The quality of a video is largely decided before a camera is ever switched on, and the single most influential document in the whole process is yours, not ours. A clear brief costs you an hour and saves you thousands. A vague one guarantees revision rounds, awkward conversations and a film that almost hits the mark. Here is what a production company actually needs from you, and just as importantly, what we do not.
Why the brief matters more than the budget
Two clients can spend exactly the same amount and get wildly different results, and the difference is almost always clarity. When everyone agrees on the objective, the audience and the single message before scripting starts, every downstream decision gets easier and cheaper. When they do not, the edit becomes the place where strategy gets debated, and the edit is the most expensive place to have that conversation.
The nine things every video brief should cover
- The objective. The one job the video must do: win tenders, fill a course, reduce onboarding time, launch a product. One sentence, one job.
- The audience. Who is watching, what they already know, and what they currently believe that you need to change.
- The single message. If a viewer remembers only one thing, what must it be? If you have five messages, you probably have two videos.
- Where it will live. A website hero, a LinkedIn feed, a trade show loop and a TV spot are different films with different lengths, shapes and pacing.
- Tone. Three adjectives is plenty, backed by references.
- Deliverables. The hero film plus any cut-downs, vertical versions, captioned versions and stills you expect.
- Constraints. Brand rules, legal or compliance requirements, people who must appear, people who must approve, site access limitations, blackout dates.
- Timeline. The real deadline and what is driving it, an event date changes how a schedule is built.
- Budget range. Even a broad range lets us design the right production instead of guessing. Our cost guide explains the tiers if you are not sure where you sit.
What to leave out
Shot-by-shot instructions, camera model requests and editing directions usually work against you. You are hiring craft, and prescribing the how constrains the people you are paying to solve the problem. A brief that says the film must feel premium and unhurried gives a director something to work with. A brief that demands a drone shot at sunset closes off better ideas before anyone has had them. Bring the what and the why, let the production company bring the how, and interrogate their reasoning if it does not convince you.
References beat adjectives every time
Cinematic means something different to everyone who says it. Two or three links to videos you like, each with one sentence on what specifically appeals, communicates more than a page of adjectives. References for what you do not want are just as valuable, and often more revealing. None of this needs to come from your industry, a tone reference from a car brand can absolutely shape a mining recruitment film.
Be honest about the money
Withholding the budget to see what comes back feels shrewd but usually backfires. Production is elastic: the same story can be told at several levels of scale, and knowing the range simply determines which version gets designed. If the number is genuinely undecided, say so and ask for options at two tiers. Any decent company will happily quote it both ways.
A structure you can copy
One page is enough. Project name and background in two sentences. Objective. Audience. Single message. Where it will live. Deliverables. Tone plus references. Constraints and approvers. Timeline. Budget range. Attach brand guidelines and stop there, if we need more, we will ask, and a good production company always asks.
From brief to proposal
Once a brief lands, expect a conversation rather than an instant price. We will usually come back with questions, a recommended approach, sometimes a gentle challenge to the brief itself, and then an itemised proposal. Our request a quote form is deliberately structured around the points above, so if you can answer even most of them, you are already ahead of the field.
Five briefing mistakes we see most
The first is briefing the deliverable instead of the problem, we need a two minute video says nothing about what the video must change. The second is the committee brief, five stakeholders' wishes stapled together, which produces five-message films that serve nobody; nominate one owner with the casting vote. The third is hiding constraints until they bite, the compliance review, the executive who must approve, the site that cannot be filmed on Fridays, all far cheaper to know early. The fourth is briefing tone with brand adjectives, premium, dynamic, innovative, words that could describe any company in the country; references fix this in minutes. And the fifth is treating the brief as a contract rather than a conversation, the best productions sharpen the brief together in the first meeting, and a company that pushes back thoughtfully on your brief is showing you how it will protect the film later. None of these mistakes is fatal on its own, but each one quietly taxes the project, because ambiguity always gets paid for somewhere, usually in the edit.
Write the hour into your diary, brief well, and everything that follows, the quote, the script, the shoot and the edit, gets faster, calmer and better.
