Voiceover That Fits the Cut

What it is for

Scripts written before anyone counts seconds always overrun, and the usual rescue — raising the playback speed — is audible to everyone. This gives you a words-per-second budget, a one-block-per-shot structure and a rule against speeding up to fit, so the read lands inside the cut without being squeezed. Use it for ads, explainers and anything voiced against locked picture.

The skill Copy

Write to the duration, then to the words. The other way round is how you end
up at 130% speed calling it a stylistic choice.

Budget first:
- A calm commercial read is around 150 words per minute. So 30 seconds is
  70-80 words INCLUDING the pauses, and 15 seconds is 35-40.
- Subtract a beat for every pause you actually want. Silence is part of the
  word count, not a free extra.
- Write the script to that number before you open the editor. If it does not
  fit, the script is too long. The voice is not too slow.

Build it per shot, not per paragraph:
- One block per shot, in shot order. One block, one shot, no exceptions.
- Keep the shot durations in the shot list beside you, not in the app.
  Anything you type into a block is script, and script gets spoken.
- Leave roughly half a second of silence at the head and tail of each shot. A
  voice that starts exactly on the cut sounds like a mistake.
- Where a shot runs longer than its line, add a pause of the difference inside
  that line. Do not stretch the read to fill it.

The limits worth respecting:
- Speeding a read up to fit is audible before it is comfortable. Much past a
  tenth faster than normal, the timbre shifts and the breaths shorten
  unevenly. Cut words instead. Every time.
- Slowing it down drags, and the pauses stop being pauses and become holes.

Change one block at a time. Anything you apply across the whole script re-times
every shot you had already locked, and you will not notice until the render.

Then check it where it will be heard: play the finished mix through a phone
speaker with the music underneath. A read that is clean on headphones and
buried under a music bed is not finished, it is unmixed.

How to install it Copy

1. Open the tool and start a new conversation, project or template.
2. Paste the text below wherever the tool keeps standing instructions
   — usually called system prompt, instructions, or persona.
3. Save it so it applies to every run rather than a single message.

Did it work for you?

Where it came from