Film Brief

A placeholder is fine. It can change.

The project owner is our day-to-day contact. The approver is the one person who can sign off the final film.

Resist the urge to explain. One sentence. We will expand it together.

Describe the situation as it stands today, not the film. What is going wrong, or what is newly possible?

A film with three primary objectives has none. Pick the one that matters most; the others go below.

Not what the film contains — what changes because of it. “The Ministry approves the corridor” is an outcome. “A beautiful film about elephants” is not.

Films that target a named decision-maker on a known date outperform films aimed at everyone, always.

Give us at least two measures. Be concrete — numbers, names, dates. We will design the film to move these.

An honest answer here tells us how hard to push, and helps you test whether a film is really the right tool.

Internal alignment kills more films than budgets do. Tell us now.

“The general public” is not an audience. “Permanent secretaries and finance officials in Harare” is. “US-based conservation donors who already give USD 10,000+ annually” is. Give us age, country, role, language and where they encounter media.

Including any hostility, apathy or misinformation. We need the starting position.

A film with no ask gets no result. Include the URL, address, contact or process they must use.

Name the objections. A film that anticipates them is far more persuasive than one that ignores them.

Write it as you would want to hear it said aloud.

Every figure needs a source. We do not put unsourced numbers on screen — it is the fastest way to lose an audience and the hardest thing to fix after broadcast.

Political, diplomatic, community, commercial or security sensitivities. Anti-poaching tactics, ranger identities, rhino locations, ongoing prosecutions, contested boundaries, named individuals.

Include exact wording where a funder mandates it, and tell us who supplies the artwork.

Names of communities, RDCs, chiefs or committees, and the consent process we must follow. We film nobody without informed consent.

Two or three links. What matters is not the film but the sentence explaining what you like about it.

Including any requirement to use Zimbabwean or regional artists.

Attach or link them.

Tell us honestly how likely each is. Wildlife does not take direction.

Access, rainfall, river levels, migration, park closures, community calendars, political calendar.

Permits in Zimbabwe take time and money. Naming an owner and a deadline for each one now prevents a shoot collapsing later.

DNPW Zambia, Peace Parks Foundation, African Wildlife Foundation, UNDP, private operators, conservancies, research partners.

The most common cause of a wasted film is that nobody owned the distribution.

Many films will run entirely on what each side already provides. Some carry a partner or donor contribution. Both are workable — we simply need to know which this is.

Donor rules on branding, acknowledgement, reporting, procurement, currency and audit change how we contract and how we work. Tell us at the outset, not at delivery.

This is the most important question in the section. On a film with no cash attached, what you can provide is the budget — and some of these items are worth more to the film than their cash equivalent.

Please be exact. A cost assumed to be waived that turns out to be payable is the single most common way a production runs into trouble mid-shoot.

An honest list here is more useful than an optimistic one.

Tell us how many people review each stage and how long they take. Review time is the single most common cause of missed delivery dates — we would rather plan for it than be surprised by it.

One name. Not a committee.

Politics, history, personalities, past attempts, things that must not be repeated. Nothing you write here will surprise us; not writing it might.