The explainer video guide
Thirty-plus working guides, all grounded in one studio's production records — sixty-plus produced videos, the review verdicts included. Start with the method, go deep where your problem is.
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No brief. No call. No card. Made by the team behind 20cuts.com.
The library
Every guide, by shelf. All free, no gate.
Craft
- Animation timing and easing: why your video feels off — Timing decisions are meaning decisions: the sync, hold, easing, and rhythm rules we tuned across our produced explainers.
- Camera moves in product videos: when to move, when to cut, when to hold still — The camera is the video's attention: when to move, when to cut, when to hold still, and what separated rejected videos from accepted ones.
- Explainer video hooks: the first five seconds — The two opens that pass review, the six-step hook anatomy, and the named ways explainer openings die.
- How long should an explainer video be? — Real length data from our produced explainers, the words-per-second math, and why runtime follows scene count.
- How should an explainer video end? The CTA and the last ten seconds — How to end an explainer video: the closing line, the final frame, and the right ask for homepage, Product Hunt, docs, and ads.
- How to make an animated explainer video — Our working method: plan backwards from the viewer, lock a scene list, review stills before motion, write narration last.
- How to make animated videos — The four realistic paths for a beginner, what each tool class is good at, and what actually determines whether the result is any good.
- How to storyboard an explainer video — What every storyboard row must contain, why the scene list is a contract, and where the still-frame gate fits before motion.
- How to write an explainer video script — Write the visuals first, one idea per scene, narration last: the scripting order that keeps a video from becoming a narrated slideshow.
- How to write voice over for an explainer video — The narration register that survives review: full sentences at 1.9 words per second, written last, to a locked picture.
- Music for explainer videos: what the soundtrack is actually for — What the music bed does, how loud it should be, why silence beats bad sound, and the licensing terms every buyer should demand.
- One idea per scene: the rule that runs the whole video — What 'one idea' actually means, how to catch a two-idea scene before you build it, and how to sequence beats into a chain that teaches.
- Show the real product: why invented UI kills explainer videos — Invented interface reads as a brochure; real surfaces read as proof. The grounding method that keeps every frame of a product video true.
- The six explainer video mistakes that happen before anyone animates — The expensive mistakes are upstream of the visuals: no falsifiable thesis, narration-first scripts, skipped stills, unbounded revisions.
- What makes a good explainer video? — The rules that separate alive videos from dead ones, learned across our produced explainers: sync, focus, holds, real surfaces.
- Why do explainer videos look cheap? — Explainer videos look cheap for mechanical, nameable reasons, none of them budget. Each failure mode, its tell, and the fix that removes it.
By use case
- AI startup explainer videos: show the behavior, not the brain — AI products do invisible work for skeptical buyers. The fix is real inputs, real outputs, and timing that makes the mechanism visible.
- API explainer videos: explaining a product with no UI — Make one real request the main character. Diagram rules, code-on-screen rules, and where API videos live: docs, launches, talks.
- Devtools explainer videos: how to explain a developer tool without setting off the marketing alarm — Developers punish marketing video. A devtools explainer works when it behaves like documentation with better staging.
- Documentation videos: making videos that work as reference — Docs videos get watched by stuck people mid-task. How to make them atomic, consistent across a series, and cheap to keep true.
- Feature release videos: turn your changelog into a cadence — Release videos work as a series with a standing system: the first video carries the setup cost and the rest mostly reuse it.
- Launch videos: one claim, shown once, shipped on time — A launch video makes one claim and proves it with a real run. This guide covers the altitude, the discipline, and the deadline math.
- Onboarding videos: what users actually watch inside a product — Users consult onboarding videos like docs: mid-task, out of order, wanting one answer. Each video should be built for that reader.
- Open-source project videos: turning stars into users — Why a README video converts stars into first runs, what it should show (the real tool, fast), and how to make one with no budget.
- Product Hunt launch videos: what actually works in the gallery — A Product Hunt video plays muted, skimmed, and scrubbed. These are the rules that survive that, with real launches judged by them.
- SaaS explainer videos: where they live, what they must prove, what to expect — Why placement decides the script, the three beliefs a SaaS viewer needs, and how to stage dense UI without faking it.
Pricing & decisions
- Animated video tools: the five classes, and what each one can't do — Template editors, AI generators, motion-design software, code animation, and services: real costs, learning curves, quality ceilings.
- Explainer video styles: what each one is for (and when it looks cheap) — Diagrammatic, screencast, character, whiteboard, 3D, typographic — what each style does well, what it costs, and its cheap tell.
- Explainer video: agency or DIY? — The five jobs every explainer needs done, which ones each path actually hands off, and how to choose by stage, budget, and deadline.
- How long does an explainer video take to make? — Agencies run 4–9 weeks. Where the weeks actually go — rounds, handoffs, approval waits — and what a realistic fast path looks like.
- How much does an animated explainer video cost in 2026? — Real numbers: agency ranges, tool subscriptions, and our actual public prices of $1,500 to $3,500, with a free 20-cut board first.
- Product demo vs. explainer video: which one do you need? — Demos prove, explainers teach. The altitude difference, where each format fails, and the hybrid pattern that does both jobs.
The method
- The 20cuts method: pick your video instead of describing it — How the method works: six stages, twenty free 15–30s cuts of your real product in 24 hours, and what happens after you pick one.
The method in one paragraph
Plan backwards from the one sentence the viewer should believe. Cut it into 6–8 scenes with one idea each. Build from the product's real surfaces — no source, no value. Review still frames before paying for motion (it catches the worst failures at ~5% of the cost). Move the camera between ideas, keep sync honest, cap dead holds. Write the narration last, to the finished picture, at about 1.9 words per second. Budget half the work for revision, because that's what the records say it takes.
What separates good from cheap
Across a director-graded corpus, quality tracked three measurable disciplines, not budget: real product surfaces instead of invented ones, a camera that moves between ideas instead of one static layout, and things that visibly run instead of decorated stillness. The registry of failure modes — text walls, floating elements, fake UI, dead holds, trailer voice — is in why explainer videos look cheap.
Questions
Are the guides really free?
Yes — no email gate, no excerpts. The library is the studio's working doctrine, published.
Where should I start?
If you're making a video: how to make an animated explainer video. If you're evaluating one: what makes a good explainer video, then the looks-cheap failure registry.
Who writes these?
The studio behind 20cuts.com. The numbers come from our own production records and graded review corpus, and judgment calls are marked as experience, not statistics.
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