| THE SHORT VERSION
Review an explainer video script by checking four things: is it accurate, is it clear, does it say one thing, and does it sound like a person. Read it aloud, time it (roughly 150 words per minute), and give notes on problems rather than solutions. Resist adding — every stakeholder adding one reasonable thing is how scripts end up saying everything and landing nothing. One accountable approver beats a committee. |
Introduction
If you’ve been sent an explainer video script and asked for feedback, this guide is for you. It’s also, honestly, the thing we most wish every stakeholder read before round one — because after 3,000+ projects since 2011, the pattern is unmistakable: more scripts are damaged by well-intentioned review than by bad writing.
That’s not a complaint about clients. Every individual note in a review round is usually reasonable. Legal wants a qualifier. Product wants the new feature mentioned. Sales wants the competitor comparison. The founder wants the mission line restored. Each request makes sense in isolation. The cumulative result is a script that says everything and lands nothing.
So this is a guide to reviewing well: what to check carefully, what to leave alone, how to phrase notes so they’re useful, and how to run the process so five people can contribute without diluting the thing to water.
Before You Start: Understand What You’re Reading
A video script is not a document. It’s a transcript of something that will be spoken aloud, once, to someone who is probably half paying attention and may have the sound off.
That changes the standards:
- Linear, not scannable. A reader can re-read a sentence. A viewer can’t. Anything that needs a second pass has already failed.
- Time-bound. Roughly 150 words per minute. A 60-second video is about 150 words — two short paragraphs. That’s the entire budget.
- Spoken, not read. Sentences that read fine can be unsayable. Stacked clauses, tongue-twisters, and words that sound like other words only reveal themselves out loud.
- Half the communication is visual. A script that looks sparse on the page is often correct — the visuals are carrying half the load.
The most common review mistake is applying document standards to a script: adding clarifying detail, qualifying statements, and completeness that would improve a whitepaper and ruin a video.
The Four Checks That Matter
1. Is it accurate?
This is the check only you can do. The writer doesn’t know your product, your legal constraints, or your industry’s landmines. Flag anything factually wrong, any claim you can’t substantiate, any term used incorrectly, and anything that would trip compliance.
This is the highest-value contribution a stakeholder makes. Prioritize it over everything else in this list.
2. Is it clear?
Read it once, at normal speed, without stopping. Then ask yourself what it said. If you have to re-read to answer, mark where you got lost — that’s the note. Not “this is confusing” across the whole script, but “I lost the thread at the third paragraph.”
Watch particularly for jargon you’ve stopped noticing. Terms that are ambient inside your company are often opaque outside it, and you are the worst-placed person to judge which is which. When in doubt, ask someone outside your team to read it.
3. Does it say one thing?
A good script has one central idea. Ask: if a viewer remembers exactly one sentence from this, which one is it? If you can’t answer, or if you name three, the script is trying to do too much — and that’s worth raising even though the fix is subtraction rather than addition.
Corollary: if you’re about to request that something else be added, first identify what comes out to make room. Scripts are zero-sum. Additions are trades, and treating them as free is the mechanism by which review damages scripts.
4. Does it sound like a person?
Read it aloud. Genuinely aloud, not in your head. Mark any sentence where you run out of breath, stumble, or hear yourself sounding like a press release.
This takes four minutes and catches more problems than three rounds of written review. It’s the single most useful thing in this guide.
What to Leave Alone
Some things look like problems in an explainer video script and aren’t:
- The opening doesn’t mention the company. Videos open where the viewer is, not where the company is. “You’ve got three tools that don’t talk to each other” is doing its job. The company can be introduced later, briefly.
- It seems too simple. Short, fragmentary sentences read oddly on the page and sound natural spoken. Trust the rhythm.
- It doesn’t mention every feature. A script covering one feature well is usually a deliberate choice, not an oversight. The others deserve their own videos.
- It doesn’t explain the visuals. That’s the visual layer’s job. If the script describes what’s on screen, the video will feel redundant.
- The claims feel understated. Precise beats grandiose. “Catches the four errors that cause most rejected claims” outperforms “industry-leading accuracy” with real buyers.
How to Give Notes That Help
The single most useful shift: report the problem, not the solution.
| Less useful | More useful |
| “Change this to: [rewritten sentence]” | “This sentence lost me — I wasn’t sure what ‘it’ referred to.” |
| “Add a line about our SOC 2 compliance.” | “Security-conscious buyers will wonder about compliance here. Is that worth the seconds?” |
| “This is confusing.” | “I got lost at the transition into the second section.” |
| “Make it more exciting.” | “The middle feels flat compared to the opening.” |
| “I don’t like the tone.” | “This sounds more formal than how our sales team talks.” |
The reason: writers can solve problems you identify, but they can’t un-solve a rewrite you’ve imposed. Line edits from five different people produce a script written by committee in five different voices — which is the specific failure this guide exists to prevent.
Two more practical habits. Consolidate your notes into one pass rather than sending them as they occur. And distinguish clearly between “this is wrong” (must fix) and “I’d have written it differently” (preference, probably let it go).
