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Larry Mutenda | How do you write a PSA video script? To write a PSA video script, pick one audience and one action, then make the first five seconds about the viewer. Lay it out in two columns, with visuals and on-screen text on the left and voiceover on the right. Budget 130 to 150 spoken words per minute, end on one clear ask, read it aloud against the runtime and get every fact signed off before production. |
A PSA video script is the plan for every second of a public service announcement. It sets what the viewer sees, what they hear and what text sits on screen. Its job is to change one behaviour, not to sell a product. That single goal shapes every column of the script.
Our general guide on how to write a video script covers formats and structure for any video. This page covers what is different about a PSA. The viewer may see it once, sometimes with the sound off. It has to earn their trust in seconds.
We have produced over 100 nonprofit videos across more than 15 years. Many were public service videos that had to explain something hard in under two minutes. Seven of the videos below are ours. Two are live action spots from other sponsors, chosen because their scripts show one step clearly.
Each step has one video whose script shows that step. For our own videos, we quote the voiceover exactly as it appears in the finished video. For the two third-party spots, we describe the video from the sponsor’s own published account.
For more finished spots from other sponsors, browse our roundup of public service announcements. Once your script is locked, our guide on how to make a PSA video covers storyboard, production and delivery.
| # | Step | What you write | Video example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Know who the video is for | The one viewer, at the top of the script | YWCA Canada |
| 2 | Pick one action | The single thing they should do | Accounting Aid Society |
| 3 | Write the first five seconds | The opening shot and line | Samaritans |
| 4 | Explain the problem in plain voiceover | The spoken explanation | IISD |
| 5 | Choose who appears on screen | The messenger | American Heart Association |
| 6 | Split visuals and voiceover | Two columns and on-screen text | HSC Public Health Agency |
| 7 | Match the script to the runtime | Word count | Makers Making Change |
| 8 | Write the ask and the end screen | The closing line and end card | Disability Rights Oregon |
| 9 | Read it aloud and get sign-off | Pacing, facts and approvals | CLAS BC |
Start by naming the one group who must watch this video. A PSA video written for “the public” usually reaches nobody in particular. Write down their age, what they already believe, where they will see the video and what might make them scroll past.
Client: YWCA Canada.
Project type: 2D animated awareness video, 1:31.
Communication challenge: Explain online hate to young people without scaring off the audience the video is trying to protect.
Creative approach: The voiceover opens by agreeing with the viewer. “For young people, digital lives can be both exciting and nerve wracking.”
That first line shows the writer knows the audience. Young people will not sit through a lecture about the internet. So the script admits the good part first, then names the harms plainly. Later it adds a line for the viewer who feels singled out: “Everyone is vulnerable, and you are not alone.”
Put the audience at the top of your PSA video script, above the first scene. Check every visual and every line against it. If a shot or a line would make that viewer tune out, cut it.
Decide the one thing the viewer should do when the video ends. A PSA video script that asks for three things usually gets none of them. Write the action as a single sentence under the audience line, and keep it in front of you while you draft.
Client: Accounting Aid Society, a nonprofit tax clinic.
Project type: 2D character animation, 1:32.
Communication challenge: Warn people about fake IRS messages and tell them what the IRS really does.
Creative approach: The story is built around one rule. “The IRS will only contact you by mail.”
Everything else in the video supports that rule. Todd gets a suspicious text and calls his cousin Ruby, who “also got a similar text message from the IRS last year.” Through that conversation the viewer learns the rule. The script treats any text or call from the IRS as a scam. If a letter comes, the script says what to do next.
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 CDC Clear Communication Index scores public health materials on whether they have one main message and a clear call to action. Run your script against those two items before you plan a single shot.
The first five seconds of a PSA video have to stop the viewer and tell them it is about them. Write this beat first. Write both columns for it: the first shot and the first line.
Small Talk Saves Lives is a live action film by Samaritans, made for a campaign with British Transport Police, Network Rail and the rail industry. In its launch release, Samaritans describes the setup. Passengers on a train platform first think a station announcer is warning them of delays due to a suicide on the line. Then they find out they are hearing a story of hope and recovery, told by Sarah Wilson herself.
The opening borrows a sound every rail passenger knows. People listen to a platform announcement because they think it is about their journey. Then the script turns it into something else. The hook works because the viewer is already paying attention before they know what the message is.
