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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.

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When you attach a Custom Script, VidRush infers both the format and the duration from your text. A documentary-style script is produced as a Documentary; a list-structured script is produced as a Top 10. Duration follows your text length and the selected voice’s speaking speed, with roughly plus or minus 2 minutes of variance. You will see the inferred format and duration in the Quote Statement before generation starts (“Your script is a documentary…”), and you can leave the duration field blank there.

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]”
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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 Credits & Billing for details.

Good to know

  • Your Brand Profile still applies: language, voice, theme, backgrounds, and compliance settings all shape how your script is produced. The script replaces the AI writing step and nothing else.
  • 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.
  • When you save your script, VidRush checks it before continuing. It scans for anything that could break the generation, so the check can take a moment, and formatting tips appear right in the upload dialog. If no error message appears, your script passed.
  • VidRush follows the language of your script. An English script produces an English video; a German script produces a German video.
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Generation ModelsCustom Voiceover