Running the Review Process
The process matters as much as the notes. What works:
- One accountable approver. Others advise; one person decides. Without this, contradictory notes go back to the writer unresolved and the writer becomes an arbitrator between your colleagues — a role they can’t win.
- Review at script stage, before any visual work. A word change costs nothing now and costs production time after animation. If your process reviews the finished video first, that’s the expensive mistake, and it’s structural rather than anyone’s fault.
- Agree upfront what the video won’t cover. Ten minutes at kickoff spent naming the things deliberately out of scope prevents most of the additive pressure later. “We agreed this video isn’t about pricing” ends a debate before it starts.
- Set a round limit and mean it. Two rounds of substantive revision plus one final check is plenty for a 150-word script. Open-ended revision is where timelines quietly double.
- Read it aloud together on a call. Fifteen minutes of everyone hearing the same script resolves disagreements that email threads can’t, because most tone objections evaporate when people hear it spoken well.
The Additive Pressure Problem
Worth naming directly, because it’s the thing that damages the most scripts and almost nobody sees it happening.
Five stakeholders review a tight 150-word script. Each adds one reasonable thing — a qualifier, a feature mention, a competitor contrast, a mission line, a compliance phrase. Nobody has done anything wrong. The script is now 260 words in a 60-second video, the pacing is rushed, the central idea has three competitors, and the ending arrives too fast to register.
The counter-habit is simple and hard: treat every addition as a trade. If something goes in, something comes out. Ask the person requesting the addition which existing line they’d sacrifice. Frequently the answer is “actually, never mind” — which is the process working.
If your script has grown by more than about 15% during review, that’s worth a conversation regardless of how good each individual addition was.
FAQs: Reviewing an Explainer Video Script
What should I look for when reviewing an explainer video script?
Four things: accuracy (the check only you can do — claims, terminology, compliance), clarity (read once at normal speed and note where you got lost), focus (can you name the one idea a viewer should remember?), and how it sounds when read aloud. Accuracy is the highest-value contribution a stakeholder makes; the writer can’t do it for you.
How long should an explainer video script be?
Roughly 150 words per minute of finished video, so a 60-second explainer is about 150 words and a 90-second one about 220. If the script has grown substantially during review, the video will feel rushed regardless of how good the additions were — time it before approving.
Why shouldn’t I just rewrite the parts I don’t like?
Because line edits from several reviewers produce a script written by committee in several voices. Writers can solve problems you identify, but they can’t un-solve a rewrite. Report what didn’t work and why — “this sentence lost me,” “the middle feels flat” — and let the writer find the fix that fits the whole.
How do I handle multiple stakeholders with conflicting feedback?
Name one accountable approver who decides, with everyone else advising. Without that, contradictory notes reach the writer unresolved and they end up arbitrating between your colleagues. Also agree at kickoff what the video deliberately won’t cover — most conflict is about scope, and settling it early prevents it.
Should the script be approved before animation starts?
Yes, always. Changing a word at script stage costs nothing; changing it after animation means re-recording voiceover, re-timing scenes, and re-rendering. Any process that shows stakeholders the finished video first is structurally expensive — that’s the single most common cause of blown video budgets.
Why does the script seem too simple or too short?
Because it’s linear, spoken, and half the communication is visual. Sentences that look sparse on the page sound natural aloud, and the script deliberately doesn’t describe what viewers will see. Scripts that read as thorough documents almost always play as overloaded videos.
What if I want to add something to the script?
Treat it as a trade rather than an addition — identify what comes out to make room. Scripts are zero-sum against the clock. Asking “which existing line would you sacrifice for this?” resolves most requests on the spot, and the ones that survive that question are genuinely worth including.
Does Gisteo manage the review process?
Yes — structured stages, defined revision rounds, and script approval before any visual work, with a single point of contact rather than a committee routing notes. After 3,000+ projects since 2011 we’ve found process discipline protects scripts more reliably than any amount of clever writing. Request a free consultation to see how it runs.
A One-Page Checklist
- ☐ Every claim accurate and substantiable?
- ☐ Read once at normal speed — where did you get lost?
- ☐ Can you name the one idea in a sentence?
- ☐ Read it aloud — any stumbles or breath problems?
- ☐ Timed it? (~150 words per minute)
- ☐ Any jargon that’s invisible to you but not to viewers?
- ☐ Notes describe problems, not prescribed rewrites?
- ☐ Every addition paired with a subtraction?
- ☐ Separated “this is wrong” from “I’d have said it differently”?
- ☐ Consolidated into one pass, not sent piecemeal?
Conclusion: Protect the Thing You Hired
You commissioned a script because someone else’s job is to make your message land in ninety seconds. The most useful thing a reviewer does is catch what the writer couldn’t know — the inaccuracies, the compliance landmines, the industry terms used slightly wrong — and then resist the pull toward completeness.
Accuracy is your job. Focus is worth defending. Everything else, give as a problem rather than a prescription, and the script will come back better than the version you would have written into it.
If you’d like a partner whose process protects scripts rather than diluting them — script approval before production, defined rounds, one point of contact — request a free consultation.
