Most revision rounds do not start with a mistake. They start with a question the brief never answered. The editor guessed, guessed reasonably, and guessed differently from what was in your head. Now you are on round three, and nobody did anything wrong.
A video brief is the short document that closes that gap before a single clip is cut. Not a script, not a shot list. Just the handful of things your editor needs to know to make the right calls without you in the room: what the video is for, who it is for, where it goes, and the few rules that actually matter.
This builder walks you through eight fields, about ten minutes of thinking, and hands you a clean brief you can copy into an email or save as a PDF and send. Nothing is stored on a server, nothing asks for your email. Fill it in, take it with you.
Your answers are saved on your device, in your browser only, never on a server. Close the tab, come back tomorrow, even restart your computer, and your draft will be waiting. Want to start fresh? Just click "Clear" and it is gone.?How this works: the tool keeps your draft in your browser's local storage, a small space that lives on your own machine. It uses no cookies and no tracking, and nothing ever leaves your computer. When you click "Clear", I delete that stored draft and give you a blank form again. So once you have saved your PDF, if you would rather not leave the draft behind on this device, just click "Clear" and you are good to go.
One note: the draft lives in this one browser, so opening the tool in a different browser, on another device, or in a private window will start you blank.
Fill each field as the outcome you want, and leave the how to your editor. "The product should feel effortless" tells them more than "add a swoosh transition at 0:12." You point to where the video needs to land, and they find the best way to get it there. That is what you hired them for, and it is where the good surprises come from.
You are not writing the video. You are marking the edges so nobody drives off them: the legal line that has to appear, the competitor that cannot, the deadline that is real. Keep it to the few things that actually matter. A brief that tries to decide everything is just a slower way to make the video yourself.
The eight fields are the questions a good editor would ask you before starting, the ones that come back as revisions when they are left unanswered. Goal and audience set the direction. Platform, format and length decide the shape. Must-includes are your guardrails. References show taste faster than any adjective. Assets and a single shared folder save a day of "where is the logo?" And a real deadline with one named approver is what keeps the whole thing from drifting.
As you type, the brief assembles on the right. Anything you leave blank shows as still to decide, on purpose, because a visible gap is a decision you and your editor can make together, not a surprise halfway through the edit. When it looks right, copy it into an email or save it as a PDF to attach. Your draft stays in this browser so you can come back to it. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
A video brief is a short document that tells whoever is making your video what it needs to achieve and the rules it has to follow. It is not a script or a shot list. It captures the goal, the audience, where the video will run, its length, the non-negotiables, a few references, where the assets live, and the deadline with the person who approves the final cut.
Its whole job is to let an editor make good decisions without you sitting beside them. A clear brief is the difference between one round of feedback and four.
Eight things cover almost every project: the goal, the audience, the platforms and formats, the target length, the must-includes and must-avoids, a couple of reference videos, the assets and where they live, and the deadline with a single named approver.
You do not need more than that. A brief that runs to three pages usually means someone is trying to make the video in the document instead of letting the editor make it in the timeline.
Write each field as the outcome you want, not the technique. "The viewer should trust us within the first ten seconds" is more useful than "start with a fast montage." You are describing the destination and leaving the route to the person you hired to know it.
Keep the must-includes to genuine non-negotiables, add two or three references with a line on what you like about each, and name one approver. That last part matters more than people expect: briefs with a single decision-maker come back cleaner than briefs written by committee.
One page. About ten minutes to fill in. If it is taking much longer, you are probably scripting the video rather than briefing it, which slows everyone down and takes the craft away from your editor.
The goal is the fewest words that still answer the questions your editor would otherwise have to ask.
Usually because a decision was never made, not because the editor got it wrong. When the brief does not say how long, where it runs, or who approves it, the editor has to guess, and every guess that misses becomes a revision round.
Most of that disappears when the answerable questions are answered up front. That is exactly what a brief is for.
A short one, yes. A fifteen-second social cut still has a goal, an audience, a platform with its own aspect ratio, and a subtitle requirement. Those few lines take two minutes and save the back-and-forth about whether it was meant to be square or vertical.
The shorter the video, the shorter the brief, but the questions do not go away just because the runtime is small.
Yes. It works the same whether you are briefing an in-house editor, a freelancer or an agency. If anything, the further the person sits from your day-to-day, the more a clear brief is worth, because they cannot lean over and ask you what you meant.
The tool does not collect anything or send anything. You fill it in, copy or save the result, and share it however you already work.
I am Gustavo Fonseca, Senior Content Lead. I have worked in video and content creation for more than twenty years, now based in Vancouver, Canada. I have sat on both sides of the brief, as the manager writing it and the editor trying to read it, and this template is the shape that saved the most revision rounds.
I hold a bachelor's degree in Cinema and Video from UFSCar (Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil), a postgraduate diploma in Strategic Business Management from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, a certificate in Digital Marketing Strategy from Harvard Business School, and a series of AI credentials from UBC, the most recent of them in AI Product Management.
Want to know more about my work? It is all at thegusta.com.