Do You Script Your Videos?

[MrMauriceTL]

As a Let's Play channel I don't script my videos. I just talk and play a game and talk about what happens on the screen and other subjects that comes up. I do have a series though that's called Quality Time With MrMauriceTL where I answer questions and do challenges my viewers send me, I do script those. I want to give the best answers and record the challenges the best and funniest way possible.

 

[ToxicSludge]

In my mod reviews I'll write some points down that I need to cover. I don't script word for word though.

Having notes eliminates a lot of the "uhh"s.

 

[FireshockHD]

Yeah I do. For reviews I like to inform the viewer with every part of the game I am reviewing at the time. So that no stone is left upturned. But I don`t go crazy with making like 10 pages or more or something like that lol I keep it around 12, 13 paragraphs roughly that`s my aim usually.

 

[TheFrostTee]

Nope I did the first few videos and since then haven't done it. I found that when I scripted it....it just came off way too fake and not me. Now I just go with the flow and say whatever I feel in the moment

 

[Conso1727]

I script them the most of the times, but I often improvise on it. The only thing I made unscripted so far, at least on VGP is the Five Nights at Freddy's video, and I wasn't satisfies with it.

 

[3 Schmoes]

I have to script my videos for the same reason I have to script my grocery list; I'll forget why I'm there, and I'll end up getting a lot of junk food.

It's not a perfect analogy.

 

[JeriKane]

I didn't script my videos at all, though looking back I kind of wish I did, at least a little bit.

What I did was just write down a topic, and went on camera with that and talked for 10 minutes or whatever (my videos were ridiculously long). Even in my area of expertise, pro wrestling, I failed to carry on smoothly for even 3 minutes. I wish I had bullet pointed certain, like for example I talked about the Summer of Punk. I wish I had pointed out certain events from that summer instead of winging it, and talked about those I selected. MITB, SummerSlam and Del Rio, Nash, etc. it would have made things go much smoother.

 

[mdietz]

I've tried scripting my videos, but I've found that a better strategy for me is to jot down a couple points I want to expand on and then go from there.

 

[Harry Of All Trades]

On my last two videos I have started to use a script. My videos are mostly tutorials. One reason is that I'm trying to keep my videos as short as possible. I figure out what I want to say first and then tailor the visual content around it. I find that drawn out tutorials don't make good videos (even though YouTube is filled with them). The second reason is to make it easier for me to close-caption my videos. In addition to catering to an US/UK audience, I'm also trying to appeal to the English speaking international audience. This help add to the pool of potential subscribers. Some aren't fluent enough to keep up or have a hard time figuring out what was actually said. The captions help them out. I realized this when I had guys from Russia started asking me car questions.

The downside, it does make the vocals sound more fake. I think with more practice I can fix that. The added benefits of shortening the videos and cutting out the non-essential rambling far out way far outweigh this. So far I've noticed that my retention percentage has nearly doubled, but I haven’t had those videos up long enough to see to really see if YouTube is really throwing more traffic at those videos yet.

Scripts don't have to be completely adhered to either. I was in the audience for one Craig Ferguson's late night shows. His monologue is scripted and he reads from a teleprompter. At one point in his monologue he took one of his jokes and started running with it and they had to stop scrolling script for a little bit until he could catch back up. By diverting a bit makes it sound more real.

 

[niceonefransi]

I used to only use notes but decided that scripts work better for me. Most of my videos are about more "complex" topics and to avoid saying something I didn't mean to say or get lost in describing something too complicated, I spend a lot of time with research and organizing my thoughts. (For example: I had a video series where I talked about The Leftovers and without a script I would've descended into madness.)
Also it helps me to make the videos as short as possible and when I edit the video I don't have to watch all of my footage.