What a good scientific brief looks like.
Nine out of ten briefs we receive ask for the wrong thing. Here's the template we wish clients used — shorter than you'd think, sharper than you'd expect.
Most briefs describe the deliverable
"A 90-second 3D animation, 4K, with voiceover." That is a purchase order, not a brief. It tells us what to build and nothing about whether it is the right thing to build.
The four lines we actually need
- Who watches this, and where? An investor on a laptop is not a clinician at a congress.
- What must they be able to do afterwards? Explain it to a colleague? Approve a budget? Run the assay?
- What is the one claim we cannot get wrong? Every project has one. Name it.
- What is the deadline, and what is it tied to? A congress date is a fact; "as soon as possible" is not.
A four-line brief that answers those questions is worth more than a twenty-page one that does not.— David Hernández
What happens when a brief is good
We can tell you in the first call whether animation is the right medium at all — and if it is not, we will say so.
