How to Brief a Director or Creative Team

Most creative work that misses goes wrong before anyone picks up a camera. Not on the shoot, not in the edit. In the gap between what the founder means and what the team hears.

I see the same pattern constantly. The person at the top knows what they want but can’t quite put it into words, so it goes down half formed. The team, who are usually good, make something perfectly competent that answers the wrong brief. Nobody has done anything wrong, and everybody is frustrated.

The fix isn’t a longer brief. Most briefs I’m handed are too long already. It’s a better one, and better usually means shorter, more honest and clearer about the job.

A brief is not a shot list

The most common mistake is briefing the format. “We want a thirty second film for Instagram, upbeat, with customer testimonials.” That’s a set of answers. It skips the question.

Start with what the work has to do. Who it’s for, what they should feel, and what has to change after they’ve seen it. If you can’t say what changes, nobody can make it, however talented they are.

A useful test: could two different teams read your brief and come back with completely different ideas that both solve it? If yes, you’ve briefed the problem. If they’d both come back with the same thing, you’ve briefed the answer, and you’ll get exactly what you asked for, which is rarely what you needed.

Put the awkward bits in

The best briefs include the things people leave out because they feel untidy. The part you’re unsure about. The competitor you’re worried about. The thing customers keep saying that you’d rather they didn’t. The line legal won’t let you use.

That’s usually where the interesting work is. A brief polished until it sounds confident has had the useful information taken out.

Say who decides

Plenty of briefs that go wrong weren’t bad briefs. They were good briefs with five people attached. Everyone who sees the work gives a note, the notes contradict each other, and the team tries to satisfy all of them at once. The result pleases nobody.

Before anything starts, name the one person who signs it off. Everyone else can have an opinion. One person decides.

Leave room

Specify the intent, not every frame. If you’ve hired the right director or the right team, the brief is the start of the conversation, not the end of it. The best thing they can do is come back with something you wouldn’t have thought of, and a brief that fixes every detail in advance makes that impossible.

This is harder than it sounds for founders, because the business exists because their instincts were right. Holding back the answer you already have is the discipline.

Judge it at the right stage

The first cut will be rough. That’s what the middle of the process looks like. Ask what stage it’s at before you react, and give notes on what isn’t working rather than instructions on what to do instead. “I lost interest in the middle” is a note the team can solve. “Cut the middle” is an instruction that stops them thinking.

Five questions before any brief goes out

What does this have to do for the business?
Who is it for, and what do they currently believe?
What should change after they’ve seen it?
What are we worried about?
Who signs it off?

If any answer is “not sure”, that’s the work to do before you spend anything. And if nobody can answer the first question, the problem may not be the brief at all. It may be that the business doesn’t need more content.

If you’d like a second pair of eyes on a brief before it goes out, get in touch.