When a first batch of shorts comes back wrong, it’s tempting to blame the editor. Sometimes that’s fair. But when I look back at the first rounds that missed in my own work, the cause was usually something the creator knew and I didn’t: how long they like their clips, whether they add their own titles, which parts of the video they actually care about.
None of that takes long to write down. A good brief takes about five minutes, and it can save a whole round of revisions. This post is the template I’d hand any creator, whether they work with me or someone else, plus the real reasons each line is on it.
Why a brief matters more for shorts
With a long-form edit, an editor gets to know your channel over the length of the project. With shorts, they often start cold: one link, a handful of clips due in a day or two, and no idea what your audience expects.
An editor can work out a lot from your existing videos. A good one will watch your recent shorts, look at your thumbnails and listen to how you talk. But some things can’t be inferred from footage, because they’re about what you plan to do next, or what you didn’t like about what you did before. Those are the things a brief is for.
The template
Copy this into an email or a doc and fill in what you can. Blank lines are fine. A half-filled brief is still far better than none.
1. Video: link to the long-form video (and timestamps you already like, if any)
2. Where it’s going: YouTube Shorts / Reels / TikTok / all three
3. Style reference: one short (yours or someone else’s) that looks the way you want
4. Length: e.g. "30–45 s" or "1 minute or longer"
5. On screen: captions yes/no, title text yes/no, your fonts/colours/logo
6. Keep / avoid: things that must stay in, and things that must never go out
7. Goal: what each short should do (new viewers, bookings, a series…)
8. Feedback: who approves, and how you’ll leave notes
9. Delivery: files you want back (with/without music, naming, where)Here’s why each line is there.
1. The video, plus any moments you already like
Obvious, but add timestamps if you have them. You know your episode better than anyone. If there’s a moment you’ve already been thinking “that should be a short”, say so. The editor can still suggest others, but you won’t have to wait for a second round to get the clip you wanted all along.
If you don’t have timestamps, that’s fine. Picking moments is part of the job, and I’ve written about how I look for moments that work for strangers.
2. Where it’s going
Each app lays its own buttons and text over your video, and the safe areas aren’t identical. The platform also changes how long a clip can comfortably run and whether a burned-in title is worth adding. An editor who knows you mainly post to Reels will make slightly different choices than one cutting for YouTube Shorts.
3. One style reference
This is the most useful line on the whole brief. One link to one short whose look you want beats a paragraph describing it.
It doesn’t have to be your own. One of the trial clients I worked with, an excavation company, pointed me to another account in their trade as the look they were after: short edits cut to the beat of the music, ending on the reveal of the finished site. That one link told me the length, the pacing, the music style and the ending. I would have guessed at least two of those wrong without it.
If you already post shorts and you’re happy with them, link one of yours. If you’re not happy with them, say what bothers you. “I hate the AI-generated covers” is a perfectly good brief line. It’s exactly what a creator told me on my very first pilot.
4. Length
Length preferences vary much more than people expect, and they’re hard to guess. On that first pilot I cut clips to under 25 seconds, assuming shorter meant punchier. The creator wanted 30 to 45 seconds so his setups survived. Later, a sports podcast host told me his ideal was a minute or more. Both were right for their channels. I wrote more about this in how long a YouTube Short should be.
A range is ideal: “30–45 seconds” or “at least a minute”. If you genuinely don’t mind, say that too, and the editor can let each moment set its own length.
5. What goes on screen
This covers captions, title or hook text, and branding. A few specific questions worth answering:
- Captions: yes or no? If you already have a caption style, link an example.
- Title text: do you want one burned in, or do you add your own? That same sports podcast host told me he adds titles himself when he posts, so the clips should come without one. If I’d known that on day one, I wouldn’t have spent time designing titles he was going to replace.
- Branding: your fonts, colours, logo, and where the logo sits, if anywhere.
- Names: any spellings that matter, such as guests, places and slang. Auto-captions get these wrong constantly.
6. Keep and avoid
This is the line people skip most often, and it causes the most avoidable mistakes. Two halves:
Must keep. Anything the editor might cut that you’d miss. One client I edit for, a creator who makes reels about expat money, sends a script with each recording. The first time, the script was treated as the definition of the video, and the comments she made between script lines were trimmed out. She told us afterwards that those asides were part of what she wanted in. That’s now written into her brief: the script is the direction, and the off-script remarks stay unless she says otherwise. One sentence up front would have covered it.
Must avoid. Topics you don’t want posted on their own, a guest who shouldn’t be clipped, a running joke that doesn’t work out of context, swearing you want bleeped or left in. A take that’s fine in a 90-minute conversation can read very differently as a 40-second clip with no context around it.
7. The goal
“Get more views” is fine, but it helps to be more specific. A short meant to bring new viewers to the full episode should probably point back to it. A short for a business that wants enquiries might end on a clear line about what they do. A short that’s part of a series needs a consistent look and maybe a part number.
You don’t need a strategy document. One sentence is plenty.
8. Feedback
Say who approves the edits (you, a producer, a partner?) and how notes will come back: timestamped comments in a review link, a voice note, or an email. Timestamps make revisions far faster, because “the end of the second one feels off” can mean five different things, while “cut at 0:41, he says the point twice” means exactly one.
9. Delivery
How do you want the files? A shared folder, a download link, uploaded straight to a scheduler? Do you want a version without music, in case a track gets flagged on one platform? Any naming you prefer? These are two-minute answers that stop finished clips from sitting in someone’s inbox because they don’t fit your posting routine.
You don’t have to get it perfect
A brief isn’t a contract. Most of what an editor learns about your channel comes from the first round of feedback, and that’s normal. In my experience the first batch with a new creator is partly an edit and partly a conversation. The brief just makes that conversation start from a better place, so round two is about polish rather than basics.
If you only have time for three lines, make them the style reference, the length and the on-screen question. Those three cover most of the first-round misses I’ve seen.
How I use this
When creators send me a video, the request form asks for some of these up front: where you’ll post, a short whose style you like, and anything I should know. Everything else I either work out from your existing videos or ask in a short follow-up. I’d rather ask one quick question than guess and send you something you have to fix.
If you’d like to try it with one of your own videos, I can cut a free short from it. Fill in as much or as little of the template as you like. You keep the short either way.