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Larry Mutenda | How do you make a PSA video? Learning how to make a PSA video starts with one audience and one action you want them to take. Choose a messenger that audience trusts, then write a short script built around the ask. Pick animation or live action, storyboard it, produce it and edit it. Deliver a version for each channel and measure the action. |
A PSA video is a short film that asks the public to do one thing in the public interest. Making one follows the same stages as any produced video: discovery, script, storyboard, production, post-production and delivery. What changes is the goal. A PSA video has to change behaviour, so every stage points at a single action.
The 10 steps below follow that workflow in order. Each step comes with a PSA video that shows it in practice. Six are videos we produced. Four are public service announcements from well-known sponsors.
This guide comes from more than 15 years of producing video, including over 100 nonprofit videos. The steps follow our own production workflow, adapted for public service announcement videos.
We describe our own videos from their scripts. For the third-party videos, we only report facts and results that the sponsor or a major outlet has published.
| # | Step | Video example | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pick one audience and one action | Accounting Aid Society: IRS scam warning | Animation |
| 2 | Choose a trusted messenger | CDC: Terrie H.’s Tip ad | Live action |
| 3 | Write a short script | HSC Public Health Agency: MMR vaccine | Animation |
| 4 | Choose animation or live action | IISD: Stop Funding Overfishing | Animation |
| 5 | Storyboard and set the look | WHO: I had a black dog, his name was depression | Animation |
| 6 | Design the assets or film the scenes | Rancho Water: leak alert guide | Animation |
| 7 | Animate or edit, then finish | Makers Making Change: how to volunteer | Animation |
| 8 | End on one clear ask | Disability Rights Oregon: prescription costs | Animation |
| 9 | Make versions and deliver | Ad Council: Sitcom | Live action |
| 10 | Measure the result | NHS Blood and Transplant: Missing Type | Short film |
Start by naming the one group you need to reach and the one thing you want them to do. This is the discovery stage. Before any script, we ask who the viewer is, what they believe now and what should change after they watch.
Write the action as a verb the viewer can do today. Call a number. Book a shot. Check a letter before you reply. Raising awareness can be a campaign objective. It is not an instruction a viewer can follow. If your audiences need different actions, they usually need different versions of the video. Related audiences with the same next step can often share one. You can see how other sponsors narrowed their ask in our roundup of public service announcements.
Client: Accounting Aid Society.
Project type: 2D character animation, 1:32.
Communication challenge: Warn people about fake IRS messages and tell them how the IRS really makes contact.
Creative approach: Todd gets a text that claims to be from the IRS. Before he replies, he calls his cousin Ruby, who got a similar text last year.
The audience is anyone who might get a fake IRS message. The action is one rule. The script says the IRS only contacts you by mail. It treats any text, email, phone call or social media message from the IRS as a scam.
Correction: The rule in this video is out of date. The IRS says it usually contacts people first by mail. It may also call. It only emails or texts people who have opted in. A social media message is never from the IRS. See how to know it’s really the IRS.
The video ends by pointing viewers to their local Low Income Taxpayer Clinic. In most cases, the clinic can resolve the issue at no cost.
The messenger is the person, character or voice your audience will believe on this subject. Ask who the viewer already listens to. It might be a doctor, a peer, a relative or someone with lived experience. It is rarely the sponsor’s logo.
In animation, the messenger can be a character the viewer sees as someone like them. In live action, it is often a real person telling their own story. Casting is a strategy decision, so make it before the script.
Terrie H.’s Tip ad is a live-action PSA video from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made for its Tips From Former Smokers campaign. Terrie, a former smoker, talks through how she gets ready for the day. Treatment for throat cancer caused her to lose her teeth and her hair and to have a laryngectomy.
The messenger is the proof. A statistic tells you smoking is dangerous. Terrie’s morning routine shows what that looks like on an ordinary day. The viewer does not have to take the sponsor’s word for it.
By the numbers: The CDC estimates that from 2012 to 2018, more than 16.4 million people who smoke attempted to quit because of the campaign. About one million quit for good, according to the CDC’s campaign impact results.
A PSA script should say one thing clearly and end on the action. Open with the question or problem the viewer already has. Give only the facts they need to act. Answer the objection they are most likely to raise. Then make the ask.
Read the script out loud and time it. Cut any line that does not move the viewer toward the action. Our guide on how to write a PSA video script covers structure and timing in more detail.
Client: HSC Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland.
Project type: 2D animated public health video, 1:44.
Communication challenge: Explain why the MMR vaccine matters while measles spreads in parts of Europe, and answer the safety question.
Creative approach: The script opens on the question families ask. Why is the MMR vaccine important for you and your family?
It describes measles in plain words. It says when the free doses were offered in Northern Ireland at the time: at 12 months and again at three years and four months. The likely objection is safety, so the script answers it with a number. More than 500 million doses have been given in over 100 countries in the last 40 years. It also covers the common side effects honestly.
