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Here's a great site I found to help you write your how-to video script: Bill Myer's "The 5 minute guide to writing a script for your how-to video." (I don't need to reinvent the wheel, right?)

But while the site may prove helpful to you, especially its script outline and script sample, that should not stop you from jazzing up your how-to script with some creativity.

You may recall how you got bored watching several how-to videos in class, and perhaps wished that whoever made those thought of you the audience. Well, here's your opportunity to show them how.

Here's a creative yet simple way of presenting a how-to video. See the difference? I didn't see you yawning there, did I?
So let's get on with our next script writing assignment. Pick a company or organization, find out what they need to communicate through a how-to video, do the 7-step method for your concept (and write the concept part like a treatment), and write that creative how-to video using the dual-column format.

Try to avoid what the Viral Video Film School guys warn us about. (Caution: some words and content may be offensive for you.)
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"What job would you get when you graduate?" That's a question parents, concerned for our financial futures, are sure to ask.

Now we have an answer to give them. We can be writers and directors for corporate video! Apparently this is a field much bigger than the television and movie industries, though the latter are the more ubiquitous in our daily lives.

In fact, while would-be writers and directors dream of a break that will catapult them to fame and critical acclaim, some of them earn regular incomes by writing for or directing videos for the corporate world.

There has been a constant need by corporations to project their messages visually to the public. From the silent film period to the present interactive and web-based media for, corporations have utilized video for different purposes. Companies use visual media, among others, their PR needs, to promote and market their products, to train and motivate their employees, to present data in meetings, and to build up their corporate image.

But corporate video production is not quite known by the general public as its target are the internal and external audiences of companies. It is also not broadcast over free or cable channels, though corporate videos may come with products bought or uploaded to the companies' interactive online sites.

And with the need for more markets and the emergence of new products, plus new platforms to present corporate videos, there is the continuing need for creative people to produce visual media messages for the communication needs of companies.
How do we train ourselves to become effective writers for visual media in the corporate world?

One thing we should keep foremost in our mind is to be client-oriented. We need to remind ourselves that we are writing for the needs of corporate managers. It is not our personal artistic vision we want to highlight but the communication needs of our clients. But we also are not there just to make money but to help our clients how to communicate to their publics.

That is why we need to learn the more often than not unfamiliar subject matter and technical stuff our clients want us to transform into easily understood visual messages. In the process of learning, we also need to understand how our clients' businesses are run. We need to learn how our clients think and see the world. We can use the knowledge provided by SMEs or Subject Matter Experts that companies usually point us to for information.

What this means for us is: writing a script for corporate video requires a lot of document research, interviews with multiple sources, field or site visits, and other prewriting activities before we can even visualize our message.

And once we understand the message, our next hurdle is to sell our creative idea to our clients. Sometimes this can be a more difficult task, given the different language of our clients. While we express ourselves in creative terms, our clients think and talk the bottomline. They may be wary of the creative and artistic visions we propose to them, as they are used to straight talk. But if we learned enough in our research, we may find a way to translate our vision to them in a manner they would understand. (The Manipal University corporate video above is a case in point.)
Our clients may easily understand our concept if we tell them we'll use the following devices: on-cam narrators or anchors to explain the message, interviews, case histories, vox pops, graphics, and show and tell. These are devices they might easily visualize and may be quite familiar with.

But they may balk at our concept if we tell them we'll do some dramatization, or use humor, or provide a visual metaphor, adapt a television format (like a quiz show), follow a documentary format, use a lot of visually seductive shots, or do a story of a day. They may think we're being "too artistic" and may forget the message we're supposed to convey to their publics.

But with constant client consultations, a must in writing and in the production of corporate video, we may be able to convince them of the soundness of our approach. We may be surprised how some clients would encourage this, especially when they see how our creative and innovative concept will effectively stamp the message in the minds of their publics.

But don't let the creativity fool you. This is still a business proposition we are talking about. However imaginative we get, we still have the bottomline to consider. Take a training video, for instance. It's not enough to think, "A show and tell will work for this one." We actually have to do formative and summative evaluations, perhaps have focus groups or distribute questionnaires to a test audience. We may need to do a survey or interviews with our target audience to find out what they need to know more about a subject. Then we need to test if our concept or script will achieve the desired results.

And if that isn't a challenge enough, we still have to consider the limited budget available for corporate video production (unless we're talking of global business conglomerates for clients).

Add to that is our target audience's attention span. While some are captive audiences, especially if we're talking about a company's internal public or about training videos, we need to think of the amount of information they can absorb without tuning off (even as they pretend to watch our masterpiece). What is turning out to be a standard for corporate videos are 10- to 15-minute programs.

We need to be visually creative in developing a concept for a script for a particular platform or for cross-platform projects (video and interactive online media, for example).

One mistake beginners usually commit is to use wall-to-wall commentary or voiceovers in their scripts. Because they have a lot of information to deliver, the easy way out is by filling the right-hand side of the dual-column format (the standard in corporate video) with narration. They then fill up the left-hand side with the appropriate visuals to accompany the voiceover. This kind of writing yields boring videos that don't sell the message. We should think visuals first, and sometimes that may be all we need, plus some music and a bit of text (like that Hyundai video).

The challenge then is to develop visually creative concepts based on our research, and to transform that concept into an equally exciting visual script that effectively conveys the desired message.

And we definitely can be as creatively humorous as that Kodak "Winds of Change" promotional video, using the traditional on-cam anchor in a subversive way.
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