The average person speaks roughly 2-3 words per second. So, a 30-second spot script could be roughly 75 words. For a 60 second script, you get around 150 words.
So what's a radio writer to do? Stick to these rules of thumb: 15 Second Spot – 30 to 40 words. 30 Second Spot – 75 to 85 words.
Limit it to 500 characters. When writing the script for your commercial, try to keep it under 500 characters, which is approximately 80 words. This will ensure that you can get your full message across without having to talk too quickly to cram it in.
60 seconds: approx 120 words. 30 seconds: approx 60 words. 15 seconds: approx 30 words.
Writing for a 30-second ad
A good rule of thumb is that the average person speaks about two to three words per second. This means your final 30-second script should be around 75 words (give or take). If you use a lot of long words, it might need to be shorter!
From established writers and showrunners, a half-hour sitcom script can be as long as 44 pages. Keep in mind that sitcoms are more often than not dialogue-heavy, which would account for the increased page counts. For novice writers, it's best to shoot for 22-25 pages to get you under that 30-minute gauge.
For those in the U.S. speaking English, the average rate is around 150 words per minute. Once you've written your script, you can figure out how long your video will be by dividing the word count by 150. So, if your script has 300 words, your video will run approximately 2 minutes accounting for speaking alone.
This is how it breaks down: Video Length: 30 seconds = 60-word script. Video Length: 1 minute = 120-word script.
A speaker with an average speaking speed will need 700 words for a 5 minutes speech.
Consider these guidelines: 15 Second Spot – 30 to 40 words. 30 Second Spot – 70 to 80 words. 60 Second Spot – 120 to 150 words.
The page count of a script is crucial because it directly correlates to the length of the finished film. The general "script page to minutes" rule of thumb is that one page of a screenplay equates to one minute of screen time.
Answer: 32,000 characters is between 4571 words and 8000 words with spaces included in the character count. If spaces are not included in the character count, then 32,000 characters is between 5333 words and 10667 words.
Feature film scripts usually run between 80-120 pages for an approximately 1.5 or 2-hour movie; each script page corresponds to approximately one minute of screen time.
Word Count
All you need to know is that 10,000 words of script will occupy around an hour of stage time and pro rata from there – so 1000 words take six minutes3.
How Many Words Are in a 7 Minute Speech? Most speakers have 910 – 1190 words in a 7 minute speech, with the average at ~980 words.
How many words are there in a 15-minute speech? If you are a slow speaker, a little less than 1,800 words. If you speak at an average speed between: 1,800 - 2,400 words. If you are a fast speaker between: 2,400 - 3,000 words.
To get a good idea of how many words a script contains, see it this way, a 1,500 word script makes 10 minutes.
On average there are 450 words in a 3 minute speech. This is based on the average speech rate of 250 words per minute. At the 3 minute mark, even a novice speaker could keep going at the rate they started – with some practice.
Your 30-second commercial should: Identify who you are. Highlight a few strengths and accomplishments. Show how you can bring added value to an organization.
These estimated film times do not take into consideration any mishaps that may occur throughout the day. In fact, our own video production crew here at Sheffield Audio-Video Productions has shared that filming raw footage of a 30-second commercial can take at least 4 hours to capture perfectly.
In a screenplay, one page roughly equates to one minute of screen time. This means that as a general rule of thumb, screenplays typically run from 90 to 120 pages long. Screenplays are made up of many scenes, and each scene can be as short as half a page or as long as ten pages.
Answer: 2000 words is 4 pages single spaced or 8 pages double spaced.
How many words are in a 60 second script? For most English-based video scripts, you should aim for 120-180 words in a 60 second script. The average 60 second script has 150 words in it – which is a natural speaking rate of 2.5 words per second.
Speech and publication coach Daphne Gray-Grant found that, on average, people speak at a rate of 125 to 150 wpm so a 6 minutes long speech uses between 750 to 900 words. You can use our word counter tool to see how long on average your text will take to speak.