The questions clients actually ask.

Yes. Tell us roughly what you want the ad to do and where it will run, and we'll come back with two or three budget levels, from a full shoot down to something built from footage you already have.

The most useful thing you can send us is the media plan. The channels, the lengths and how many ads you need drive the cost more than anything creative.

Often, yes. We call it a library ad: your footage and stills, plus voiceover, music and a proper end frame, cleared and delivered to the stations.

The more good footage you have, the better it looks and the cheaper it stays. Social versions can be cut from the same edit for a small extra.

For social, maybe. For TV, the shoot is the easy bit. The script has to clear Clearcast, the legals have to be legible and long enough, and the files have to pass the broadcasters' technical checks.

You pay for that whoever makes it. Cutting corners on the film just means a cheaper-looking ad going through the same process.

No. Every job is priced as a project, so you know the full cost before we start. That includes crew, edit, music, clearance and delivery.

Usually two to three working days to come back on a finished ad. We send them a script first, and a rough cut early, so any query comes up while there's still time to fix it.

If Clearcast don't query it, yes. If they do, air can slip by a few days while we change a line or add evidence. Building that in from the start is the safest plan.

Yes, all of it. Script, shoot, edit, clearance, clock numbers and delivery to every station on the plan. A brand manager once told us doing it himself scarred him for life. You shouldn't have to.

No. A rough idea and what you need it to achieve is enough. Half the job is turning that into something that can be made, cleared and measured.

On TV, yes. People are making a cup of tea or scrolling their phone while the ads are on. The ad has to work when they're only listening, so the voiceover repeats what the graphics say.

Be careful. Clearcast can treat "better" as a comparative claim and ask you to prove it. An established strapline or registered trademark helps. We also record a safer fallback line in the same voiceover session, so a query the day before air doesn't stop the ad.

Legals have to be legible and on screen long enough to read. Make them too small or too short and the ad fails. If you're regulated, say by the FCA, your regulator's rules come first.

Check every legal is actually needed, too. We've seen a legal copied over from last year's ad get the new one rejected, when the client didn't need it at all.

Not always. Amazon runs its own, lighter compliance. Broadcaster on-demand services like ITVX generally follow the same clearance as linear TV. Tell us where it's running and we'll tell you what applies.

Your media plan: which channels, how much airtime and for how long. We'd usually recommend actors on buyout terms rather than your own staff. Staff leave, and then you have an ad with an ex-employee in it.

Possibly, but the cast releases probably only cover social and web. Each person needs a usage extension. Keeping the extension tight, say twelve months, one region and on-demand only, makes it easier to agree.

Get it sorted early. We've had a cast member agree her fee after the edit locked for Clearcast, and she had to come out of the TV version.

It depends on the plan, but a typical set is a 30" or 60" master, 15" and 6" cutdowns, then 16:9, square and 9:16 for social, with subtitled and textless versions. We plan the shoot for those from day one so nobody has to go back to set.

Yes. Each shot can be reframed from 9:16 to 16:9, with AI filling the edges. It costs more than cutting from the original horizontal footage, so if those rushes exist, send them.

Yes. Date changes, new offers, new prices and new end frames are routine. Each change is a new version with its own clock number, cleared and delivered again.

In places. We use it for pre-production, visual effects, fixing things on set and the empty "pretty" shots, and that saves real money.

We don't use it for people. Audiences, especially older ones, can tell when a person looks slightly off, and they stop trusting the ad. The AI should be invisible.

On one shoot the homeowner built a pergola over the conservatory the week before we filmed. We took it out in post with AI and nobody watching would ever know.