How to brief a hotel video shoot: what to send

The smoothest shoots are decided weeks before anyone arrives. A good brief is what decides them, and it’s shorter than you’d think.

A film crew does not need everything. It needs a clear goal, a sense of the property’s best angles, and a few logistics sorted. Almost every delay on a shoot traces back to a gap in one of those three. Here are the five things to send, with what each one actually changes on the day.

1. The goal, in a sentence

Is this for the website, for social, for in-room screens, or a campaign? A film made for a homepage is paced differently from one made for a phone. A homepage loop has no sound and no beginning. A reel has three seconds to earn the next ten. An in-room film has a guest sitting on the bed with time to spare. Tell the crew where it will live before they design the story, and they will shoot for that screen from the first frame.

Send it as one line. “A 90-second brand film for the new website, plus six reels for Instagram” is a perfect brief. A paragraph about brand values is not.

2. What to highlight, and what to avoid

The room or villa categories that sell, the restaurants worth featuring, the signature experiences. Just as useful: what to avoid. A wing under renovation, a tired corner, a space that is always busy at 10am. Saving a crew from a bad shot is as helpful as pointing them to a good one.

If you only have time for one thing, tell us which room has the best light and at what hour. That single fact has rescued more shoots than any mood board.

3. Brand materials, if you have them

Logo files in the right format, any photography or video guidelines, and where the logo should sit. If you are part of a group with a standard, send it early. It shapes the grade and the end card more than anything else, and discovering it after the edit means re-grading the whole film. If there are no guidelines, say so. That is useful too; it means we design the look with you rather than guessing at a standard.

4. Access and timing

Who can let the crew into spaces, the quiet windows to film around service, and whether a drone or any restricted area needs permission. Golden hour is short; knowing which terrace faces the sunset can save a whole day. Two specifics worth sending:

• A show room or villa that can be held empty for the shoot days, with housekeeping warned not to “reset” it between shots.
• A named person on property with keys, who answers their phone. Rooftops, plant rooms and locked terraces have a way of becoming the best shot of the day.

5. People

Can staff appear naturally, a receptionist, a waiter, a chef plating? Are real guests possible, or should models be arranged? This is usually the difference between a film that feels alive and one that feels empty. If models are coming, send ages and the look you want two weeks out, not two days. If staff are appearing, a simple release form signed on the day keeps the film usable for years.

A one-page brief, in full

If it helps, here is the whole thing as a checklist. Fill it in and the treatment almost writes itself.

• Goal and where the film will live, in one line
• Length and formats (landscape, vertical, both)
• Three spaces or experiences that must be in it
• Anything to avoid
• Brand guidelines or “none”
• Best light: which space, which hour
• Show room held for the shoot
• On-property contact with keys
• Drone permission: yes, no, or unknown
• People: staff, guests, models, or none
• One or two reference films that feel right

When to send what

Four weeks out: the goal, the brand materials and the spaces. That is enough for us to write the treatment. Two weeks out: access, people and the drone answer. One week out: the weather plan and the call sheet come back from us. The day before: a quick confirmation that the show room is still held. That is the whole timeline, and it is why the calm shoots feel calm.

What you do not need to send

A shot list. That is our job, and a client-written shot list usually turns into the feature tour we are trying to avoid. A script, unless the film is narrated. A hundred reference videos. One or two references that capture the feeling you want are worth more than twenty that do not.

Get those five things down and the shoot mostly runs itself. We turn them into a treatment and a shot list before we arrive. For what happens on the property side in the final days, see how to prepare a hotel for a shoot. And if you would rather not start from a blank page, we keep a short brief that asks for exactly this, so nothing slips: start a project brief →