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11 reasons you need a scriptwriter for your video or voice-over


matureactress

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1) The odds of you writing an effective script yourself are low. I’ve reviewed over 160 scripts this year alone and this is what I’ve found; only 10% would qualify as highly-effective scripts from a marketing standpoint, 25% as somewhat effective, 55% as non-effective and possibly damaging to the brand, and 10% as unreadable. And only 1% of the scripts I reviewed were actually written by a professional scriptwriter. Now, when you take into consideration the time, energy and money spent developing and distributing a marketing project, it’s baffling that marketers would skimp on the very core of it’s effectiveness… the script.

2) You lack the proper perspective. Marketers like to load-down a script with sales points, or use their sales letter as a script. This only confuses and disappoints the viewer and can actually damage the brand. It’s hard for marketers to change their perspective to that of the viewer, and scriptwriters do that for them. A professional scriptwriter will help you distill the “just right” sales points you need to convey based on where you will be distributing the end product and your target audience.

3) You’re a marketer not a wordsmith. Words can not only hold different meanings, they can also provoke different emotions. An experienced scriptwriter is also a wordsmith who will choose the “just right words” and phasing that not only conveys the proper meaning, but evokes the thoughts and emotions we want the viewer to come away with. Most marketers that write their own scripts use a passive “voice”, while scriptwriters create power.

4) You write run on sentences. Even Academy Award winning actors cannot make them understandable.

5) You list points rather than incorporating them into sentences. Not only will you bore your audience to death, they won’t remember any of it. Yep, a list is not a script.

6) You don’t know how to use a comma. Comma’s not only tell the actor to pause, they are used to bring clarity and sometimes more power to a script.

7) You don’t know when is best to use bold or italics. Both can be used in script writing to instruct the actor to which words or phrases should be stressed. Use either one or the other, but never both in the same script.

8) You over-use exclamation points or don’t use them at all. Just like boldface and italics are used to stress specific words and phrases, the exclamation point stresses specific sentences.

9) You use punctuation that has no business being in a script. Quotation marks, slashes, underlining, brackets, or anything other than what I’ve mentioned in c,d, and e, should not appear in a script.

10) You aren’t Alfred Hitchcock. Only university trained scriptwriters know how to write directions so that they’re understood by trained actors. And if you try, you will only frustrate yourself and the talent. Accept that you’re getting a marketing video produced at a small fraction of what it would cost through an agency and be ready to accept the actor’s skill at determining how it should be performed.

11) You just don’t have the time or energy to write a script. Scriptwriters are affordable on Fiverr. Most scriptwriting gigs are offered by the actors here as an extra or a separate gig. We read so many scripts and we’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, so it makes sense to get the most from your marketing budget by using us.

12) You don’t know anything about timing. Scriptwriters know how to write the text so that it can be performed and fit perfectly with the visuals. Trust me, without proper timing your project will be sub-par.

Best wishes for a successful marketing campaign!

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Yes, not only should there be a scriptwriter, but the script should be in as short a document as possible. Expecting a person to be able to read a 100 slide powerpoint with natural flow and inflection is unreasonable and leads to a choppy delivery. If you want a script to be read with flow and the proper inflection then make sure that the words that need to flow together are actually presented together!

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Yes, not only should there be a scriptwriter, but the script should be in as short a document as possible. Expecting a person to be able to read a 100 slide powerpoint with natural flow and inflection is unreasonable and leads to a choppy delivery. If you want a script to be read with flow and the proper inflection then make sure that the words that need to flow together are actually presented together!

Expecting a person to be able to read a 100 slide powerpoint

Wait, someone actually sends a PowerPoint file to a voice over artist? 😮 It doesn’t make any sense!

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Yes, not only should there be a scriptwriter, but the script should be in as short a document as possible. Expecting a person to be able to read a 100 slide powerpoint with natural flow and inflection is unreasonable and leads to a choppy delivery. If you want a script to be read with flow and the proper inflection then make sure that the words that need to flow together are actually presented together!

Thanks for that important point that I overlooked. As you can see it’s now #12!

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Expecting a person to be able to read a 100 slide powerpoint

Wait, someone actually sends a PowerPoint file to a voice over artist? 😮 It doesn’t make any sense!

Yes! this happens and then the VO artist gets complaints about pacing…go figure.

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