Update: Northern Ireland changed its childhood schedule in January 2026. It now uses the MMRV vaccine and has added an 18-month appointment. The timing depends on the child’s date of birth. See the Public Health Agency’s schedule change notice.
Choose the format that shows your action most clearly to your audience. Live action works when a real person is the proof, as in the CDC video above. Animation works when the subject is hard to film, abstract or sensitive.
Animation can show a scam text, a virus or a policy without putting a real person on screen at their worst moment. It is also easier to update. A new phone number or date can change without a reshoot. Live action gives you real faces and real places. It also needs locations, talent releases and a shoot day. Within animation, character animation carries a story and motion graphics suit data and steps. Our overview of animation styles compares the main options.
Client: International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Project type: Animated awareness video, 2:13.
Communication challenge: Show how government fishing subsidies drive overfishing, and why a trade agreement to end them matters now.
Creative approach: The script opens on the stakes. The ocean needs our help now. Over one third of the world’s marine fish populations are overfished.
Almost nothing in this script can be filmed. A subsidy is a budget line. A trade negotiation runs for 20 years. A fish stock declines over decades. Animation can show all of it. The video walks through the history in order, from the World Trade Organization negotiations to the missed 2020 target in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It ends on the point that, at the time, WTO members were closer than ever to an agreement.
Update: This video was made before the agreement was finished. The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies entered into force on September 15, 2025.
A storyboard shows how the script plays out scene by scene before anyone animates or films. It is a sequence of sketches, one frame per key moment, with the script line under each. This is where you check that the action appears on screen and not only in the voice over.
Set the look at the same stage. In animation, a few style frames fix the colour, the character design and the type. In live action, a shot list, the art direction and location scouting do the same job. Changes cost little at the storyboard stage and much more later.
I had a black dog, his name was depression is an animated PSA video from the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO made it with the writer and illustrator Matthew Johnstone to mark World Mental Health Day. Johnstone tells the story of overcoming depression, which the video shows as a black dog. It runs 4:18.
The look is the idea. Depression is hard to show on screen. One drawn metaphor gives the viewer something to see and follow from start to finish. The video is tied to Johnstone’s book of the same story, and he is both its writer and its illustrator. One person set the story and the look. That is the job of style frames: decide once how the subject looks, then hold it through every scene.
By the numbers: WHO’s official upload of the video shows more than 13 million views on YouTube.
Production is where the approved storyboard becomes real material. In animation, designers draw the final characters, backgrounds and graphics from the style frames. In live action, the crew films the scenes on the shot list.
Record the voice over at this stage too. Pick a voice that fits the messenger you chose in step 2. If your audience speaks more than one language, plan a recording for each. Check every fact, phone number and web address one more time. After this step they are locked into the artwork or the footage.
Client: Rancho California Water District.
Project type: Flat 2D character animation, 6:37.
Communication challenge: Customers get an automated leak alert and don’t know what it means or what to do next.
Creative approach: The script starts with the customer’s own question. You got a leak alert, so what does it mean? From there it becomes a step-by-step guide.
The script names the things a customer has to recognize. The leak alert. The water meter that sends hourly readings. The My Water Tracker account, where customers see their hourly use, when the leak started and how big it is. In production, those are the assets that need the clearest design, because the viewer will look for them after the video ends.
Animation or editing turns the designs or footage into the finished story, timed to the voice over. Animation takes time to build and revise. Each scene is timed to the voice over, so plan the schedule around it.
Post-production adds music, sound effects and the final mix. Add captions. They make the video accessible, and the message still works when the sound is off. Review a full cut first, then a final cut with the fixes. Late changes to the script are the most expensive changes in the whole process.
Client: Makers Making Change, a program of the Neil Squire Society.
Project type: 2D animation, 0:56.
Communication challenge: Turn a volunteer sign-up into a clear set of choices, in under a minute.
Creative approach: The script names the problem in one line. The cost of assistive technology is often a barrier. Then it lists the ways to help.
Volunteers can build devices, join design challenges or spread the word as a chapter leader. The build path gets the most lines because it is the main ask. At 56 seconds, the timing of the animation carries the structure. Each option gets its own beat, and the video closes on one web address to sign up.
The last seconds of a PSA video should tell the viewer exactly what to do and where to do it. Put the action on screen and in the voice over. Show one web address or one phone number. If there is a deadline, say it.
Client: Disability Rights Oregon.
Project type: 2D animated advocacy video, 1:04.
Communication challenge: Explain an insurance change most patients don’t know about, then make one policy ask.
Creative approach: The script explains the mechanism in plain words. Some insurance companies no longer accept drug company financial assistance toward out-of-pocket costs.
