The Master Guide / 04 The treatment and presentations · Client presentations
Films, words and nothing internal
Films that play on any phone, words a non-specialist reads in 3 s, and nothing from the workshop on the page.
Films that play on any phone, words a non-specialist reads in 3 s, and nothing from the workshop on the page.
Films on pages [proven]: 14 MB or less, an H.264 MP4 file encoded in two passes, with a poster frame, set to start playing before it has fully loaded (encoding steps below).
Aim for a bitrate of about 110 ÷ the film's seconds, in megabits a second (Mb/s), less about 0.13 for the sound.
Use 720p for anything over 30 s. A 9:16 film stays at 1080 × 1920 up to about 30 s.
A film that can't meet 14 MB at good quality goes on the page as its poster, with a link to the film master.
Short silent loops play muted and looping. Films have controls and a poster. One film plays at a time, and sound starts only from a button.
A rough cut carries "ROUGH CUT — Version N" burned into the video itself, never into finished films or presentation pages.
Only the chosen music on a client page.
Text limits [best available, not yet validated] for the numbers:
Page | Limit |
Argument pages | 70 words on average; none over 120 |
Scene page | The header line, one paragraph up to 130 words (a spread when it fails the fit check), and the full spoken lines |
Cover | A title of 8 words or fewer |
Opener | A title of 5 words; an optional line of 15 |
Statement | 20 words |
Anchors caption | 25 words per sheet |
Recommendation | Four points of 12 words |
List page | Eight items of 25 words |
Each page's point lands in about 3 s [proven], on a phone and on a big screen. One point per page. The heading states it, and the first line says what it means for the client.
The writing rules for clients hold on every page: plain English for non-specialists, sentences that average 15 words or fewer (any over 25 rewritten or kept on purpose), the voice of a finished plan under your name (no "maybe" or "we propose"), and questions only in the cover message (see The stages and gates → Writing for the client).
Arabic on pages [best available, not yet validated]:
the clean approved spelling, never a voice tool's vowel-marked text;
each line in its own right-to-left block, in «…»;
numbers and Latin words isolated, and no letter spacing;
the guillemets checked the right way round;
every line checked letter by letter, and the shaping checked once in the PDF.
Nothing internal reaches a page, its alt text, its title or its file names: the deny-list, what is checked by eye, and the search before every send are in The stages and gates → What the client sees, and what stays internal.
The talk track (decided): for each presentation, 2–4 lines per section on what you say, the one question to ask, and the client's likely question with your answer, timed for a 15–20 minute call. It is your note, never a page.
Do it yourself
Encode a film for a page (Adobe Media Encoder, HandBrake or ffmpeg)
Work out {N}, the video bitrate in Mb/s: 110 ÷ the film's seconds, less about 0.13 for the sound.
In Adobe Media Encoder or HandBrake, encode two-pass at that target bitrate. Or run ffmpeg; the first two lines are the two passes, the third saves the poster frame:
ffmpeg -y -i film.mov -c:v libx264 -b:v {N}M -pass 1 -an -f mp4 /dev/null
ffmpeg -i film.mov -c:v libx264 -b:v {N}M -pass 2 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags +faststart film.mp4
ffmpeg -i film.mp4 -ss 00:00:02 -frames:v 1 -qscale:v 3 poster.jpg
For 720p, add -vf scale=-2:720 to both passes. On Windows, write NUL for /dev/null. +faststart lets the film start playing before it has fully loaded.