Planning, Scripting & Ideas
Words per minute
Also called: WPM, speaking rate, script read time
Divide the word count by your delivery rate and you get a runtime. Conversational English sits somewhere around 130 to 160 words a minute for most people, and narration read to picture usually runs slower, but the figure that matters is your own. Time yourself reading 500 words of a normal script, do the arithmetic once, and use that number from then on.
It is a planning tool with obvious limits. B-roll, pauses, jokes that land, demonstrations and everything you do on camera without speaking all add time the word count cannot see. A script that times at eight minutes routinely finishes north of ten.