Skip to main content

Explainer Videos

Who this section is for: Marketers, educators, product teams, and content creators who need to explain something complex in a way that's clear, engaging, and easy to understand.

An explainer video has one job: take something the viewer doesn't understand and make them understand it. Whether you're explaining a SaaS product, a medical procedure, a financial concept, or how a piece of technology works — the craft is the same. You need a clear narrative arc, visual support for every abstract idea, and a pace that gives the viewer time to follow along.

ACT3 AI is particularly well-suited to explainers because the platform handles visual storytelling structure natively — you don't need to think like an animator or video producer to produce a great one.

What you can make here​

  • Product explainers — How your software or service works
  • Process explainers — How a complex process is done step by step
  • Concept explainers — Making an abstract idea visual and understandable
  • Educational videos — Teaching a skill, a subject, or a framework
  • Onboarding videos — Walk new users or customers through getting started

Start here: story structure and scripting​

If you're starting from a topic or idea and haven't written the script yet, begin with these two pages. They cover the storytelling principles that make explainer videos work and the step-by-step process of turning an idea into a production-ready script.

  • Storytelling Structure: How explainer video storytelling works — hook, empathy bridge, explanation, resolution — and how each maps to ACT3 AI's scenes, shots, and acts.
  • Idea to Script: From a rough topic or concept to a finished script — finding the visual metaphor, structuring the three movements, and using the AI to draft or assist. Includes a worked example.

Production guides by format​

Each guide below walks through the full production process for a specific explainer format. Tasks in each guide link to the relevant how-to pages.

  • How-It-Works Video: Explain how your product or process works. The most common explainer format.
  • Step-by-Step Process Video: Walk through a sequence of steps. Built for training, onboarding, and procedural content.
  • Concept Explainer: Make an abstract idea visual and concrete. For finance, technology, science, and any topic with invisible mechanisms.
  • Educational Series: Multi-episode structured learning content with consistent visual identity across episodes.