The Master Guide / 02 The brief and research · Reading the brief
Read it all, copy the locked items
Read the client's own files, all of them. Then copy what the brief locks exactly as the client wrote it.
Read the client's own files, all of them. Then copy what the brief locks exactly as the client wrote it.
Read everything, raw (decided):
Every page of every PDF and deck, every slide note, every image, every sheet tab. A client video is read through a video-understanding tool and quoted as its report: Gemini first, at 1 frame a second for slow footage and 5 for fast cutting, uploaded only where the client's non-disclosure agreement (NDA) allows. How to ask it, and what to trust it for: The quality bar → Judging motion honestly.
Every voice note transcribed (see The brief and research → Voice notes into text).
Never work from a summary, someone's analysis or an earlier account of the brief. Go back to the client's files.
Where the brief contradicts itself across files, note both versions with their file and date. They become meeting questions.
Reading the files is free and starts at once. Before any paid step (transcription, a video-analysis read, the Detailed Brief's frames), get one estimate for the stage approved (see Planning, budgets and takes → Costs and the estimate).
Copy the locked items (decided): the client's device, transitions, times of day, on-screen text, language versions and timings. You develop art direction, production design, locations, camera and craft, never these.
Copy each one into the project file's "Locked by the brief" section, letter for letter, with its source file. On-screen text keeps its exact spelling, punctuation and script; Arabic sits inside «…».
Add the other mandatories: logo and pack rules, legal lines, talent who must appear, and restricted content for the category (a bicycle maker whose riders always wear a helmet, for example).
Copy, never improve. A stronger time of day or a tighter end line is not yours to make. If a locked item looks weak or impossible, it becomes a meeting question with your suggested answer, and it stays as supplied until the client changes it.
Anything unclear ("evening or night?") stays as written, marked "unclear", and goes to the questions.
Sources
This Guide's own rules.