Published October 20, 2026

Questions to ask before commissioning AI video

AI video suppliers are easy to find and quick to quote. The more useful conversation is about how the work will run and what ends up in your hands when it is finished.

Ask about the job, not the tool

A serious brief begins with a different question: what should change after someone watches this? A resort sells a feeling, a developer presents a property before handover, a hotel needs the stay to look like the one guests will have, a fashion label needs the garment to read properly on a small screen. If the supplier spends the first call listing software, they may be selling access to a tool rather than a result.

Ask where the film will live: website hero, paid social, investor deck, lobby screen, trade show. A lobby loop and a paid social cut share footage but not rhythm, length, or the amount of text on screen.

What the supplier produces and what you must supply

Generative work still starts with real material. Expect to provide property photographs, floor plans, renders, a usable logo file, approved wording, and sometimes drawings. Ask which of these the supplier will source or generate on their own, and which they expect from you.

Then ask how accuracy is protected. If part of the property does not exist yet and some frames are visualisations, that has to be clear to everyone involved at the start rather than at the final review. The answer to watch for is some version of “it will look fine, nobody checks that closely”.

Who owns the script and how many rounds are included

Script, shot plan, and edit rarely survive first contact with a client. The usual sound order is: agree the meaning, then the visual sequence, then the details. Ask at which point you sign off on the text and when changes start to cost real work.

Ask how many rounds are included. Plenty of suppliers quote a date without saying how many times you may send the film back, and that is exactly the point where a friendly project turns difficult. It also helps to define what counts as a revision and what counts as a new scene: rewriting three shots and swapping one word are not the same request.

What you see before the end

Understand the review path before paying in full. Good practice includes checkpoints: treatment, shot list, a set of stills, an assembly. Corrections are cheaper there than at the end, and you are not wondering what your money bought for three weeks.

Ask whether there is a rough cut and in what form: a file, a private link, a frame-by-frame sheet. A supplier who only shows finished work leaves you with no way to steer.

Rights to images, music, and voice

This is the part most often skipped. Who owns the photographs you sent? Is the music cleared for commercial use, or does it come with a subscription that ends when the supplier stops paying? If a person’s face appears in the film, how is consent handled?

For hospitality and property marketing this matters more than it seems: a film that cannot be published, or that has to be pulled later, costs more than the difference between two quotes. Ask what usage rights arrive with the deliverables and on what terms.

When the result does not match the property

There is a specific risk in generative video worth naming early: a frame that is almost the right building, with the wrong geometry, the wrong finish, the wrong furniture layout. For an unbuilt project that is expected. For an operating hotel or a villa currently on the market, it is a credibility problem.

Ask how the supplier verifies resemblance. Is there a check against supplied photographs and plans, who approves each frame, what happens when something drifts. If no such check exists in the process, it becomes your job, and it adds time.

Look at portfolio work in your own category rather than the most spectacular clip. A resort that existed only on paper and a finished villa are different production problems: compare Anantara Bali, Norke Bali, and a house in Sochi, and notice what the source material was in each case.

Timelines and where they break

Ask for stages, not just a delivery date. What comes first, what depends on you, where the supplier is waiting for material or approval. Delays usually appear in review, not in editing, so an honest answer includes your own share of the calendar.

If the schedule depends on generating more frames, ask what specifically drives that: number of scenes, quality of the source, complexity of camera movement. It helps you decide whether to simplify the idea or raise the budget.

What you receive

Deliverables are not a detail. Ask whether you get a horizontal and a vertical version, with sound and without, at what resolution, and whether platform-specific adaptations are included. If you will need two formats, better to know before the shoot rather than after.

Also ask about project files and raw frames. Full project handover is not always necessary, but it should be clear what stays with you and what stays with the supplier.

About money

A price means something only next to a scope. A 45-60 second film without sound starts from a defined base, but that figure describes a specific job: script, visual sequence, edit, and agreed revision rounds. It does not cover urgency, voiceover, licensed music, or several format versions.

Ask what is included, what happens if you want a second version for a different audience, and how music and voice are handled. Conversations about cost are far easier once the task is agreed.

Assessing a supplier is not a matter of how impressive the showreel looks. It is about whether they ask about facts, tell you what they will do when a frame is wrong, and show you where the film stands before you have paid for all of it.

FAQ

What separates a good portfolio from a pretty one

A good one shows the task, not just the picture: who it was for, what had to be demonstrated, how many versions it took. If the portfolio is a reel of impressive shots without context, the level of work behind it is impossible to judge.

What to ask first

About the process: who writes the script, how many revision rounds are included, what you will see before the final render, who owns the rights to the result. Those four answers say more about a supplier than any price list.

Is a contract worth it for a small film

Yes, and three things are enough: what is being made, in what timeframe, and how many revision rounds are included. Rights to the material and the music are fixed separately.

Projects: музыкальные клипы