Videos are no longer a ‘want’ – it’s a ‘need’, and since you’re here, chances are that you see the benefits of videos too!
Whether this is your first time hiring and outsourcing your video project to an agency or freelancer, or leading your in-house team in creating a video, we all have to start somewhere – with a video production creative brief!
Download Now: Free Video Creative Brief Template
But wait, what IS a video brief or creative brief? How does it help in the process, how do you use it, and why do you need one?
Watch Part 1 of the guide below:
Video Transcript:
Today we’ll be talking about something that is commonly overlooked in the video production process, and that is video briefs. A video brief is a document that is a summary of what you want in the video, so if you are a client or even if you are creating a video yourself, you can also outline why you are creating the video and what should be included in the video.
So when you have all these things documented down, it can actually guide you along in your video production process. Regardless of whether you’re working with an external video team or in-house video team, this document is very important to keep you and your team on track.
When people are working on the video brief, often they’ll find that that’s when they have the chance to really trash out a lot of issues, and align with the team regarding what they want. If you align expectations halfway, or even towards the end of the production, you realize that some of the things that were not addressed will then create problems for you.
If you want to take a look at a sample of what is a video brief template, you can download it below.
Download: Sample Video Brief Template
One of the most common problems is when clients come to us to do a video, they will approach us and say “Hey can you just give me a rough quotation for the video?”
Tracy: “I will ask you a few questions before I quote you”
Charley as Client: “Why can’t you just give me a quote for just a video?”
Tracy: “Basically, I have no idea what kind of video you’re looking at and what budget you have in mind, so I’ve got nothing to work with, but most likely we could give you an estimate on how much our videos start from, but we cannot exactly quote you straight pricing like $5999 or $5980. There’s no one-size-fits-all for your videos. I think it’s a very common problem in the creative industry.”
I understand that maybe clients don’t know what to expect, that’s why they start asking around for a quote, especially for clients that have never worked on a video before. It’s okay that we guide you along and that’s why we have this video right here, because before you even go to a video agency to get a quote, it’ll be good to get this video brief thing out. If there’s no video brief,
we can still communicate. It’s just there’s a lot of back and forth, and clients may get frustrated and impatient.
Why are we getting all this information and asking you questions before we quote from you? So we can really work out what’s best for you. The more information you give us, the more your video is going to work to your best advantage because we can advise you better. If you have already ironed everything out with your team at the start, before you even approach any video production agency, then it will really save you a lot of time and reduce all the confusion with a smoother process.
The clients that we work with, who know roughly what they want, and then come to us with a very clear brief. Even if they give us a very tight timeline, we can help them get there easily.
Download: Video Creative Brief Template
1. Budget
If you don’t have a video brief, the quote that video agencies give you might be costly for you in a way, because if it’s a rough guide of what you want, we won’t be able to really adhere to your needs and how to budget it. The quotation that we send back to you might not be aligned with what you’re looking for, it may also be overdelivering on your expectations.
Video production agencies may think that some things are better for you, but your budget doesn’t allow it. We won’t know that if we don’t have an estimated budget, so if we propose something that is over the budget and over the expectation, clients may think that doing video is too expensive. At the same time, we can’t quote clients at low prices, otherwise, if their expectations are too high, video production agencies would have made a loss.
Some of the clients want to hide this information from us. Maybe they feel that if they let us know, for example, budget $5000, they think we will quote them $4999 and try to profit from them. That is not true. Of course, if your budget is $5000, if you are comfortable spending it, we try to maximise what we can do for you, find better talents, suggest better ideas etc.
Budget tells many things, but not solely depends on it. If your budget is low and then if you
you have a lot of expectations. For example, a swimming pool, 10 actors, you want to build a customised set, I think $5000 is not realistic. So when it’s not realistic we will advise you to reduce the scope, or to increase your budget. We can advise you properly that way.
2. Purpose of the Video
The next thing on video brief is the purpose of why you want to make a video. Not because every business is doing it, but probably you want to market your services, or you just want brand awareness. Try to reach a wider audience, get more sign-ups, recruitment etc. So that’s the purpose of the video.
Even business owners who say that they want to do a video because everybody is doing a video, if you press further on that reason, there is a deeper reason. Eg. You want to reach as many people as the other competitors, you want to be more prominent on social media. That’s the underlying reason that you want to do it like everybody else, so you have to just keep asking yourself what’s the core reason. Even if it’s not measurable, at least there is a target.
3. Target Audience
Who are you making videos for? That’s right, your target audience!
If your products are baby or childrens’ toys, you may want to target their parents. Nailing the target audience will really help you towards the success of the video. So let’s say if it’s a baby product, the message must touch the parents’ hearts. It needs to be crafted towards the parents.
When it comes to humour, if you are injecting some humour into your video, it depends on the age group, so imagine you’re targeting the young adults versus the senior citizens. Are you going to use the same type of humour? If you put some meme jokes in the video, and then show that to the elderly people, your message will fall flat and your humour won’t be received very well.
4. Core Message
So after you already nailed down your target audience like who you’re trying to reach, the next thing that is kind of similar to the purpose. What’s the main takeaway you want for your audience? The core message.
Maybe there’s a lot of things you want to achieve with the video, but there should be one main encompassing message that you want your audience to do or feel at the end of the video. Eg. Deterring them from committing crimes, asking them to eat healthily and enjoy life.
5. Distribution Platform
Where are you going to put this video? Is it for social media, cinema, or to broadcast it on tv? These things are important to note right at the start because broadcast versus social media are totally different formats. Sometimes you need different kinds of equipment to shoot at different resolutions. Vertical videos are very popular on social media right now so that’s something that you need to let your team or the video agency know beforehand.
For social media like FB and Instagram, videos work better compressed. For cinema-quality, the video will need to be blown up to a very big screen, so they have to be shot in higher quality. All these things cannot be done at the end, during post-production. If videos need to be cropped or blown up, and not shot in the correct resolution, they will lose a lot of definition and details.
To note, some video agencies may capture a higher definition for post-production purposes, the editors may want to deal with higher definition footage to give them more flexibility in editing, but that’s not a given, not every video agency practices this. So, If you want a 1080p video, the video team might shoot at 4K and export 1080p for you. So they have 4K footage but they are not obligated to shoot it at 4K at all.
6. Usage of the Video
Is the video for a campaign, or is it going to be up there for some time as a cover video on the website or multiple social media platforms? If you need it to be perpetual and able to keep it forever, it will be different from a short-term use like a campaign that only runs for 3-6 months. This will help video agencies to issue you the correct copyrights and not run into future legal problems.
Another thing to take note of is the licensed music used in the video. As most video production teams rarely create their own music and sound effects, they have to buy them. Hence, the copyrights do not belong to them.
7. Timeline of the Video
Are you rushing to get the video out as soon as possible for a campaign? Expecting a video within the same week vs having ample time for discussion and production may have cost differences. Timeline is an important thing to take note because express fees may apply to cover cost on express work by the crew and video agency.
So now that you know what a video brief is, why is it important, and what needs to be included in it, you’re ready to work on your very own brief. Download our template below in either .docx format so that you can edit it to your needs, or check out our PDF version for your reference.
