How to brief a video production company (with a free template)

A good brief is the single biggest predictor of whether a video production project will land on time, on budget and on brand. After ten years of writing, receiving and rescuing briefs at our Altrincham studio, the pattern is clear: the projects that go smoothest start with the tightest brief.

This is the guide we wish every client had read before sending us their first email.

Why most briefs miss

Most briefs we receive are some flavour of:

"Hi, we need a brand film for our website. Budget is flexible. Can you send a quote?"

That's not a brief — it's a wish. We can't quote it, you can't compare quotes from different studios, and three weeks into pre-production someone on your team will say "but I thought it would be more like..." and we'll have to start again.

A useful brief answers seven questions. None of them require you to be a video expert.

The seven-question brief

1. What is the one thing this film must do?

Not five things. One. "Convince a procurement director at a mid-sized law firm to book a discovery call." "Make the audience cry during the charity gala so they bid higher in the auction." "Explain our new product feature clearly enough that support tickets drop by 20%."

If you can't pick one, pick the most important one and write a separate brief for the others.

2. Who is the audience and where will they see it?

A 60-second hero film for a TV ad is a completely different production from a 60-second cut for paid LinkedIn. Same length, totally different shoot.

Tell us:

• The persona (job title, age range, what they care about).
• The platform (broadcast, web hero, paid social, internal comms, conference room screen).
• The viewing context (sound on or off? Will they watch end-to-end or scrub through?).

3. What's the budget band?

The most common pushback we get: "We don't know our budget — we want you to tell us what's possible."

Fair, but unhelpful. A £3k brand film and a £30k brand film are two different products. Without a band, we'll either over-quote (and you'll think we're greedy) or under-quote (and you'll get a film that doesn't match your expectations).

Pick a band:

• Under £5k — single shoot day, one operator, lean post.
• £5–15k — small crew, scripted, two rounds of revisions, broadcast-grade kit.
• £15–40k — director, crew, talent, location work, full post-production.
• £40k+ — multi-day, multi-location, hero campaign work.

If you genuinely don't know, see our breakdown of what video production costs in Manchester.

4. What's the deadline, and why?

A film that needs to air on the BBC on a fixed date is a different project from a film that needs to be "ready some time before our new website launches in Q1." Both are fine — but the schedule, kit and crew availability change with the deadline.

If there's a hard external date (an event, a launch, a board meeting), put it in the brief in bold.

5. References — three you love, one you hate

Mood references are worth ten paragraphs of adjectives. Send us three film references you love (Vimeo, YouTube, an Instagram reel, doesn't matter) and one you actively dislike. The dislike is often more useful than the loves — it tells us where the boundaries are.

For each reference, write one sentence on what specifically you like or don't like. "Love the pacing — slow, deliberate, lots of held shots," is gold. "Vibe is on," tells us nothing.

6. Practicalities — locations, talent, music

• Where will we shoot? Your office, a client site, our studio in Altrincham, a found location across Manchester or further afield?
• Who's on camera? Staff (often the most authentic), professional talent (more polish, more cost), members of the public (cheapest but most variable)?
• Music: do you have a library, need original, or want us to pick from a commercial library? Music licensing is one of the most underestimated cost lines in the industry.

If you'd like the rundown on Manchester-specific options, our filming locations guide covers permit costs, hire fees and the practical gotchas at each site.

7. Deliverables and rights

Be specific:

• Final hero cut: 60 seconds, 16:9, broadcast-grade master plus a web-encoded version.
• Social cuts: three 15-second 9:16 versions for Instagram Reels and TikTok.
• B-roll archive: colour-graded selects we can use in future content.
• Rights: all-media, in perpetuity, worldwide. Or just web. Or web + paid social for 12 months. Different rights, different cost.

The more specific the deliverables list, the more accurate the quote.

The free template

Copy and paste the block below, fill in the gaps, and you've got a brief that any reputable Manchester video production company can quote against in 24 hours.

PROJECT NAME:
  e.g. "Q1 2026 brand film — recruitment campaign"

ONE-LINE OBJECTIVE:
  The single thing this film must do.

AUDIENCE:
  Persona, platform, viewing context.

DEADLINE:
  Hard date, and why it's hard.

BUDGET BAND:
  Pick one of: <£5k / £5–15k / £15–40k / £40k+

REFERENCES:
  3 x "love" references with one-line reasons.
  1 x "hate" reference with one-line reason.

PRACTICALITIES:
  Locations, talent, music, kit constraints.

DELIVERABLES:
  Format, length, aspect ratio, number of cuts, rights.

DECISION-MAKERS:
  Who signs off the script, the cut, the final?

OUR TEAM:
  Who's our day-to-day contact?
  Who else needs to be in the kick-off?

What happens when you send us a good brief

We come back within 24 hours with three things:

1. A treatment — one or two paragraphs of how we'd interpret the brief. This is where you find out if our creative instinct matches yours.
2. A fixed quote — broken out by pre-production, shoot day(s), post-production and any extras. No day-rate guessing games.
3. A schedule — green-light date, shoot dates, edit milestones, delivery.

You then either say yes, send us comments, or politely decline. Either way you've spent 20 minutes writing a brief and gained a fixed quote you can compare against any other studio you're considering — including the videographer in Manchester on the next street, the photographer in Manchester you're also weighing up, or the agency in London charging three times as much for the same scope.

When you should call instead

If your project has any of these, skip the brief and book a 20-minute call:

• You don't know if video is even the right medium.
• The deadline is in under two weeks.
• Three different teams in your business need different things from the same film.
• You've been burned by a previous studio and want to talk through what went wrong before committing.

We do those calls every week. They're free, no obligation, and we'll tell you honestly if we're not the right studio for the job.

Book a 20-minute intro call or send your brief to info@theunderfoundstudio.com. The studio is on Oxford Road in Altrincham, and we work with brands across Manchester and the UK.