The best films rarely begin with a perfect script. They begin with a good brief — a document, or sometimes just a conversation, that tells a production company what matters and why. Learning how to brief a video production company well is one of the quiet skills that separates work you tolerate from work you’re proud to put your name to. Get it right and the process feels like collaboration. Get it wrong and you spend the edit trying to recover an idea that was never clearly stated.

A brief is not a wish list, and it is not a technical spec. At its heart it is an act of trust: you are handing an idea to people whose job is to make it better than you imagined. The filmmakers you want are the ones who will push back, reframe, and occasionally tell you the thing you asked for isn’t the thing you need. A brief that leaves room for that is worth more than one that dictates every frame.

Start with the why, not the what

Most briefs open with deliverables — a sixty-second cut, three social edits, a version for the AGM. That comes later. The strongest briefs open with intent. What is this film supposed to change? Who is meant to watch it, and what should they feel, believe, or do afterwards? A launch film for a challenger brand and an investor film for the same company might share a budget and a shoot day, but they are entirely different objects. The purpose shapes every decision that follows, from casting to colour.

Be honest about the emotional register, too. Words like “premium,” “bold,” or “cinematic” mean little on their own — everyone claims them. Reach for reference points instead. A film that should feel restrained and observational asks for a different director than one built on spectacle and pace. When you name the feeling precisely, you give the production company something real to work with.

Give context, not just constraints

Filmmakers work better when they understand the world around the film. Who are your competitors, and what does their work look like? What has your brand tried before that landed — or didn’t? Is there a wider campaign this sits inside, or does the film carry the whole message alone? This context rarely appears in the final cut, but it informs a hundred small choices that do.

The same applies to your audience. “Everyone” is not an audience. The more specifically you can describe who you’re speaking to — their scepticism, their attention, what they already think of you — the more sharply a director can aim. A good video production company will ask these questions anyway, but arriving with answers already thought through saves days and signals that you take the work as seriously as they do.

Be clear about what’s fixed and what’s open

Every project has non-negotiables: a launch date, a legal line that must be said, a product that must be shown a certain way, a budget that will not move. Name these plainly and early. Nothing derails a production faster than a “small” constraint that surfaces in the edit — a logo lock-up, a runtime for a broadcast slot, a market-specific compliance rule.

Then, just as clearly, mark what is open. This is the part inexperienced briefs get wrong. If the treatment, the tone, the structure, or the casting is genuinely up for interpretation, say so. A production company that knows where it has freedom will use it. Some of the most memorable branded work — the kind that wins at Cannes Lions rather than simply filling a media slot — comes from the space a client was brave enough to leave open. If you’re commissioning branded content, this is especially true: audiences reward films that feel like stories, not ads, and stories need room to breathe.

Reference films, not just moodboards

Stills and moodboards are useful for palette and texture, but film is time, movement, and sound. Share two or three reference films and, crucially, explain what you admire in each — the pacing of one, the intimacy of another, the way a third earns its emotion without a word of voiceover. “I like this” tells a director nothing; “I like how this holds on the actor’s face a beat too long” tells them everything.

Leave room for the people you hired

The final principle underpins all the others. You are commissioning a production company for judgement as much as craft. As Lawrence Jacomelli and Victoria Taylor, who founded Beast in London, have long argued, the client’s job is to define the problem with clarity and conviction — and then trust the filmmakers to solve it. The brief that gets great work is confident about outcomes and generous about method.

Write it as if you’re inviting someone into an idea, not issuing instructions. Say what the film must achieve, who it’s for, and how it should feel. Name your constraints honestly and your freedoms openly. Then step back. The work you get will almost always be better than the one you would have art-directed into existence yourself — and that, in the end, is the whole point of hiring people who make films for a living.