From the Arsenal: When in doubt, answer with what you're certain of.

Story Of The Day: You’ve finally decided to pull the trigger.

Your business is scaling, the team is lean, and you’re ready to outsource your first video project. You get on a call with a production company. You’re excited. You tell them, “I want to do a video!”

Then, they hit you with the two life-sucking questions that make you freeze:

1. "What’s the vision?"
2. "What’s your budget?"

In an instant, the air leaves the room. You don't have an answer—you have a business goal. You don't know the "budget" because you don't know how much to invest in order to manufacture the win you need. So you go back and forth between "what's the price and what's your budget".

This isn't them trying to play sales games with you. They are operating within the Traditional Model: Pre-Production → Production → Post-Production → Delivery. This is a highly efficient assembly process designed to ensure the best possible results. They ask to figure out what to build, and gauge the scope of work.

It’s a logical process, but for you it’s a stall. It's a paradox! You are being asked to answer something low in your list of priorities, but high in theirs.

To bridge this gap, you need to deconstruct Hollywood's tried-and-true assembly line. Instead of guessing at "how many actors" or "what locations," you start at the finish line and work backward. This is what I call The Reverse Model.

The Reverse Model: By starting with the final result (your big win), you answer the things you are certain of. This gives the filmmaker the exact constraints they need to gauge the scope:

1. I'm trying to [Business fix that is not revenue stated] by using video.
2. It's going to live on [Platform / IG / YT / TV Commercial]
3. It should look like [Competitor example / Visual references/ Example on their reel]
4. We need final deliverables by [Deadline] in order to launch by [Launch date]
5. We need [Specific shots / Evergreen B-roll] + [Good-to-have shots]
6. These are our [Available dates for filming]
7. Here's where we thought we could film it [location ideas or studios]
8. This is the rough story idea: [Briefly describe if you know it already]

Work the list from top to bottom. You should have at least 3-4 of these answered before the inquiry.

Notice the hierarchy: these are ranked from your highest business priority to your lowest. You likely care less about the specific location and more about the deadline.

Decoding the Specs When you provide this list, here is what the vendor is actually hearing on their end:

1. Objective: "OK, this is the business target this video is trying to hit."
2. Export settings: "OK, we need to output specific technical files for X platform."
3. Visual Standard: "Great, now we know exactly what lighting and gear we need to match that look."
4. Timeline: "Great, we have a hard deadline—can our team deliver by then?"
5. Shot List: "Great, we have a rough roadmap for what we need to capture on set."
6. Capacity: "OK, do we have slots available in that specific window?"
7. Logistics: "Great, we have locations we can already start checking into."
8. Story: "OK, they have a story we can now turn into a professional outline or script."

Takeaways: By providing these answers first, you stay in your zone of genius (Business) and let the creative stay in theirs (Craft). You are dividing and conquering. The budget conversation stops being a game of poker and starts building a frame of expectations. That's tangible and quotable.

How to Apply It Today:

1. Answer with Non-negotiables : Don't get on a call without filling in the blanks above as best as you can. You get better insights with solid constraints.
2. Use Constraints to Build Scope: Hand the vendor your list of non-negotiables. A professional partner will use these boundaries to calculate their labor and equipment needs without playing the "budget guessing game.
3. The Vetting Test: If a vendor still can't give you a ballpark after you've provided this much clarity, they aren't seasoned enough to handle your business result.

Pro tip: The things hard to figure out happen to be what creative pros are great at helping out with. Meet in the middle.

As promised: dialing in your video workflows 1% at a time.

Want help launching, scaling and upgrading videos that actually move needles?

That’s what we do inside DenimStitch.

Vagueness is the most expensive line item on your invoice.
-David.

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