Writing the brief

The brief is the campaign. RUCKUS writes it with you before submissions open, and every clipper reads the same page. Leave a field blank and clippers fill it in themselves. Forty clippers guessing send forty different videos, and you throw most of them away.

RUCKUS is a studio and creator services business. We write the brief, run the review queue and answer the clippers, and you fund your own campaign in your own organization, so campaign funds never pass through us. See how it works.

Source material, and where it lives

Name the footage and give clippers a link they can open without asking anyone: raw exports, full VODs, a highlights playlist, a press kit. Say what format it is, how much there is, and what happens when new footage lands, because campaigns go quiet in week two when nobody adds to the folder.

One planning note. GTA 6 reaches consoles on 19 November 2026. Roleplay runs on PC, Rockstar has announced no PC version, and Rockstar has never announced GTA 6 support for Cfx.re or FiveM. Do not brief against roleplay footage that does not exist yet. RUCKUS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.

What a clipper may pull, and what they may not

Write two lists and keep both short. The allowed list names your sources exactly. The forbidden list names the traps by hand, because "nothing inappropriate" tells a clipper nothing: another creator's footage, someone else's edit, reaction shots from a stream you do not own, uncleared music, footage whose publisher restricts commercial use.

Rights belong here because a takedown ends the post, and once the post is gone the platform stops counting. Say who owns the finished clip and on what terms. RUCKUS uses assignment language written for the specific work.

Required elements

These are the things a clipper puts in the post for it to count. Write them as a checklist.

• Your handle on screen. Which handle, where it sits, how long it stays up.
• Your handle in the caption. Spelled exactly, with the platform named.
• The link. The exact URL, and where it goes: caption, bio or pinned comment. Platforms treat those three differently, so pick one per platform.
• The disclosure. A clipper you pay to post has a material connection to you, and the FTC Endorsement Guides put that duty on the person posting. RUCKUS briefs require it out loud at the start of the video, plus the platform's paid-content switch: branded content on TikTok and Instagram, paid promotion on YouTube, the label on X.
• Anything else you need in frame. A logo, a product shot, an end card, a first line.

Stop there. Each required element is one more thing a clipper can miss.

Platforms and format

Name the platforms the campaign pays on, one by one. A post on a platform you did not list earns nothing however it performs. Say whether one clip may go to several of them and whether each post tracks by its own link. Say which account posts it, because clippers' own accounts and pages you own need different briefs, then set the bounds: aspect ratio, length, captions.

Rate, cap and budget

Publish the rate in dollars per 1,000 verified views, the unit clippers compare in. Several platforms quote per 100,000 views, which makes the same money look a hundred times larger. Convert it yourself. Publish the per-clip cap if you set one, and show how much budget is left, live.

RUCKUS campaigns start at a $3,000 budget, and RUCKUS invoices you separately at 20% of the approved budget. That fee never comes out of the clipper pot. We take no percentage of clipper earnings and sell nothing to clippers. Terms are on pricing.

The minimum view threshold

Below the floor a clip pays nothing, and those views do not roll over to the clipper's next attempt. A high floor concentrates your budget on clips that travel. A low floor buys more posts from more clippers. Leaving it off the brief and applying it in review is the version that fails.

The denial list, published before anyone submits

This is the field that decides whether the campaign gets better while it runs. Write every reason a clip gets rejected, number them, publish them before submissions open, and reject only for those reasons.

Here is why that works. Review happens after a clip is already live. A clipper who gets a rejection with no reason learns nothing and cuts the same video next week. A clipper who gets "denial 4, footage from outside the source folder" fixes it once, and every other clipper reads denial 4 before cutting. The whole bench stops making that mistake at the same time. Keep the standard hidden and you pay a reviewer to reject the same clip forever.

Published denial reason	What review sees	What the clipper changes
Footage outside the source list	A clip built from a stream you do not own	Pulls from the named folder
Missing disclosure	Paid post, nothing spoken, no label	Says it at the start, flips the switch
Handle or link missing	Clean edit, empty caption	Runs the checklist before posting
Ruled-out edit style	The filter you banned on line 9	Reads line 9 first

Publishing the list costs you the right to reject on taste after the fact. Take that trade. Rule the look out in advance, where it teaches everybody at once.

The skeleton, ready to copy

1. Campaign name and goal. One line.
2. Source material. Link, format, volume, update cadence.
3. Allowed sources, named. Forbidden sources, written out.
4. Required elements. Handle on screen, handle in caption, the link, the disclosure at the start.
5. Platforms, and whether each post tracks separately.
6. Format. Aspect ratio, length, captions.
7. Rate and unit. Dollars per 1,000 verified views.
8. Per-clip cap, and budget remaining.
9. Minimum view threshold.
10. Denial list. Numbered, complete, published before submissions open.
11. Review window, and who answers questions.
12. Payment. Who pays, on what schedule, and the tracking window and hold.
13. Disclaimers. Including "Not affiliated with or endorsed by Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive" on anything naming the game.

Write it once and most of it carries to the next campaign. How we verify submissions covers what the queue does with it.

Questions, answered

How long should the brief be?

One page a clipper reads in three minutes, plus the denial list, which runs as long as it needs. Length in the fields that constrain the work is useful. Length in the part describing your brand voice is where clippers stop reading.

Can I reject a clip for a reason that is not on the denial list?

Not on a RUCKUS campaign. We publish the list before submissions open and review against it only, which is why clippers trust the queue. You can add a reason whenever you want, and it applies to clips submitted after we publish it.

Do I have to hand over my raw footage?

No. Campaigns run on public VODs and uploaded channels every day. Raw exports give a clipper more to find and cut, so those briefs tend to produce a wider spread of clips. Give what you are comfortable giving, then say in the brief what that is.

Can I change the brief once the campaign is live?

Yes, and you should when something is not working. RUCKUS dates every change, posts it to the campaign channel and applies it going forward, never backward. Think hardest about rate changes, because clippers plan volume around the rate they started on.