What to Put in a Delivery Spec Before the Shoot
Answers video delivery specifications checklist
A delivery spec decided at the end is a re-export, a re-frame, a caption rebuild or a reshoot. Decided at the start it is a line in the brief. The difference between those two states is about ten minutes of conversation and the whole of a deadline week.
The six that actually cause rework
Aspect ratios. Not "we need social versions" but the list: 16:9, 1:1, 9:16, 4:5. Each is a different composition and each needs graphics that were built for it rather than scaled into it.
Running times, per version. A hero at ninety seconds and a social cut at fifteen is two edits, not one edit trimmed. Deciding the cut-down lengths early means the hero is shot with the shorter one in mind.
Captions and subtitles. Burned in or as a sidecar file. One language or three. This decides whether the graphics need a safe area reserved at the bottom, which is a shoot decision.
Sound specification. Stereo, or a version with dialogue isolated for a voiceover in another market. Loudness target if the client has one. Whether music has to be separable.
Delivery method and naming. An upload to a platform, a drive to an agency, or a folder in a shared system. With a naming convention, because whichever it is, somebody will ask for one later.
Rights and clearances. Which music, under what licence, for which platforms and for how long. This is the one that cannot be fixed afterwards. A track licensed for web but not for paid media is a re-edit with a new track, and the cost lands on the same invoice.
The ones worth asking even when nobody offers
Where is this going first? A film for a paid social campaign and a film for a conference keynote are different grades of work, and knowing which is the lead version changes the edit.
Who else will touch it? If an agency will re-cut it, they need the project, the fonts and a version of the graphics that can be opened. If nobody will, none of that is needed and saying so saves a handover.
What is the shelf life? A film with a two-year life should not have a dated reference in the first line.
Is there a version without sound? Screens in lobbies and presentations run silent. It is a rendering matter if it was planned and a rebuild if it was not.
Why this is a post-production concern
All of it is decided before the edit and all of it is enforced during it. A spec that arrives with the delivery note is a list of problems, not a specification.
The practical form: one page, agreed before the shoot, with the six items above and a name next to each. It is not a contract, it is a checklist, and it is the cheapest document in the whole production.
If a job is starting soon, send the spec with the brief and the quote will name the versions it includes rather than discovering them at the end.