What to send a video editor before they start

The short answer

Send the editor the decisions only you can make, before they open your footage: where the video will be watched, how long it should be, what it should feel like, what may be cut, and what you want back at the end. Two links to videos you like say more than a paragraph of adjectives. A shared folder with the clips in order saves the editor a lot of guessing.

The video editing brief on the job page has these fields ready to copy. This guide explains why each one is there and what goes wrong without it.

Why “make it engaging” is not a brief

Every editor reads “engaging” differently. One hears fast cuts and zooms, another hears clean pacing and captions, a third hears music. None of them is wrong. You find out which one you hired when the first cut arrives, and each guess you correct is a revision round.

A first cut that misses is rarely bad editing. It is the editor filling a blank you left. The cheapest way to close the blanks is in the first message, while the editor is still quoting, because some answers change the price: a 10-minute YouTube video and a 30-second vertical Reel are different jobs, and the job page notes that length, motion graphics, captions, revision rounds and a fast turnaround all move the price from the $100 starting packages towards the top of the $100–$650 range.

The nine things to send

What my own short-form pipeline taught me

I run an automated pipeline that renders short vertical videos and still carousels from templates. No editor is involved, which is why it is a useful test: every decision a human editor would make on instinct had to be written down as a rule. Two of those rules were written after something went wrong, and each one is a line I would now put in a brief.

Sound is a decision, not a default. In August 2026 I found that the vertical videos one of my renderers produced were completely silent. The renderer attached an empty audio track; measured, the level was −91 dB. The median average watch time on those videos was 2.9 seconds of 8. I added a short spoken narration of four lines and normalised the loudness to −14 LUFS. Your editor will not make a silent video, but they will pick a sound you did not ask for unless the brief says what you want. Say whether you want voice, music or both, and who supplies the music. If the editor supplies it, ask them to name the licence in writing, so you know the track is cleared for the platform you post on.

The first two seconds deserve their own line in your brief. On short-form platforms the viewer decides almost immediately whether to keep watching, so the opening is the part of the edit you should decide yourself. Tell the editor which line, shot or headline to open on. If you leave it out, the editor opens on whatever your footage opens on, which is usually a greeting or a camera adjustment. If you are not sure what to open with, ask the editor to send two alternative openings with the first cut and pick one.

Text needs a budget. A subtitle line in one of my videos was longer than the space allowed for it. Nothing stopped the render: the line quietly wrapped onto a second line and split a word in the middle. I shortened the line, re-rendered, and discarded the broken version. The renderer now shrinks an over-long line to fit and logs a warning when it does, so a squeeze is never silent. For a human editor, the equivalent is item 6: tell them the longest caption line you will accept, and ask them to tell you when your script does not fit rather than squeezing it.

A brief you can copy

The video: [YouTube / Shorts / Reels / TikTok], [shape], about [length], never over [ceiling]. At the end the viewer should [do or feel]. First two seconds: [the line or shot to open on]. References: [link 1] for the pace, [link 2] for the captions. Footage: [shared folder link], clips numbered in order. Skip [takes]. Cut [anything private or wrong]. Captions: [yes/no], [style, font, colour], longest line [N] characters. Tell me if the script does not fit. Sound: [my voice-over / music I supply / licensed music from you, licence named]. Revisions: [N] rounds included. A revision = changes to this cut; new footage or a new script = a new order. Hand-back: export for [each platform], project file and added assets, in my folder. Acceptance: final payment after I watch the full export on my phone and desktop and the revision list is closed.

Paste it into your first message, the way the first message guide suggests, and read the custom offer against it line by line. Revisions and project files are where offers most often differ from what you thought you were buying.

Order one video first

Order one video as a test of how the editor reads your brief, and judge it against the acceptance lines: watched on the device your audience uses, captions readable and clear of the app’s buttons, every revision item closed, music licence named, project file in your folder.

If the Shorts will be cut from a long video, an editor who does both saves you a second briefing; Krosty is on the shortlist for exactly that. If short-form is the whole job, a short-form specialist such as Endri usually understands the pacing better.

Once the first video works, ask for a price per video for a regular batch. Going back to the same seller covers what to agree before you commit to a monthly volume, and asking for changes after delivery covers how to word revision notes so they count as revisions.

Where it goes wrong anyway

• The footage was filmed without knowing the format. An editor cannot reframe a wide shot into a vertical one without losing the sides. Decide the platform before you film.
• The references disagree with each other. Two videos with opposite pacing tell the editor nothing. Say what you like in each one.
• The revision list keeps growing. If every round adds new requests, you are re-briefing, not revising. Collect your notes in one message per round.
• The download link expires. Move the files into your own folder the day you accept, not when you need to change a typo three months later.

Wrap-up

A video editor can only make the decisions you leave open, and they will make them. Close the ones that matter to you in the first message: platform and length, the first two seconds, two references, captions with a length limit, sound with a licence, revisions, and the files you want back. Then order one video, watch it on a phone, and scale from there.