The Video Editor Briefing Template That Saves 30 Minutes Per Video

What goes in a video editor brief

Before the template, a quick note on what sections to include. A complete brief gives your editor everything they need to start — and nothing they have to ask you about.

• Project overview — the video's topic, target length, platform, and tone. This context helps your editor make judgment calls on anything you didn't explicitly specify.
• File and asset locations — where to find the raw footage, music, graphics, fonts, and any b-roll you're providing.
• Structural edits — cuts, section removals, reordering. With timestamps.
• B-roll and inserts — where to add b-roll, which specific clips to use, and what the cutaways should accomplish (illustrate the point, fill a jump cut, etc.).
• Audio notes — music cues, levels, transitions, any clips with audio issues.
• Text and graphics — lower-thirds, title cards, captions, any changes to existing graphics.
• Delivery specs — resolution, format, aspect ratio, filename, where to upload the output.

The template (copy and use this)

How to fill each section

Project overview

Keep this short. The goal is to give your editor enough context to make judgment calls on anything you didn't specify. "10-minute explainer for YouTube, conversational tone, cut down to the tightest version without losing clarity" tells your editor how aggressive to be on cuts.

File locations

This sounds obvious but it's where briefs most often fail. Link to the exact folder — not "in Dropbox" but the direct shared link. If you have a folder structure, describe it briefly: "Raw footage is in /raw, organized by scene. B-roll I specifically want is marked with [USE THIS] in the filename."

Timecodes

Write the exact timecode from your video player: 1:22, 3:41.5, 12:08. "Around 2 minutes in" means your editor has to hunt. The extra 10 seconds it takes you to write the precise time saves your editor minutes per note.

For range cuts (remove a section from A to B), write both: "Cut 1:22–1:38." For point notes (something to fix at a specific moment), write one: "Audio: 3:41 — fade before this cut."

Delivery specs

Include this even if your editor already knows your usual format. Specs change by platform and project type, and a mismatched output format means a round of back-and-forth you don't need.

Where static templates hit their ceiling

The template above works well and is far better than no system at all. But it has a built-in limitation: the notes are text, and many editing problems are visual.

When your note is "the lower-third is covering the speaker's mouth at 2:15," your editor has to:

1. Read the note in the doc
2. Switch to the video in their editing app
3. Scrub to 2:15
4. Figure out which lower-third and which mouth position you mean

A circle drawn on the frame at 2:15 makes step 4 unnecessary.

Similarly, when you write "cut this section" and the section spans multiple clips with hard cuts between them, a text note leaves some ambiguity about exactly where the cut should start and end. A note pinned to the exact frame, with a second note at the end of the range, is unambiguous.

The natural evolution of the text brief is a brief that lives on the video — where the notes are attached to the timeline and the frame, not floating in a parallel doc. You can get most of the way there with the template above. When you're ready for the full version, a tool like Scoutzera pins each note directly to the timestamp and lets you draw on the frame, then packages everything into a single link for your editor.

Using the template

Copy the template into a Google Doc (or Notion, or wherever you work), fill it out before every edit, and share it with your editor along with the video link. Start with the sections that apply most to your workflow — if you rarely have audio notes, trim the audio section. The goal is a template you'll actually fill out, not a comprehensive document that takes longer to write than a briefing call.

Most creators who adopt a structured brief see a significant drop in revision rounds. Your editor isn't guessing what you meant — they have a complete spec to work from.