Most video briefs arrive as a paragraph in an email. “We need a video for the new distribution center, something dynamic, about a minute, for the website and LinkedIn.” That’s enough for a rough quote.
It doesn’t say who signs off, how many rounds the price covers or whether LinkedIn means the same file or a vertical cut with subtitles. Those questions come back anyway, usually around round three.
A one-page brief settles them before anyone writes a script.
In short
- Fill in the brief with the client on a half-hour call, then ask the approver to confirm it in a reply.
- Write one approver by name, not a department, and give each reviewer a stage.
- Put the rounds in as a number with a definition of what counts as one round.
- List every deliverable with its length, ratio, subtitles and language before the shoot.
Fill it in with the client
Send a blank form and it comes back with “show who we are” as the objective and “everyone” as the audience. Book half an hour instead, share your screen and type while you ask.
People answer questions better than they fill in boxes, and on a call you hear the pause after “who approves this?” With a new client, this half hour fits inside the kickoff call.
Then send the brief to the person who approves and ask for a reply confirming it. That reply turns your notes into the document you’ll point to when someone asks for a vertical cut in week four.
Keep it to one page and send the brand guide, the legal text and the product facts as attachments.
The template
Copy the table into a Doc or a spreadsheet and replace the right column with the answers.
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Client and contact | Company, and the name, email and phone of your day-to-day contact |
| Video | Working title, and the video code if you use one |
| Objective | What should happen after someone watches it, in one sentence |
| Audience | Who watches, and what they already know about the company |
| Key message | The one sentence the viewer should remember |
| Call to action | What the viewer should do next |
| Where it runs | Every place it plays: website, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reels, event screen, internal TV |
| Length | Length of the main video |
| Deliverables | Every file, with length, aspect ratio, subtitles and language |
| References | Two or three videos the client likes and why, and one they don’t |
| Must include | Logo files, brand guide, legal lines, names and job titles as they must appear, claims that need sign-off |
| Budget | The client’s range, or the figure in your proposal |
| Final delivery | The date, and the launch or event it’s tied to |
| Approval dates | When the script is approved and when notes on each cut are due |
| Approver | One name, with the final say on the script and every cut |
| Reviewers | Who else watches, at which stage, and what each person checks |
| Rounds included | How many rounds of changes, and what counts as one |
Notes on the fields that go wrong
- For the objective, ask what someone should do or think after watching. “Show who we are” needs another question (who, and why now?) before it’s usable. A good answer names an action, like “regional retailers book a visit”.
- When the client gives you three key messages, ask which one would survive a 15-second cut, and write that one down.
- Get the references as links, with a line on what the client likes in each: the pace, the music, how people talk to camera. The one they dislike often tells you more, because it rules out a style before you pitch it.
- The names and job titles under must include go straight into the script’s lower thirds, so write them the way each person spells them, and ask for the logo as a vector file.
- For approval dates, work back from the final delivery and give each approval its own date. The production timeline post shows how to count working days after each one.
The three fields that prevent most rework
Start with who approves. Write one name, not a department. “Marketing approves” lets anyone in marketing reopen a decision someone else made.
List the reviewers with the stage they watch and what they check, so legal reads the script instead of meeting the video after the mix. If someone above the approver will want a look, give them a stage now. Our post on conflicting feedback covers the rest of that conversation.
Then the rounds, as a number with a definition. “Two rounds of changes” is a start. “A round is one consolidated list of notes on one version, sent by the approver” is what stops five emails over a week from counting as one round, or as five.
Put the price of an extra round in the proposal too. How to stop endless revision rounds covers keeping rounds to that shape.
Last, the deliverables. “A one-minute video plus social versions” is how a job grows by four files with no line in the quote. List every file with its length, ratio, subtitles and language.
If verticals are on the list, the crew needs to know before the shoot, and our deliverables list post shows how to build one.
Example: the brief behind a 75-second video
This is the brief for the made-up logistics company in our video script template, filled in on a call with its marketing manager.
| Field | Fennick Logistics |
|---|---|
| Client and contact | Fennick Logistics. Lena Hart, marketing manager |
| Video | FNK_014, New distribution center |
| Objective | Regional retailers learn about next-morning shipping and book a visit |
| Audience | Operations and purchasing managers at regional retailers, who know the name but not the new building |
| Key message | Order before 10 p.m. and it’s on the road by 6 a.m. |
| Call to action | Book a visit through the link in the post |
| Where it runs | Website home page, LinkedIn, YouTube, the screen in reception |
| Length | 1:15 |
| Deliverables | Master, 1:15, 16:9, with an SRT file. The same cut with burned-in subtitles for LinkedIn. No vertical version |
| References | Likes the drone open in reference 1 and the staff talking to camera in reference 2. Dislikes reference 3, stock footage under a voiceover |
| Must include | Logo from the current brand guide. “Marta Ribeiro / CEO, Fennick Logistics” and “Daniel Okafor / Director of Operations”. 42,000 m², 14 docks and 11,000 orders a day, confirmed by operations |
| Budget | Fixed price from the proposal, one shoot day |
| Final delivery | November 18, the day before the opening event |
| Approval dates | Script by October 23, rough cut notes by November 6, fine cut notes by November 13 |
| Approver | Marta Ribeiro, CEO |
| Reviewers | Lena Hart: script and both cuts, for story and length. Daniel Okafor: script and fine cut, for figures and floor safety |
| Rounds included | Two on the script, two on the cut. A round is one list of notes from Marta on one version |
Once Marta confirms it, the script starts from this page. The key message is the line the script builds to, the length sets the word count (how many words fit in a minute has the math), and the names and titles go into the video column exactly as written here.
How this works in RecReview
RecReview has no brief form or client questionnaire. The brief goes on the video’s task, where the rest of the job happens.
Create the task with the client set and it gets that client’s next video code, like FNK_014, numbered in order and never reused. Paste the brief into the description, and add the brand guide or the logo pack under Attachments (files up to 50 MB) or the references as links.
If the brief lists several deliverables, Create several at once in the New task window turns a pasted list into one task per line, with the client and deadlines set for all of them.
Each task has two deadlines. The Due date is what you promised the client, and it’s what their portal shows. The internal deadline is your team’s, falls on or before the due date, and the client never sees it.
The target length goes in Video duration.
If your team writes scripts from a Google Docs template, the top of that template can hold the brief.
Create from template copies the Doc, names it from your pattern and fills in placeholders such as {{client}}, {{project}}, {{code}}, {{title}}, {{duration}} (the task’s video duration) and {{date}}. You type in the rest of the brief, and the Doc is attached to the task as its script.
For the approver, mark that person as Manager in the client’s contacts and the others as Reviewer, then turn on contact roles in the workspace settings, under Client portal. Only managers can then approve and download the final, while reviewers comment and request changes.
Contact roles are off by default, and then any client contact can approve. The project management page covers tasks, the board and deadlines.
