’s edits into one version, then lock it in writing. Only a locked explainer video script should go to voice-over and storyboard.

The Read-Aloud Test

Read the draft aloud at the intended pace, with a stopwatch running. Listen for sentences that run out of breath and product names that trip the tongue.

Check pronunciation early. Brand names, place names and technical terms should be spelt out phonetically in the explainer video script for the voice artist. Mispronunciations found after recording are among the most avoidable late changes.

Consolidating Internal Feedback

Give one person ownership of feedback. That person gathers comments from marketing, product, legal and senior managers, resolves conflicts, then returns a single marked-up explainer video script to the studio.

Scattered feedback slows everything down. Two departments requesting opposite changes to the same line can cost a full review round.

Locking the Script

Once the wording is agreed, confirm it in writing. That locked version becomes the reference for voice-over recording and storyboarding.

After the lock, the studio books the voice artist and starts drawing the storyboard. From there, 2D animation production follows the locked wording scene by scene.

Educational Voice presents storyboards as clear frames that anyone on your team can follow. Adjusting a scene at that stage costs far less than changing it once animation is under way.

One locked script can also feed several cuts. The studio can produce a fuller website version and a shorter social cut built around the hook. A sales version can carry its own call to action. Closed captions and transcripts come from the same approved wording, so every version stays consistent.

Keep the locked version in one shared place, with a version number and date. If a late change is truly needed, the studio can quote for it before work starts.

Use this checklist before you sign off your explainer video script:

1. The script fits the target runtime when read aloud at a natural pace.
2. Every section of the five-part structure is present and does one job.
3. Every objective claim has evidence on file.
4. Acronyms are expanded, and difficult names carry phonetic spellings.
5. The visual column shows anything the narration no longer says.
6. Everyone who must approve the script has seen the final version.

Working through these points before voice-over is booked keeps projects on schedule and avoids paying twice for the same scene.

FAQs

Ready to discuss your animation project?

Educational Voice creates professional 2D animations for businesses across the UK. Whether you need educational content, explainer videos, or corporate training animations, our Belfast-based team is ready to bring your vision to life.

Contact Educational Voice to discuss your project requirements.