The brief and research

Everything later rests on what you understand now. This chapter takes a brief, in whatever form it arrives, to the Detailed Brief you bring to the first meeting: the locked items, the analysis, the research, the culture and dialect rules, the insight, the first language decisions and the questions.

Reading the brief

Read every client file, copy the locked items exactly, transcribe the voice notes, then write the one-page analysis and hand the brief back.

• Read it all, copy the locked items: Read the client's own files, all of them.

• Voice notes into text: Clients brief by voice note, in dialect, with English words mixed in.

• The one-page analysis: One internal page that says what you understood, marked line by line with where each piece came from.

Research

Research that narrows with each stage, and the insight the idea stands on.

• Research as a funnel: Research deepens from the brief to the concept to the treatment, then narrows in production.

• The insight, and the fallback when there is no consumer truth: An insight is a truth with a tension in it, in the audience's own voice.

Culture and dialects

The audience's culture in concrete details, the dialect rules for every spoken line, and the first language decisions.

• Culture: Culture shows in named, concrete things, not in general values.

• Dialect rules: There is no neutral spoken Arabic.

• First decisions on language, dialect and voices: Decide the language of every spoken part now, before a single line is written, and flag anything that changes the plan (your internal shot plan, made at Stage 04) or the budget.

The meeting

The opportunities and questions for the client meeting, and the Detailed Brief that comes out of it.

• Opportunities and meeting questions: Bring 3–5 things the client hasn't seen, and 8–12 short questions, each with your suggested answer.

• The Detailed Brief and the meeting: The Detailed Brief is the first thing the client sees from you.