When you draft your own opening, write the first shot and the first line together. Ask what the viewer sees in frame one, and what line makes them stay for frame two.
By the numbers: In a survey of train travellers carried out for the campaign, Samaritans reported that more than 4 out of 5 would approach someone who may be suicidal if they knew the signs to look out for, what to say, and that they wouldn’t make the situation worse.
Write the voiceover the way you would explain the problem to a neighbour. Most PSA topics come with jargon from law, health, trade or policy. A PSA video script has to turn it into lines a viewer can follow once, at speaking speed.
Client: International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Project type: 2D animation, 2:13.
Communication challenge: Explain a slow trade negotiation about fisheries subsidies to a general audience, and make it feel urgent.
Creative approach: The voiceover opens with “The ocean needs our help now.” Then comes one number. “Over one third of the world’s marine fish populations are overfished.”
Next the script names a cause most viewers have never heard of. Governments subsidize fishing operations “with taxpayer money, directly incentivizing even more fishing.” Twenty years of trade talks are covered in a few short lines. Each line carries one idea.
The US government’s plain language guides are a useful check here. Short words, active voice and one idea per sentence matter even more when the words are heard once and not reread. We apply the same rules on our healthcare video production work.
Pick the on-screen messenger before you write the lines, because the messenger sets the tone of every sentence. The same warning lands differently from an agency narrator, a doctor, a peer or a famous face. The messenger also decides what the visuals column needs: a presenter on camera, actors in a scene or animated characters.
Stayin’ Alive is a live action Hands-Only CPR video from the American Heart Association, starring Ken Jeong. The association’s launch release says it was directed by Jesse Dylan. It opens on friends playing charades. One guest collapses from cardiac arrest. Jeong steps in wearing a white suit like the one John Travolta wore in Saturday Night Fever. He teaches Hands-Only CPR to the beat of the Bee Gees song.
The messenger does two jobs here. Jeong is known for comedy, which gets people to watch. He also has medical training, which gives the instructions weight. The association’s president said Jeong brings “relevance, authority as a medical professional, and, of course, excellent comedic timing.” The song does a third job. It gives the viewer a beat they can recall at the moment they need it.
Name the messenger in the visuals column of your PSA video script. Then write every line in the voice that person would use.
By the numbers: The American Heart Association’s release states that chances of survival more than double with immediate and effective CPR. It also states that about 80 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims collapse at home.
Write the PSA video script in two columns, with visuals on the left and voiceover on the right. On-screen text goes in the visuals column, marked as a super. This layout lets the sponsor, the producer and the animator see what the viewer sees at every line.
Client: HSC Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland.
Project type: 2D animated public health video, 1:44.
Communication challenge: Explain why the MMR vaccine matters during measles outbreaks in Europe, and answer the safety question parents ask.
Creative approach: The voiceover opens on the parent’s own question. “Why is the MMR vaccine important for you and your family?”
The script then answers in order: what measles does, who is at risk and when the free doses are offered. Here is how two of its lines could sit in a two-column PSA video script. The visuals column is our illustration of the layout, not a shot list from the finished video.
| Visuals | Voiceover |
|---|---|
| A parent holds a toddler. Super: “Why MMR?” | “Why is the MMR vaccine important for you and your family?” |
| A map with markers across many countries. Super: “500 million+ doses” | “Over the last forty years more than five hundred million doses of MMR vaccine have been given in over one hundred countries, so we know it is really safe.” |
Keep supers short. A viewer cannot read one sentence and listen to a different one at the same time. A figure, a phone number or a web address works well on screen. Full sentences belong in the captions.
Set the runtime before you draft, then write the voiceover to fit it. In our video script guide we budget around 130 to 150 spoken words per minute. That puts a 30-second spot near 60 to 75 words and a 60-second spot near 130 to 150.
Client: Makers Making Change.
Project type: 2D animated volunteer recruitment video, 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 barrier in one line. “The cost of assistive technologies is often a barrier for people.” Then it lists the ways to help.
The caption transcript runs about 140 words in 56 seconds. That is about 150 words per minute, the top of our range. Each line is one short instruction. The web address is said at the start and again at the end. A script with pauses, characters or dialogue needs more room. The Disability Rights Oregon script in step 8 runs about 170 words in 1:04. That is about 159 words per minute, above our range. It works as a brisk read for one continuous argument. It leaves little room for pauses or an end card. Treat word counts as planning estimates, not broadcast rules.
