It's right to be concerned. Footage may contain an unreleased product, employees' faces, or your family's daily life, and it's worth deciding how to protect it before handing it to any outside studio. Most of the risk can be reduced before a single file leaves your hands. The steps below apply whoever you commission.
Before you hand anything over
- Send only what's needed. Keep unrelated files out of the shared folder. If ten minutes of a full meeting recording will be used, pick out that part first.
- Flag sensitive content. An employee who doesn't want to appear, a product detail that can't be shown, customer data on a screen. List the places or timecodes when commissioning; they can be masked or blurred in post. See face blurring.
- Avoid it at the shoot where you can. Figures on a whiteboard, papers on a desk, screens in the background: putting them away before filming is safest.
- Keep your own backup. Anything you hand over should exist somewhere else too; see backing up video footage.
Setting up the share link
- Share footage through a cloud drive link such as Google Drive, not a public download link.
- Restrict access to specific accounts, which is safer than "anyone with the link". See how to send us your material.
- Send the link to the contact person directly, not into a large group chat.
- When the project ends, close the link or remove access. You can do this from your own account.
What to say when commissioning
Every project has different concerns. Raise yours at the start, for example:
- What in the footage or the finished video can't be made public yet, and when it will be.
- Whether the finished video may be shown as an example of work.
- What should happen to footage and project files afterwards. Bear in mind that once files are deleted no further changes are possible, so confirm the result first.
- Any rules or documents your company has for outside suppliers.
Saying these things early keeps both sides on the same understanding.
During review
- Forward review links only to people who need to see them.
- Don't post screenshots of unreleased content in public channels or groups.
- With several reviewers, route everything through one contact; see getting a corporate video through internal approval.
Frequently asked questions
The footage shows customer data. Can it be blurred?
Yes. On-screen text, screens and faces can all be masked or blurred; mark the spots when commissioning.
We don't want the result shown in a portfolio. What should we do?
Say so when commissioning.
Does this apply to family videos too?
The same principles: send only what will be used, restrict the link, and close sharing afterwards. If footage of children or family will be published later, decide how widely first.
