The Video Brief

Plan a Successful Video With A Video Brief

A video brief is a document outlining your objectives, so a production company knows exactly what video you want. It serves as a working set of guidelines for the whole process.

The Video Brief

Having a clearly defined brief will help determine the factors for a successful video production.

The main benefits of a video brief are:

1.It helps you fully understand the type of video you want, clearly and succinctly

2.It helps the company making the video understand who you are and, more importantly, exactly the type of video you want

Why do I need a Brief

Objective

What do you want your video to achieve? Having tangible end goals will help define the type of video you need. If you’re a retailer, for example, you may want potential customers to click a link after watching your video.

Think of a tangible objective that you can measure to help maximise your ROI. A strong objective will also serve as an important cornerstone in creating your script, which we’ll discuss in a later post.

Image showing objecitve

Video Formats

It’s important to stipulate the video format you require your video to be in. If your video is for Instagram Stories, as an example, you need the video to be edited in a 9:16 frame, which is standard widescreen 16:9, flipped 90 degrees.

By putting a video format requirement in the brief, your production company will ensure this is planned for filming. To learn more about video formats and aspect ratios, we recommend reading this article to get a better understanding.

Video Formats

Timeline

A clear understanding of when you will need your video delivered will help your production team better understand the resources required. In turn, your expectations will be better managed, and the process will be smoother as a result.

Contact a video production company if you’re unsure how long it will take to film and edit your videos. They will help you to understand what a suitable and average timeframe is for the types of videos you’re looking to make.

Timeline

Budget

By stipulating the budget in your brief, the production company can plan for success with clear guidelines. More importantly, they can help explain your budgets limitations and potential.

Here at Dream Engine, we understand how to best maximise our client’s budget to create a quality video. It’s important you feel comfortable both with the cost and proposal put forward to you before moving forward.

Budget

Feedback Stage

In the feedback stages, it is critical that you have a clear understanding of the different stakeholders you need approval from to sign off your video. Stipulating your approval process in your brief means your production company will get a better understanding of who best to communicate with.

Here at Dream Engine, a project lead will work with you throughout the entire process, ensuring there is a consistent chain of communication.

People giving feedback

Business Background

By giving a brief background on the type of business you are in, a production company will understand how you see your business and your industry. In turn, this will help them create the best possible video for you.

If your business has a brand and style guide, it is helpful to send this to your chosen production company. These guidelines will help the production team understand the company style and colours, and fonts you use.

People in a business meeting

Next Steps

Now you understand how to create a working brief for your video project. Creating a strong brief for your video will ultimately improve the chances of a high-quality video, so be sure to contact us to discuss how best to draft one. Our next post will discuss the Dream Engine method for creating a video script. Click here to return to the main menu page.