Count the voiceover words only, not the visuals column. Then time a read at the pace you want. If it runs long, cut lines, not pauses.
The ask is the last line of voiceover and the last thing on screen. It tells the viewer exactly what to do and where. Write the spoken line and the end screen text together in your PSA video script so they match.
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 walks through the mechanism one step at a time. Then it lands on one moral line. “Nobody should have to choose between life saving medication and putting food on the table.”
The ask follows straight after. “Oregon should prohibit insurance companies from pocketing financial assistance meant to help patients pay for their medication.” The final line gives the web address, spoken as “droregon dot org slash meds” so it works as audio.
A strong ask uses an action verb, names one place to act and is short enough to remember. On the end screen, show only that place: one web address or one phone number. If the ask needs a second sentence to explain it, simplify the ask.
Read the whole script aloud with a stopwatch, then lock the facts and approvals before voice recording or animation starts. Lines that look fine on the page can sound cold, rushed or confusing out loud. A line changed after the voiceover is recorded also costs far more than a line changed in a document.
Client: CLAS BC, for its Stand Informed service.
Project type: Animated awareness video, 1:36.
Communication challenge: Tell people who have experienced sexual assault in BC that free legal advice exists, and remove the reasons they might not call.
Creative approach: The script says what is not required first. Stand Informed has no gender, age, race or immigration status requirements, and “you don’t have to have reported the incident to the police.”
Two short lines follow: “We know that what you’ve experienced is traumatic. What happened is not your fault.” Read aloud, those lines need space around them. A read-aloud test shows where the voice should slow down and where the picture should hold still. The script also states eligibility rules and up to three hours of legal advice. Those are the lines a sponsor’s legal team needs to check.
Before production, confirm that each statistic in the PSA video script has a named source the sponsor accepts. Check that eligibility rules match current policy and that the phone number or web address is correct. On nonprofit video production projects, keep this checklist in the script document, next to the lines it covers.
Strong PSA video scripts share a few habits, whatever the topic or format. These are the patterns across the nine videos above.
Each PSA video script above speaks to a single person: a young person online, a taxpayer, a rail passenger, a parent, a patient or a survivor. None of them address “everyone.” Writing for one viewer keeps the words and the pictures specific.
The Samaritans film borrows a station announcement. The MMR video opens on the parent’s own question. Both give the viewer a reason to keep watching before the message arrives.
A good PSA video script does not say in voiceover what the viewer can already see. Supers carry the numbers. The visuals carry the setting. The voiceover carries the argument.
Disability Rights Oregon uses one moral line. CLAS BC uses two short sentences of reassurance. The rest of each script is plain information, and that keeps the emotional line strong.
Most of the scripts above end with somewhere to go: a clinic, a website, a doctor or a phone line. A video that ends on a feeling and no next step leaves the viewer with nothing to do.
Pick one audience and one action. Write the first five seconds so the viewer knows the video is about them. Lay the script out in two columns, visuals and voiceover, with short on-screen text. Fit the word count to the runtime, end on one clear ask, read it aloud and get every fact signed off before production.
A PSA video script depends on the runtime. At 130 to 150 spoken words per minute, a 30-second script lands around 60 to 75 words and a 60-second script around 130 to 150. A slower, calm read on a sensitive subject fits fewer words.
Most PSA video scripts use two columns. The left column describes what the viewer sees, including on-screen text. The right column holds the voiceover or dialogue, line by line. Each row is one beat of the video. The next stage is a storyboard, where each row becomes a frame.
A regular video script often sells a product or explains a service. A PSA script asks the public to change one behaviour, such as getting vaccinated or spotting a scam. It needs a messenger the audience trusts and facts the sponsor can defend. You can compare the forms a PSA can take in our guide to types of PSA videos.
Both work, and the choice changes the visuals column of the script. Animation suits sensitive subjects because it can show a situation without filming real people at a hard moment. Live action suits scripts where a real face or a real place carries the message, as in the Samaritans film. Our guide on how to make a PSA video covers that choice in production.
A PSA video script works when it knows who is watching and what it wants them to do. The opening seconds, the plain voiceover, the messenger, the supers and the end screen all serve that one action.
Draft it in two columns, cut it to the runtime, read it aloud and check every fact. Then it is ready for voice, picture and production.
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.