Patients often find out mid-year, when they are on the hook for thousands of dollars in refills. One line of moral framing follows. Nobody should have to choose between life-saving medication and putting food on the table.
Then comes the ask. Oregon should stop insurers from pocketing that assistance. The video closes on a single web address where viewers can find out more.
Delivery means cutting the finished PSA into the lengths and shapes each channel needs. A broadcast slot may need a 30-second cut. A social feed may need a vertical version. A website or a waiting room screen can run the full length.
Plan distribution in step 1, not after the edit. The channel decides the length, the aspect ratio and whether the video has to work without sound. If a broadcaster or media partner may donate airtime, find out early. Their slot lengths set the cuts you need. Deliver each version with captions and a thumbnail, and keep the master files.
Sitcom is a live-action PSA video from the Ad Council and the American Lung Association, created by the agency Hill Holliday for the You’re The Best Person youth vaping prevention campaign. It is aimed at parents of children aged 10 to 14. The Sitcom videos show how a parent can start a conversation about vaping.
The same spot was delivered in several shapes. The Ad Council posted this 30-second horizontal cut on YouTube, plus a vertical 30-second Short and a vertical 15-second Short. The campaign runs on broadcast TV, radio, digital, social media, out-of-home and print. One idea, cut to fit each place a parent might see it. Parents who want the facts are sent to TalkAboutVaping.org.
By the numbers: The Ad Council reports that parents who have seen at least one campaign PSA are 30% more likely to have spoken to their kids about the dangers of vaping.
Measure the PSA video against the action you chose in step 1. Views show reach. They do not show change. Count the thing you asked for: calls, sign-ups, bookings, searches or a shift in a survey.
Set up the measurement before launch. Give the PSA its own web address or phone line so responses can be counted. Take a baseline, such as the sign-ups in the weeks before launch, so you have something to compare against.
The International Missing Type video is a short film from NHS Blood and Transplant. It shows the letters A, B and O, the main blood groups, disappearing from signs and places around the world. The 2016 edition involved 25 blood services in 21 countries.
The absence is the message. People notice what is missing faster than what is there. The ask is simple: register to give blood. That made the result easy to count against the weeks before.
By the numbers: NHS Blood and Transplant reports that 24,000 people in England signed up to give blood during the two-week campaign. That was double the number in the fortnight before. Across nine participating countries, 46,000 people came forward to donate.
Avoid these five mistakes when you plan and produce a PSA video.
Awareness is a result, not an ask. Viewers can’t do awareness. Name the behaviour you want, such as calling, booking or checking, and build the script around it.
A PSA video for everyone is a PSA video for no one in particular. Pick the group most likely to act, or the group with the most at stake. Write every line for them.
Every extra fact competes with the ask. Keep the facts that answer the viewer’s main question or objection. Move the rest to the web page the video points to.
An ask that only appears in the voice over is easy to miss. Show it on screen, say it out loud and hold it long enough to read. Use one address or one number, not three.
If you can’t count the action, you can’t show the video worked. Set up a unique link, phone line or survey before launch. Record a baseline to compare against.
Pick one audience and one action. Choose a trusted messenger. Write a short script, choose animation or live action and storyboard it. Then produce, animate or edit, cut versions for each channel and measure the result.
A PSA video should be long enough for one ask and no longer. Broadcast slots often call for 30-second cuts. A social feed may take a 15-second vertical cut, as in step 9. Half of the PSA videos we produced in this guide run between about one and two minutes.
The cost depends on the format, the runtime, the style and how many versions you need. We quote each PSA video from the script and the delivery plan. For a starting point, see our pricing page.
The schedule depends on how quickly each stage is approved, the format and the number of versions. Animation adds design and animation time. Live action adds a shoot and its planning. Set the launch date first and work back from it.
Use live action when a real person is the proof, such as a former smoker. Use animation when the subject is sensitive, abstract or likely to change. Our PSA videos for scams, vaccines, fishing subsidies and insurance rules are all animated. Our guide to types of PSA videos compares the main formats.
Knowing how to make a PSA video comes down to one audience and one action. Every step after that, from the messenger to the measurement, exists to make that action easy to take.
Start with the sentence that names what you want viewers to do. If that sentence is clear, the script, the storyboard, the edit and every cut of the video have something to aim at.
Larry is the Founder and Producer at Mammothic Films, with more than 15 years of production experience. He leads a team that creates story-driven videos for businesses and brands. A marketer, designer, and animator, Larry has overseen the production of more than 1,500 videos for Fujitsu, Logitech, Warner Brothers, NFL, Blockdaemon, Astronomer, Canonical, and 370+ other companies in Canada, the United States, and around the world.
Larry is a devout Christian who believes in placing God first, and that everything else is a blessing that comes from serving Him. When he’s not working, he’s hanging out with his wife and three kids, playing the piano, or sightseeing.