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Color-grading suite with three monitors — CGI delivery guide for creative directors

In CGI projects, disputes grow from vagueness, not from budgets. It is enough for "delivery" to mean different things to each side. If you sit on the agency side as a creative director, these are the four things to pin down before the work starts.

1. Revisions: scope, not count

"Two revision rounds" means nothing on its own; what a round covers is the point. A light and colour pass is not the same round as rebuilding a scene. A healthy quote states that structural change after the script and frame plan are approved counts as new work. That protects the agency's calendar as much as the studio.

2. The format package, listed upfront

Master film, vertical and square cuts, silent version, subtitled version, stills. Which are included? "Turns out we also need a 6 second bumper" on launch night is the most expensive sentence in the business. Why, we explain in the pricing piece.

3. Who keeps the source files?

The delivered film and the project source files are separate assets. If you want the source, it has to be written into the quote; the common practice is that source stays with the studio and future adaptations are done together. Both models work; the undefined one does not.

4. Approval points and the calendar

A well-run CGI project takes approval at three points: the idea and frame plan, the first moving draft, and the final check before delivery. When it is written down who approves what and by when, the delivery date becomes realistic too. Every day spent waiting for an approval is added to the end of the schedule; saying so at the start removes the surprise. How this approval flow works when teams sit in different countries is covered in our guide to remote CGI production from Istanbul.

We open every project with a framework that has these four in writing; we do not like surprises and we do not produce them. To discuss the project on your desk, write via our partnership page. To harden the brief side first, the 10 questions piece is a good start.

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