Storyboard an explainer from the script, never the other way round. Write the voiceover first, time it by reading aloud, then board against the words, because in an explainer the picture serves the sentence. Boards built first produce videos where beautiful visuals arrive two seconds after the line they were meant to illustrate, and the viewer, who is doing the work of understanding, drops out.
Setup
You need one sentence describing what the viewer should be able to do or believe afterwards, the two or three things they currently misunderstand, and a hard runtime. Explainers expand without a runtime cap, and a 90-second explainer that should have been 60 is the most common version of this format.
The four-part structure
| Part | Share of runtime | Job |
|---|---|---|
| The situation | 15% | The world before, stated in the viewer's language |
| The problem | 20% | The specific friction, named concretely |
| The mechanism | 45% | How the thing works. This is the video |
| The outcome and next step | 20% | What changes, and what to do |
The mechanism section carries almost half the runtime. Explainers that fail usually spend 60% on situation and problem, arrive at the mechanism with fifteen seconds left, and gesture at it.
Step by step
1. Write the script and read it aloud with a timer. Roughly 140 to 160 words per minute is a comfortable narration pace. A 60-second explainer is about 150 words, which is shorter than everyone expects.
2. Cut the script by a quarter. Every explainer script is 25% too long on the first pass. Cut before boarding, not after, because you will not cut pictures you have already made.
3. Break the script into beats of one to two sentences. Each beat gets one visual idea. More than one visual idea per beat and the viewer chooses which to follow.
4. Board each beat with the words underneath. Literally: the frame and the line it serves, together. This is the check that catches picture-and-word drift.
5. Mark the one visual metaphor. Good explainers have exactly one and repeat it. Explainers with four metaphors are four explanations.
6. Time the board against the read. Sum the beats and compare to the narration. Mismatch here is the single most common defect in the format.
Where explainers lose people
Front-loading the problem. The viewer already has the problem, which is why they clicked.
Abstract visuals during the mechanism. Floating shapes and connecting lines while the voiceover explains something concrete. If the mechanism is real, show the real thing.
Jargon in the first fifteen seconds. Explainers earn vocabulary; they cannot open with it.
No one on screen. Not mandatory, but explainers with a human presence hold attention noticeably better than pure motion graphics.
The production math
Explainers are unusually well suited to generated production, because the visuals are mostly context and metaphor rather than a specific physical product.
Canon 8frame prices with a credit at $0.01 in a top-up pack: a 60-second explainer is roughly eight to ten beats. Generated at 8 seconds each on Veo 3.1 Lite with audio, that is 432 to 540 credits, about $4.32 to $5.40. Narration through ElevenLabs TTS at 13 credits per 1,000 characters covers a 150-word script in one charge. A music bed on Lyria 2 is 13 credits. The whole soundtrack is under 30 credits.
A complete generated explainer lands under 600 credits, inside a $19 Starter month with room for a second version. The labor is the script, which is where it should be.
FAQ
How long should an explainer video be? 60 to 90 seconds for most products. Under 60 if the mechanism is simple, and never over two minutes unless the audience is already committed.
Should an explainer have a voiceover? Usually, plus captions, because a large share of views happen muted. Write for both: the captions carry the load when the audio does not.
Animation or live action? Whichever shows the mechanism more honestly. Software explains better on screen recordings; physical products explain better in hand.
Script, beats, and generated frames sit better on one surface where the words stay under the pictures. The 8frame canvas is free and unlimited, and generation is paid from $19/month.