Version three comes back with fourteen notes from four people. At 0:32, the marketing manager wants the customer testimonial gone so the video gets under a minute.
Two comments down, on the same timecode, the head of sales calls it the best part and asks for more of it. Legal wants a disclaimer on the end card, right where the logo animates in. The CEO hasn’t watched yet.
The editor can’t do both. Whichever note you follow, someone opens the next version, finds their request ignored and decides the production company got it wrong.
This post is for the person receiving the notes. If you need something to send to the people writing them, forward our guide on giving video feedback.
In short
- Stakeholders contradict each other because each one checks a different lane and nobody weighs one lane against another.
- At kickoff, name one approver and agree what each reviewer checks and who watches which round.
- When two notes clash, don’t pick a winner or split the difference: check that the conflict is real, then take both notes to the approver with options.
- Treat a note that arrives after approval as a change request, with the cost and a new date, sent to your approver.
Why stakeholders contradict each other
Each reviewer watches the video with a different job in mind.
- Marketing checks the message and the length against the campaign plan.
- Brand looks at the logo, the colors and the type.
- Legal reads every claim and wants to know where the music and the stock footage came from.
- The product team checks that the feature on screen works the way it’s shown.
- The executive asks whether this is how the company should look, usually on a phone and usually last.
In their own lane, each of them is right. The trouble starts when nobody weighs one lane against another.
Most of the time the notes reach you through separate channels, an email here and a WhatsApp there, so you’re the only one who knows two of them clash.
On some projects nobody on the client side has been named to decide. And sometimes a person joins late and undoes something the others settled two rounds ago.
What to agree at kickoff
Before the first cut goes out, settle a few things with your main contact and put them in the kickoff notes.
Name the person who approves. Plenty of people can review, but one person has the final say on the cut and settles the clashes.
It’s usually whoever owns the budget or the campaign. On a large project, write the name into the proposal.
Ask who else reviews and what each of them is there to check, and say on day one what happens when notes clash. A note from the brand manager about pacing is welcome, but if it goes against the approver’s, the approver decides.
Agree who watches which round. Not everyone needs the rough cut, and a legal team that first sees the video after the mix will ask for changes that take the mix with them. This split works on most corporate and brand projects:
| Round | Who watches | What they check |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Approver, legal, brand | Claims, names, figures, what each person says |
| Rough cut | Approver, marketing | Story, structure, length |
| Fine cut | Every reviewer, executive included | Everything except final color and sound |
| Final | Approver | Fixes from the last round, sign-off |
Then ask the approver one direct question. “Will anyone above you want to see this before it goes out?”
If the answer is yes, put that person on the fine cut. Our post on picture lock explains why notes that arrive after the mix cost so much more.
When two notes contradict in the same round
Don’t pick a winner, even when you agree with one side. The person you overruled will raise the same note on the next version, and by then the argument is with you.
Splitting the difference doesn’t work either. A cut that keeps half the testimonial rarely satisfies anyone, and it costs a round.
First, check that the conflict is real. “Get it under a minute” and “keep the testimonial” can both hold if the seconds come from somewhere else, like a slow intro.
Vague notes often hide the real request. When one person says the video “lacks energy”, ask whether that means the music, the pace of the cuts or the footage, and ask for a reference video. Two notes that seemed to clash sometimes turn out to be about different things.
Then do everything in the round that doesn’t depend on the answer, so one open question doesn’t hold up the whole version.
After that, take it to the approver.
- Quote both notes word for word, with the names and the timecode.
- Lay out the options and what each one does to the running time, the budget or the delivery date.
- Ask one question and give a date.
- If you have a recommendation, put it after the options and say it’s yours. The approver may know things you don’t, like who reports to whom.
Keep the conversation where the notes are. A reply on the comment at 0:32 keeps the question, the answer and the frame together, so next week nobody has to dig through an email thread to find out why the testimonial stayed.
When someone arrives after the approval
This one is harder. The CEO watches the final on Thursday and asks for the music from v1 back, or for the testimonial that came out in round two.
That’s no longer a clash inside a round. It reopens a decision that someone else made and approved.
Answer it as a change request. Say which version was approved, by whom and when. Say the change can be done, and give the cost and the new delivery date.
Send it to your approver rather than straight to the executive, and let them decide whether to reopen it. They know the politics on their side of the table, and you don’t.
Our posts on scope creep and endless revision rounds cover how to price the extra work and how to keep it from becoming a habit.
A message that asks the approver to decide
Keep it short enough to read on a phone, with the options labeled so the approver can answer with a single letter:
Hi Ana, two notes on v3 point in opposite directions, and we need your call before we touch either one.
At 0:32, Mark asked to cut the customer testimonial so the video comes in under a minute. At the same point, Julia asked to keep it and make it longer.
A. Cut the testimonial. The video runs 0:58.
B. Keep it as it is. The video stays at 1:07.
C. Keep 6 seconds of the testimonial and trim 5 seconds from the intro. The video runs 0:59.We’re already working on the rest of the round. If we have your answer by Wednesday, v4 goes out on Friday.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview every comment carries the name of the person who wrote it and sits on the frame they clicked.
Everyone reviewing the video sees the other comments, so the brand manager reads what legal wrote before adding a note, and contradictions come up while the round is still open. Anyone who can comment can also reply, which keeps the question to the approver and the answer on that frame.
Type @ in a comment to mention someone on your team, a client contact or the client as a group. Mentioning a contact notifies that person, and mentioning the group notifies the client’s primary contacts. Someone who only has the link can mention the group but doesn’t see the list of contacts.
For the part of the conversation the client shouldn’t see, switch on Team only. A team-only comment or reply is visible to your team and never to the client, and only your team can write one. It’s a good place to work out the options before you write to the approver.
Contact roles are off by default, and in that case any client contact who has identified can approve. Turn them on in the workspace settings and only the client’s managers can approve and download the final, while reviewers comment and ask for changes.
If the approver is the only manager, the CEO who gets a forwarded link can comment but can’t sign off. New people who identify on a review link join as reviewers, and so does a colleague the client’s manager invites from the review page.
When you send a version, you choose who gets the email, and the list starts with the client’s primary contacts. Once the approver signs off, the version shows who approved, the version number and the date.
Our post on proof of client approval covers what that record should hold, and the client portal page shows what the client sees.
