# The explainer brief

Complete this brief before storyboarding so the producer knows what the viewer
needs to understand and which product behavior will demonstrate it. The product
owner checks the proposed facts, and the producer develops the concept and
visual sequence before writing narration and producing audio.

## Completed example

**Product:** DispatchDesk, a fictional support-routing product used only for this
exercise. Its interface, people, data and behavior below are illustrative.

**Audience:** A support lead who currently assigns incoming tickets by hand.

**Viewing context:** A product-page visitor deciding whether to investigate
routing. They may begin with the sound off.

**Question the film answers:** How does a routing rule get a checkout problem to
the team that can handle it?

**Starting assumption:** “Automation might move tickets, but I will still need to
open each one to see where it went and whether the urgency survived.”

**Desired understanding:** A matching rule assigns the ticket to Payments while
retaining the ticket's urgent priority. The assignment and priority are both
visible in the final ticket.

**Proof event:** Ticket DD-1042 changes from unassigned to Payments after the
rule that sends Checkout tickets to Payments matches. Its subject and Urgent label remain unchanged.

**Example data:** DD-1042 / Checkout fails after payment / Category: Checkout /
Priority: Urgent / Team: Unassigned. A separate Billing ticket provides a
nonmatching case if the lesson needs to explain the rule's boundary.

**Story:** Establish the unassigned ticket. Show the matching condition and team
destination. Run the rule. Inspect the assigned ticket. For a teaching version,
show that a Billing ticket does not match this particular rule.

**Product evidence:** The facts above are authored demonstration facts, not
observations of a real product. In a commissioned film, replace them with a
dated product recording, current documentation and an approved sample-data set.

**Out of scope:** Rule precedence, round-robin assignment, permissions, response
time, resolution time and claims that routing resolves the customer's problem.

**Next step for the viewer:** Explore a routing example or request a preview
based on their own product.

**Deliverables to agree:** Primary player, aspect ratio, approximate scope,
captions, audio, alternative crops, source files and review rounds. These are
proposal decisions, not promises created by this template.

## Your brief

- Product and current version: [fill in]
- Intended viewer and existing knowledge: [fill in]
- Where and how they will watch: [fill in]
- One question the film answers: [fill in]
- What they currently misunderstand: [fill in]
- What they should understand afterward: [fill in]
- Visible event that supports that understanding: [fill in]
- Starting state, causal action, and resulting state: [fill in]
- Sample-data ledger and evidence links: [fill in]
- What the film deliberately excludes: [fill in]
- What the viewer can do next: [fill in]
- Required formats, captions, audio and review owners: [fill in]
- Open questions and their owners: [fill in]
- Brief version and review decision: [fill in]

## Review the brief

Ask a colleague to point to the proof event without reading your desired
understanding aloud. If they cannot, replace broad benefits with a concrete
example. “Fewer manual assignments” might motivate the story; a ticket visibly
reaching the right team demonstrates the behavior. A time-saving or revenue claim
would need separate evidence.

Check that the proof event can appear accurately on screen. If the interface does
not display the information you need, choose another example or explicitly label
a conceptual diagram. Do not invent a product screen to fill the gap.

Use the reviewed brief to build the storyboard. Each scene should help answer
the chosen question or provide context the viewer needs to understand it.

[Read the full guide](https://20cuts.com/explainer-video-brief-template).