For my HECBSW framework, symbols and emotions are really important tools to make any script come alive. And I think I have been thinking about visuals on a very surface level.Sure I would try to paint some picture using words. I would try to cram a bit of stuff into the text but when it came to visualizing I always was lacking something. Let’s explore this scenario.

There is a guy who wants to buy something so he is watching your videos but he has a low budget so he needs to either lower his budget or increase his budget.

A subpar metaphor and text pair here would:

Text : the feature you want will not come in this price range.
Visual : empty wallet

A good example would be:

Text : if you want that, you might need to save for more time.
Visual : a sad man crouching under the table in the corner of the room.

See? In the first example I showed the first thing that is connected to the situation. Money is connected, right? So the first instinct might be to show an empty wallet but what does that empty wallet signify for a human? We are supposed to put humans at the forefront of everything, right? We content or any influence tool should have humans at the center of it. They are essentially human worship. Thus money can not be the metaphor at the centre of it. It has to be the person himself and the emotion he is feeling. Yes money is the symbol but it would work if we focused on the emotion more, right?And showed the symbol of money in just the text form and let the visual just be purely emotional. We might have to flip-flop between when to use text or visuals for symbols or emotions but you will acquire that skill set also as you keep writing.

That might also be why corporate videos feel so cringe that all the b-roll they use is object-oriented and not emotion-oriented. That their script will be talking about something but there is nothing human in it. It is not placing humans at the center.