How to Brief a Video Team Without Getting Burned

When a video comes back wrong, it is almost never the editor. It is the brief — or the absence of one. 'Make us a video' is not a brief. It is an invitation for someone to guess what you meant, then guess differently than you hoped.

A good brief is short, specific, and ends every ambiguity before the shoot begins. It says what the video is for, who it is for, what they should do after watching, and what 'done' looks like.

A brief that doesn't state the one action the viewer should take is a brief that will produce a video with no point.

1. 1.Start with the action, not the idea. What should the viewer do? That dictates everything else.
2. 2.Name the audience like a person, not a demographic. 'Marketing managers at mid-size B2B SaaS' beats 'professionals.'
3. 3.Paste examples. Words like 'energetic' mean ten things. A reference video means one.
4. 4.State what to avoid. Half of bad briefs fail by omission — nobody said what not to do.

→The brief is the cheapest part of a video project, and the part that decides whether the rest was worth it.