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DocumentationCustom Script

Custom Script

Already have a script you’re happy with? Skip the AI scriptwriting entirely. Paste your own text into VidRush and the platform builds the video around your words: narration, visuals, music, and editing, using your script as the source of truth.

This is ideal when you’ve written or refined a script externally (using Claude, ChatGPT, or your own process) and want full control over exactly what gets said.

How to use a Custom Script

  1. Open the prompt window and click the + button in the bottom left.
  2. Select Custom Script.
  3. Paste your script text.

VidRush takes it from there: generating voiceovers from your text, matching visuals to your narration, and assembling the final video.

When you use a Custom Script, Format and Length controls are automatically disabled. VidRush determines the final duration based on your text length and the selected voice’s speaking speed. Expect roughly ± 2 minutes of variance from what you might estimate.

The maximum input is 5,200 words, which produces approximately 40 minutes of video.

Formatting rules

⚠️

Your script must be narration-ready. Remove everything below before pasting. VidRush’s TTS engine reads every word literally.

Remove all of the following before pasting:

  • Speaker labels (NARRATOR:, VOICEOVER:)
  • Timestamps (0:00–2:30)
  • Stage directions ([PAUSE], [DRAMATIC MUSIC], [CUT TO])
  • Production notes ([Note: add B-roll here])
  • URLs (the AI will literally say “h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash” out loud)
  • YouTube auto-caption artifacts ([Music], [Applause])
  • Tab indentation (use regular line breaks instead)

What works well:

  • Clean prose broken into natural paragraphs
  • Writing a natural sign-off near the end (e.g., “Thanks for watching, don’t forget to subscribe for more history mysteries”). VidRush detects this language and automatically applies the Subscribe CTA Overlay or the “What’s Next” animation template
  • Specific, descriptive language that gives the Footage Agent strong visual keywords. Write “the First National Bank in downtown Miami” instead of “[SHOW BANK]”

Pro tip: Before pasting into VidRush, run your script through Claude with this instruction: “Clean this script for a text-to-speech engine. Remove all non-narration text, including speaker labels, timestamps, stage directions, and notes.” This catches anything you might have missed.

Credit cost and duration

Credits are based on the final rendered video length in the editor, not the word count of your script. Custom Scripts use the same credit rates as any other generation. The cost depends on your selected model and reasoning effort. See Credit System for details.

Good to know

  • Custom Scripts work with both Auto and Manual Mode. In Auto, VidRush handles all visual and creative decisions around your script. In Manual, you still go through the Reference Video and Q&A steps, which can further refine the visual treatment.
  • The AI Prompt Checker still runs on Custom Scripts and may flag formatting issues. Fix anything it catches before generating.
  • For the best AI-written scripts, the community consensus is that Claude tends to produce more natural, human-sounding writing than ChatGPT. Pair it with a transcript from your Reference Video for even better results.
Answering Questions (Manual Mode)Custom Voiceover