Why fill out this video brief template?
- help to streamline the creation of the film
- improve the end product
- probably save you money
- align everyone involved
- avoid miscommunication and conflict
- highlight areas of concern early.
cheeky bonus content 👇
- ‘what action do you want the viewer to take next’
- accessibility.
Let's go!
1/ About your company
Background, background, background. As much or as little as you think is relevant to the film project.
2/ about the project
Give us some background on the video project itself, why are you producing this film? Is it part of a marketing campaign or is it a standalone video project? It might be that you have an idea of the output already e.g. 2-3 minute film based on interviews with 4 key stakeholders, a funny promo that people will want to share or a technical animation to explain a new piece of software.
3/ What problem are you trying to solve?
- product videos
- videos advertising services
- videos relating to ideas, such as startup videos.
4/ how will you measure success?
5/ What are the key messages?
Video brief template
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6/ References
7/ What are the deliverables?
8/ how will you use & promote it?
9/ What happens immediately afterwards?
The big one that everyone misses!
What action do you want the viewer to take once they’re finished watching?
Common actions include requesting more information or a callback, sharing on social media or clicking the next video.
By defining this early we can engineer a path towards it within the narrative.
10/ What about accessibility?
Accessibility is something many companies don’t consider at any stage of video production, let alone briefing. Including it here ensures that it’s not tacked on at the end or simply forgotten. There are a number of approaches that can be taken to improve the accessibility of your content including subtitles, captions, offering transcripts, audio descriptions and sign language.
11/ Timeline
When do you need it? Not just final deadline but are there other key dates driven by factors such as stakeholder availability.
12/ budget
The eternal ‘who will blink first’ question…
A good concept to bear in mind is that cost is indirectly proportional to risk. At one end of the scale using your niece who’s “always on her phone making videos and stuff” is likely to be cost-effective but is equally likely to introduce significant risk of not hitting the brief. At the other end of the scale employing a triple Oscar winning filmmaker will likely reduce the risk but will increase costs dramatically.
But you could give your brief to both of these filmmakers but only one is remotely suitable for what you have in mind.
If you’re not comfortable sharing your budget then try stating “we would like to spend less than £x,xxx. We could go beyond this but would need compelling reasons to do so”.
What next?
If you’re about to head into production then check out our location guide for corporate video.
More reading?
Hope that helps.
If you’d prefer this as a word doc then get in touch and we’ll send it to you.
Thanks for your time.
Featured image by Felipe Furtado on Unsplash
