155 words.
Let's address the elephant in the room. Sixty seconds is not a lot of time to explain the intricacies of your project, organization, product or team. But remember, our limit of 155 words isn't the enemy here - it's your audiences attention span. Your messaging has to be wrapped up into sixty seconds for it to resonate in their busy lives. So here are our top tips for trimming your scripts right down.
1) Don't try and say everything
Start by writing down everything you want to say. Print out this piece of paper and bring out the highlighters. Circle what you view as the four most important points on the page. Disregard the rest.
This will help you focus on the key messaging. Sure, it's nice to know that your organization offers free snacks to it's employees, but is that really what you want to lead with when you only have a minute to capture candidates hearts and minds?
2) Take an axe to your word count
Give the remaining messaging a couple of passes to trim the fat. Obviously all superlatives are the first thing to go. Then take a look for unnecessary verbs. "She was eating dinner", can simple become "She ate", for example.
Next, take look at your sentence structure. Is there a more efficient way to say what you're saying? If a word can be cut and the sentence still makes sense, then lose it.
3) Easy on the exposition
Setting the scene tends to be the biggest time sponge of all. Of course you need to give your film some context up front, but try and limit this to a couple of sentences. Otherwise you'll spend too long explaining the problem, and not enough time on the solution.
4) A picture paints a thousand words
Remember, we'll bring your script to life with fantastic visuals. This means you don't have to say everything out loud. A lot of it can be shown in the video, saving on crucial word count.
5) Wrap it up
Having a specific call to action in mind will help you put the brakes on the script. Be clear and concise about what you want your audience to do after watching the film, and go with that!