Explain a Paper home

For industry and organisations

Your white papers and reports, explained on film.

Explain a Paper turns white papers, technical and R&D reports, policy and sustainability reports and standards into short, narrated, captioned films, so customers, investors, members and colleagues get the ideas without reading every page.

  • Two sign-offs, not sixYou approve a script and accept the film, and we do the rest.
  • In your own brandYour palette, typeface and logo on the enterprise plan, or your own slide layout on any film.
  • Invoice and purchase order30-day terms, and a data processing agreement on request.

What organisations use it for

A document that took months to write deserves more readers than it usually gets. A short film is something people watch, share and come back to.

Sales enablement

Turn a white paper or a technical brief into a film your sales team can send before a meeting, so the buyer arrives knowing what the product does and why it matters.

Investor and stakeholder updates

Explain an R&D result, a technical milestone or a strategy paper to investors, boards and partners who need the substance, not the detail.

Explaining a technical standard

Help members, suppliers or regulators understand what a standard or a specification requires, what has changed and who it affects.

Internal knowledge sharing

Share a technical report or a research finding across teams and sites, with captions and a transcript so it works on an intranet with the sound off.

Sustainability and impact reports

Bring the key points of a sustainability, ESG or impact report to customers, employees and the public, alongside the full document.

Policy briefs and evaluations

For think tanks, charities and public bodies: a policy brief or an evaluation, explained for the public, funders and decision-makers.

Built, not generated

Technical and regulated content cannot afford a garbled number. Generative video models paint every frame, so text and charts often come out garbled or invented. We build each frame from the document's own words and data.

Typeset, not painted

Every word on screen is typeset, so there is no garbled lettering and no text that is not in the script you approved.

Plotted from your numbers

Charts are plotted from the document's own figures. In our pilot film of Hubble's 1929 paper, all 24 nebulae come from his Table 1.

Says what you approved

Diagrams are drawn deliberately, and what the film says is the script you approved, with human review by one of our editors if you add it.

What you send, and what you get back

You send

  • A PDF of up to 25 MB that is not password-protected: a white paper, a report, a standard or a paper.
  • Who the film is for, how long it should be and what to emphasise.
  • Your choice of voice and layout, or your own brand on the enterprise plan.
  • Confirmation that you have the right to have it adapted. For your own organisation's documents that is usually straightforward.
  • A flag if it is confidential or under embargo (see below).

You get back

  • A draft script, written for your audience, to approve or change. Nothing is rendered until you approve it.
  • A narrated film with captions, a transcript and a poster image.
  • 3 revision rounds with every film.
  • The right to use, publish and share the film anywhere, permanently, including commercially. The script is yours.

Want a second pair of eyes? Add human review (£99 per film, £118.80 inc. VAT): one of our editors, who did not prepare the script, checks it against the document and signs it off before it comes to you. Your approval stays the final check.

More on how it works

Confidential and embargoed documents

Much of what organisations want explained is not public yet. Here is exactly where we stand today.

Flag it, and it is treated differently

Mark a document confidential or under embargo, with the embargo date, when you order. Nothing from a flagged document is published or used as a sample, and everyone on our team who handles it sees the flag. You decide when to publish the finished film.

A confidential or embargoed document goes to a language model only under a zero-data-retention arrangement, or to a private model on infrastructure we control. Neither is in place yet, so we cannot yet process confidential or embargoed documents. You can prepare and save the order now, and we keep it and email you when we can. A zero-data-retention option is coming for confidential and embargoed papers.

Everything else

A language model helps draft each script. For a document that is not confidential or under embargo, this is what applies. Our language-model provider, Anthropic, may retain the material we send it for a limited period (currently up to 30 days, or up to 2 years if its automated systems flag the material as breaching its usage policy) for safety and abuse monitoring. It does not use it to train its models. You accept this when you submit the order.

If your organisation prefers, we can use your own Anthropic API key instead, in which case your organisation's agreement with Anthropic governs that processing.

Uploaded documents are stored privately, used only to make your film, and deleted 90 days after you accept the film.

Data protection

We process the personal data in your documents as your processor, and sign a UK GDPR Article 28 data processing agreement with your organisation on request. The privacy policy names everyone who processes your information.

Non-disclosure agreements

If you need a non-disclosure agreement in place before you share a document, say so in your enquiry and we will look at it with you before you send anything.

Your brand, your layout, your choice of voice

Your own brand pack

On the enterprise plan, send your logo, colours and typeface, and we build your brand pack within 10 working days. Every film then carries your look. If your typeface cannot be licensed for video, we use IBM Plex Sans.

Upload your own layout

On any film, download our PowerPoint or PNG template, move the coloured boxes to where the title, text, animation and your logo should go, export the slide and upload it. Our team checks it before your film is made. Included free during our launch.

Style and voice

Choose slides (text beside the animation), full animation or a mix of the two. Hear each synthetic narration voice before you choose; voices are always free, and every film says the voice is synthetic.

Enterprise

from £499/month

from £598.80/month inc. VAT
  • 15 film credits each month, for any document
  • A brand pack built from your logo, colours and typeface
  • Up to 5 members on one account, with one bill
  • 3 revision rounds with every film
  • Monthly; cancel at the end of any billing month

The monthly allowance does not roll over. Need fewer films? A single film or a pack of credits works too.

Invoice and purchase order

If your finance team needs a purchase order, we set up your account and invoice you on 30-day terms, with no card needed.

Human review options

Human review is not included in the base plan. Add it per film at £99, or take the review add-on (£749/month) so that every film submitted while it is active gets human review.

Tell us what you would like explained

Tell us your organisation, the kind of documents you have in mind, roughly how many films you expect a year, and whether you need a purchase order, an invoice or a non-disclosure agreement.

We are opening for orders soon. We reply to every enquiry, usually within two working days.

Send an enquiry

Email [email protected] with:

  • your name and organisation
  • the documents you have in mind, and films per year, roughly
  • whether you need a purchase order, an invoice or an NDA