The single most common reason brand films disappoint is not budget, talent, or post — it is a brief that was approved without the seven questions being answered. We use the same intake form with every new corporate client, and we share it here because most marketing teams have to write their first brief without one.
Question 1: Who is the film for?
Not "the brand" or "everyone." Name the specific audience. The board. New recruits. The trade-show floor. Investors in next quarter's raise. Existing customers being upsold. Each of these wants a different film. A single video that tries to serve four audiences serves none of them well.
Question 2: Where will it live?
The film's deployment surface defines its length, aspect ratio, and pacing. A 90-second LinkedIn hero behaves differently from a six-minute AGM cut, which behaves differently from a sales-pitch background loop. Decide deployment before script.
Question 3: What is the single thing the audience must remember?
If the answer is more than one sentence, the brief is not finished. The greatest corporate films deliver one idea, ruthlessly. The second-greatest deliver three. Most failed films attempt seven.
Question 4: What does success look like, measured?
Pipeline opened? Recruits accepting? Press coverage? Investor commitments? AGM applause? Sales-cycle compression? Pick one or two metrics before the studio quotes. The film built for "engagement" is a film built for nothing. The film built for "compress investor due diligence by two weeks" has a job.
Need help writing the brief itself?
Book a thirty-minute discovery call. We will walk through your brief together and you will leave with a clearer version than you arrived with — whether or not we end up making the film.
Book a discovery call →Question 5: What is the production constraint that cannot move?
The shoot date that has to happen during the existing plant maintenance window. The product launch the film must ship before. The board meeting it has to play at. Studios cannot plan a calendar without knowing which dates are immovable and which are negotiable.
Question 6: What is the budget envelope, plainly stated?
Marketing teams routinely under-share budget on the theory that the studio will quote less if they think less is available. The opposite happens. A studio that does not know your envelope quotes for the wrong scope, and the project either over-shoots or under-delivers. Share the band: ₹3–5L, ₹5–10L, ₹10–25L. The studio will scope accordingly.
Question 7: Who is the single approver?
Brand films die in approval rounds with five committee members. Identify the single name who has the final word — usually the CMO, founder, or marketing director — and route all creative decisions to that person. The studio can handle the politics around that name. It cannot handle the politics that emerges from five names with veto rights.
The form, in one paragraph.
"This film is for [audience]. It will live on [deployment surface]. The single thing they must remember is [one sentence]. Success looks like [metric]. The constraint that cannot move is [date or condition]. Our budget envelope is [band]. The final approver is [name]."
If your brief answers those seven prompts, any serious studio in the country will deliver a film worth your budget. If your brief does not, no studio will.
