Lesson 1: The script is king
Great video starts with a great script. In the first of 15 lessons from running Box Studio, Matt Cooper explains why reading your script aloud—and timing it—makes all the difference.
All Insights15 years. 15 lessons.
By Matt Cooper
Box Animation Studio is now in its 15th year. So I’m sharing 15 things I’ve learned from running an animation and video production studio.
Lesson 1: The script is king.
When I first started Box, I genuinely thought the visual style was the most important part. Turns out, everything really starts with the script.
One really simple thing we always recommend to anyone writing a script: read it out loud!
It’s amazing how different something can sound compared with reading it in your head.
There’s a famous line attributed to Harrison Ford from the making of Star Wars, when he supposedly said to George Lucas:
“George, you can type this s***, but you sure can’t say it.”
Oh, and time it too!
That 90-second video can suddenly become two minutes or more when you actually read the script out.
The number of times we receive a script and the client is adamant about the runtime—“Yeah, it’s 2 mins 30”—only to discover they’ve created a five-minute monster happens far more often than you’d think.
So, take your time with it.
Write it. Rewrite it. And for the love of God, read it out loud!
Get the script right, and you’re more than halfway there to getting a great video.
Lesson 1 done. Only 14 more opinions nobody asked for.