The Master Guide / 01 How a production runs · The stages and gates
Approvals and the send log
An approval is a written reply from one named person, recorded with what it covers. Every send is frozen and logged.
An approval is a written reply from one named person, recorded with what it covers. Every send is frozen and logged.
Who approves what (decided):
Stage | The client approves | Becomes fixed |
Nothing; you approve it before the meeting | Role, objective, audience, the core of the brief, deliverables | |
Concepts | One idea, its story, tone, lines and music direction | The idea; the lines, refined later without changing their meaning |
Treatment | The vision, each department's plain page, the storyboard | The scenes and plain decisions; you lock each department's exact values |
Cast, looks, voices, places, props, product handling, colour, end card | The film's world; production video may start | |
Story, timing, takes, the chosen music, line delivery | The shots and their timing | |
Final film | Grade, mix, graphics, captions, every version | The masters |
Rules (decided):
One decision-maker on the client side. An approval is a reply from that person.
Record every approval when it arrives: what exactly (or "all except …"), by whom, when, the message, and the version and link it refers to. An approval from a call or an emoji is not recorded; ask for it in writing.
Two fields per department after the treatment: the client's sign-off on the plain decision, and your own sign-off on the exact values. The client sees those values at the anchors presentation; they are never recorded as client-approved.
Stable numbers: scene numbers are fixed at the treatment's first send and never renumbered. An added scene takes a letter (3a); a cut scene's number is retired.
The send log, the last section of your status page, one row per send: version, date, what was sent, file path, link, PDF, recipient, note.
Version numbers count sends to the client. The third send of the treatment is Version 3, whatever your internal rounds were.
Every send is frozen on a new link, and an old link is never overwritten (how: Client presentations → A new link per send). The working link is listed apart in the log and marked "working — never send".
Before any publish, check that neither the file path nor the link is already logged as sent. Write the row after you have opened the frozen link and checked it.
If you ever choose to update a sent link, know that it changes what the client already has, and note it in the row.
Deliveries are logged the same way, each on a new link.
Messages stay unsent drafts (decided) until you have read them and send them yourself. Nothing reaches the client from a tool or a team member on its own. The cover message says what this is, gives the link, lists what changed (one line per note, in the client's numbering, then "everything else is as you approved it"), says what you need from them, what becomes fixed once they approve, and what comes next and by when. No tools, credits, AI limits or working materials.
The link first, the PDF as the record [best available, not yet validated]: the client reads the link, and a PDF of the same version goes with it for printing and their records (see Client presentations → A new link per send).
Sources
EACA and CFP-E, European guidelines for commercial film production (2004): one decision-maker on the client side; the director's cut before the client's approval of the edit.
Jakob Nielsen and Anna Kaley, NN/g, "PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption".