Writing a video brief that survives the edit

What a brief has to answer before the edit opens

Most briefs describe the film. Few describe the job. A brief that says 'an energetic sixty-second brand film for social' has told the editor almost nothing that decides the edit: which platforms, so which aspect ratios; which length limits, so which cutdowns; which frame rate the footage will arrive at; who has the last word; and how many times the client may ask for changes before the changes cost money.

The brief that survives is the one whose answers can be checked at the end. 'Three deliverables: 60 seconds at 16:9, 30 seconds at 16:9, 15 seconds at 9:16, all at 25 fps, delivered by the 30th, approved by the marketing director, two rounds of revisions included' is a sentence a producer can hold a project against. Everything else in the brief is useful; that sentence is the contract.

• Deliverables: count, length, aspect ratio, frame rate, file format.
• Deadline: one date for the approved master, and the date the client's materials are due.
• Approver: one name, and the names of people who comment but do not decide.
• Rounds: the number included in the price.
• Materials: what the client supplies, and by when.

The brief stage is a gate, not a document

In the five video templates the first stage is Brief (Booking in the Wedding film template, Research in Documentary). It is a work stage with tasks: in the Commercial template, 'Collect the client brief and references' for the account manager and 'Confirm budget, deliverables and deadline' for the producer, at high priority. The stage carries a default SLA of 48 hours.

The stage cannot be left until every task on it is done. The transition from Brief to Script in the Commercial template has one condition, all checklist items complete, and the workflow enforces it. A project whose budget was never confirmed does not quietly reach the shoot; it sits in Brief, over its SLA, where the bottlenecks view and the risk reasons can see it.

The text of the brief itself lives on the project as a brief field, so the editor, the producer and later the person answering an invoice dispute all read the same words. The project also carries a due date, which the deadline-near trigger in automations reads.

Deliverables with numbers the review player can check

Frame rate is the number briefs skip most often, and it is the one that decides whether a client's note lands on the right frame. Tasked's review player is exact about eight rates: 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60. Every conversion between a timecode and a moment is done as integer arithmetic on the exact ratio (24000/1001 rather than 23.976), so a note at the end of an hour of 23.976 material is not three frames late.

A file at a rate outside that list is refused for frame math rather than approximated, because a comment on the wrong frame is worse than a player that says it cannot do frame math on this file. Writing the rate into the brief is what makes sure the footage arrives at a rate the notes can trust.

Length and aspect ratio decide the cutdowns, and every cutdown is its own version in the review. A brief that names three deliverables produces three things to approve, and the approval stage should say so.

Who approves, and how they get in

A brief that names 'the client' as the approver has named nobody. Tasked asks for a person because the portal door is issued to a person: a code, a link, a phone number that receives a one-time code, or an email. The door defaults to the client's own contact details, and an explicit address on the door wins, so a producer can invite the marketing director rather than the billing contact.

A door can be scoped to one project or to everything that client has with the studio, and it can be view-only. The person who only comments gets a view-only door; the approver gets one that may decide. When the approval later passes its SLA, the reminder goes to the doors that may decide, not to the commenters. A door expires after 30 days by default unless the studio sets a different period or none.

Rounds written into the brief, and into the project

The number of revision rounds a quote includes is the single number most likely to be argued about later, so it belongs in the brief and on the project. Tasked stores an agreed number on every project built from a video template, two by default, up to fifty. The used number is derived from review decisions: a session that ended with a request for changes or a rejection is a round; a session that ended approved is not.

Changing the agreed number after the fact is allowed and is written to the audit log with the value before and after, so a project that was sold at two rounds and renegotiated to three keeps the history. The supporting article on revision rounds covers what happens when the count passes the agreement.

The materials the brief promises

The last section of a brief that survives is a list of what the client owes: the logo in a vector format, the brand fonts, the product shots, the music licence, the interviewee names spelled correctly. Each item is a task with an owner and a due date, and each one is something the client can upload through the portal without an account.

In Tasked the list can be created as tasks on the brief stage so the stage cannot close while an item is open, or as tasks that gate the edit stage instead. Either way, the missing logo becomes a visible open task rather than a message in a chat thread. The next article in this cluster is about gathering those materials.

Questions that keep coming up

Where does the brief text live in Tasked?

On the project itself, in a brief field, alongside the due date and the client. Tasks created by the brief stage sit in the same project.

Can the client edit or comment on the brief?

The client works through the portal, where they can upload materials, download files, leave notes on a cut and record decisions. The brief text is edited by the studio.

What if the client wants two people to approve?

Issue two doors that may decide, one per person. Each decision is recorded against the person who made it.

Does the brief stage have to be 48 hours?

No. 48 hours is the default in the Commercial and Corporate templates. The Wedding film template's Booking stage defaults to 72 hours and the Documentary Research stage to 168. Any project can change its own value.

Which frame rate should I write in the brief?

The one the footage will be shot and delivered at. Tasked handles 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60. Writing it down avoids a cut arriving at a rate the notes cannot trust.