From brief to final export, beat by beat.
Every teaser runs the same six stages: brief, beat sheet, rough cut, two revision rounds, a colour and sound pass, and delivery. Here is what happens at each one and what we need from you.
TC 02:00:02:16The edit decision list
Read this as an edit decision list for the job itself: each stage in order, with what goes in and what comes out.
- TC 01:00:00:00
Brief and files
Your booking arrives with the launch, the date and a link to the material. We open every file, log what is usable, flag anything that will not cut — interlaced footage, low-resolution captures, art with text baked in — and ask for replacements early. Within two working days you have either a beat sheet or a short list of what is still needed.
- TC 01:00:12:00
Beat sheet
A one-page plan in words, not pictures. Every beat is listed in order with its length in seconds and frames, the shot or card that fills it, the line of on-screen type if there is one, and where the music hits. It also states which bed we propose and why. You can move beats, cut them, or rewrite the type. Nothing gets cut until you approve it, and approval is when the deposit is paid.
- TC 01:00:24:00
Rough cut
The first edit, cut to the beat sheet against the chosen music bed. Pacing and order are right; type is laid in but not yet fully animated; colour is uncorrected. A rough cut exists to answer one question — does the shape work — so judge the rhythm and the reveal, not the polish.
- TC 01:00:36:00
Two revision rounds
Send one consolidated set of notes per round, ideally with timecodes. Round one usually moves beats and swaps shots; round two tightens trims and type. A 60-second trailer gets a fine cut between them. Notes that change the brief itself — a new length, a different reveal — count as a new beat sheet rather than a revision.
- TC 01:00:48:00
Colour and sound pass
With picture locked, footage from different sources is matched so a phone clip sits beside a render without jumping. Then the mix: the music bed is levelled, whooshes and hits are placed on the cuts, risers build into the reveal, and the whole thing is checked on studio monitors and a phone speaker, because that is where most people will hear it.
- TC 01:00:59:00
Delivery files
Masters go out as high-quality files in 16:9, 1:1 and 9:16, each reframed so the subject and the type sit inside the safe area for that shape. You also receive a version without the end card, the still frame of the end card as an image, and a short list of the music track and its licence reference for your records.
TC 02:00:09:04Giving notes that help
The fastest teasers come from short, specific notes. "At 00:12 the cut to the cover feels early — hold the hand two beats longer" moves the edit forward; "can it feel more exciting" usually starts a conversation first. Timecodes help most, and our review copies carry a burnt-in timecode so you can point at the exact frame.
Gather everyone's view before you send a round. Two people sending separate, contradictory lists in the same round is the most common reason a teaser runs late, and we will ask you to choose between them before we act on either.
If you run out of included rounds, an extra revision round is £120 and adds two working days. Small fixes of an obvious mistake on our side — a typo in a card we set, a wrong date — are never counted as a round.
TC 02:00:15:10Why the cold open matters
Most people decide in the first second or two whether to keep watching, so the opening shot carries more weight than any other. We almost never open on a logo. A cold open drops the viewer straight into something happening — a hand reaching, a page turning, a character mid-jump, a screen mid-swipe — and holds back the name until the reveal has earned it.
The beat sheet always proposes two candidate opens, and the rough cut uses the stronger. If you prefer the other one, swapping them is a normal note in round one.
Rough cut versus fine cut
On the 60-second trailer there is an extra stage between the two revision rounds: a fine cut, where trims are tightened to the frame and the motion type is fully animated. Shorter teasers fold that work into the second round, because at fifteen or thirty seconds the gap between rough and finished is smaller.
What we check before anything leaves
Every master is watched end to end in each frame size, on a large monitor and on a phone. We check that no type runs outside the safe area, that the end card holds for at least three seconds, that the audio peaks sit within the levels the major video platforms expect, and that the first frame works as a thumbnail when a player shows it before playback.
Want to see the costs for each length first? They are on the launch-teasers page, and the booking form adds them up for you.
The beat sheet is the first thing you see.
Book the teaser, send the files, and within two working days you have a written plan to approve or mark up — before anything is paid.
Book a teaser