You're struggling with unclear feedback on video drafts. How can you effectively navigate stakeholder input?

Often when feedback is unclear it is because the stakeholder lacks an easy reference point or the language needed to usefully describe the issue. I often find a key way to solve this is to organise a call, and spend the time to unpack the issues in the feedback, to work with them to understand the challenge in the communication, to prompt and find relevant connection points and frames of reference so everyone can find a common terminology that enables them to move forward from that point. There is no sense in getting frustrated with the stakeholder (it doesn't help them or you). You just need to solve the communication issue by developing a mutual language you both understand.

Two main points that can help you: 1) Ask questions to ensure you understand the underlying feedback. Focus on discussing improvements that can be made, rather than arguing about who is right or wrong. Build improvements together. 2) Don't get emotionally attached to your projects. Try to be as objective as you can. The goal is to deliver a good project, not to be seen as a perfect motion designer.

Having a smooth and painless post-production phase requires only 2 things. 1) Before you start the project -> Interview the client to diagnose their deepest problems and desires. This helps you understand what is their actual goal and pain point. As the professional, it's your responsibility to diagnose and interview to discover a persons REAL problem. Clients don't know what they don't know. 2) During post-production, establish a structured feedback system. Inform the client of your planned work, sharing drafts every "X" days or at specific milestones. Ensure the client provides feedback, repeating this process until final delivery. This approach mitigates risk, allows for smaller work batches, and enables effective client input.

The most important thing is having a rock-solid signed-off brief before you go into production. This is the most important thing to navigate and moderate the client's feedback once the process has started. Ask questions and explain all possible outcomes for that they want to achieve so that everyone is on the same page going in.

The key thing here is if the demand of the stakeholder sits with your vision if it doesn’t then you just should do as they say. But if not then you should give couple of ideas to help that person to understand your vision as generally we know most of the clients don’t have that creative vision So it’s upto you to give them something.

It's a visual trick: Each round of feedback, just paste on the document or description the changes that all have reached consensus on, right at the start, before viewing. It keeps the productions side honest (did we do everything we said we'd do?), and puts the burden on any new or further clarified the feedback back on the client side (and now, they're willing to add time/cost for more changes, because it is ON them that needs the extra).