Video script template

Key takeaways

• A 60 second video holds about 155 words at 155 wpm, 77 in 30 seconds and 465 in 3 minutes.
• Keep the hook short: the first sentence of 10 short NASA videos took a median of 3.0 seconds and 9 words.
• 4 of those 10 opened with a question.
• Pace varies with the kind of video: short explainers ran at 161 wpm, briefings at 125.
• Copy the script, download it, or open it straight in the teleprompter to record.
• The draft is kept in your browser, never uploaded.

How many words fit in a video

A 60 second Short holds about 155 words.

The length of a script is its words divided by your pace. At the median pace we measured, 155 words per minute, here is how many words fit. If you speak slowly, use the left column; if fast, the right.

Measured: how long the first sentence takes

We took the first sentence of the captions of 10 short NASA explainers. The median was 9 words and 3.0 seconds, and the middle half took 2.9 to 4.5 seconds; 4 of the 10 opened with a question. The longest openings were introductions at events, not made for a feed.

The four parts of a short video script

The template follows the structure most short videos use, and each part has its own job.

• Hook: the first sentence, the reason to keep watching. The short NASA videos we measured were done with it in a median of 3.0 seconds.
• Setup: a sentence or two of context or a promise of what the viewer will get.
• Main points: the value. One idea per line, in the order you will say them.
• Call to action: one thing to do next, such as follow, comment or watch the next part.

Measured: how fast people actually speak

We measured pace on 21 public domain NASA videos on Wikimedia Commons that have human-written English captions: 11 short explainers, 5 interviews, 3 briefings and 2 live shows, 51,094 words in 6.1 hours. Pace is the number of caption words divided by the time from the first caption to the last, so pauses, applause and breaths count, the way they do when you read a script. 3 more videos were left out because the speech recognition found less than 30% of their caption words in the audio: they are music with text on screen, and their captions are for reading, not speech. NASA video is generally not subject to copyright in the United States, according to NASA's media guidelines. The captions, the figures and the scripts are kept with the page's evidence.

The middle half of the videos spoke at 133 to 167 words per minute, and the median was 154, so the tools start at 155. Short explainers were faster (161) and briefings slower (125), because a briefing is full of pauses and questions. Audiobook readers in LibriSpeech, another set we measured, averaged 157. When only the time someone is actually talking counts, the median rises to 168: that is how fast the words come, without the breaks.

From script to video

When the script fits, press "Read it in the teleprompter" to record it at the same pace, with your camera if you like. Or bring the script to Koldflux: it uses your exact words as the source for a reviewable vertical Short, so you can go from text to a finished video without recording at all.

How it works and why it is private

Everything runs in the page. The script is kept in your browser's own storage so it is still there when you come back; it is not sent anywhere. The teleprompter asks for the camera and microphone only when you press the record button, and the recording is made by your browser and kept on your device until you download it.

How the numbers were measured

We measured pace on 21 public domain NASA videos on Wikimedia Commons that have human-written English captions: 11 short explainers, 5 interviews, 3 briefings and 2 live shows, 51,094 words in 6.1 hours. Pace is the number of caption words divided by the time from the first caption to the last, so pauses, applause and breaths count, the way they do when you read a script. 3 more videos were left out because the speech recognition found less than 30% of their caption words in the audio: they are music with text on screen, and their captions are for reading, not speech. NASA video is generally not subject to copyright in the United States, according to NASA's media guidelines. The captions, the figures and the scripts are kept with the page's evidence.

Questions people ask

Related

Sources and how we checked

1. Wikimedia Commons: NASA videos with English captions (TimedText), public domain (read 2026-10-11)
2. NASA Brand Center: Images and media usage guidelines (read 2026-10-11)
3. LibriSpeech ASR corpus (OpenSLR 12), CC BY 4.0 (read 2026-10-11)
4. Another step toward one of the most complex spaceflight missions in history, NASA provided updates on Artemis III and announced crew members for the test flight (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
5. Astronauts Koch and Meir React to International Space Station Mission Updates (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
6. Building toward a Moon Base- NASA Announces More Lunar Lander Missions (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
7. Connecting Classrooms to Space- Ham Radio Explainer by NASA Astronaut Nichole Ayers (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
8. February 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
9. How Are We Made of Star Stuff - We Asked a NASA Expert (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
10. How Do Stars Influence the Search for Life? We Asked a NASA Expert (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
11. NASA - Human Fingerprint on Global Air Quality (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
12. Space to Ground- A New Mission- 08-09-2019 (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
13. What Are the Dangers of Going to Space - We Asked a NASA Expert (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)

Reviewed October 11, 2026. The speaking pace was measured on the human captions of 21 public domain NASA videos; the captions, figures and scripts are in data/seo/hub/evidence/2026-10-11/speech-rate.