What to send, how a project runs, what you receive, and what it costs — written down so there are no surprises on either side. This is the document we work to; the project form follows the same structure.
A good brief is a page. It tells us what the film has to do, for whom, where it will run and when, and what we must not do. Send it through the project form or as a document to hello@m72studio.com; we reply within one business day and come back with a proposal — scope, method, schedule and price — within three.
Two gates. Your approval at each one is what the next phase is built on, and it is where changes are cheap. After a gate, changes to what was approved are scoped as new work, which is written down rather than argued about later.
Thirty minutes on a call is usually enough to say whether the idea wants AI, cameras or both. The proposal fixes scope, method, deliverables, schedule, the number of review rounds and the price.
You approve the treatment, the style frames, the reference sheets for every hero character and product, and the storyboard or animatic with its shot list. The Method page shows what these look like. This is the most important decision in the project: everything generated afterwards is generated to match it.
Shots are generated as drafts, reviewed against the brief, regenerated at full quality, and assembled into weekly cuts. You review on a shared link with frame-accurate comments; one consolidated list per round. Notes go into a fix pipeline shot by shot, so continuity survives the notes.
You approve the edit. From here we finish: sound design, music, voice, grade, clean-up, typography, versions and the 4K master. Changes to the edit after this point are a new round.
Masters and versions are delivered against the checklist below. You have five business days to send one consolidated list of acceptance issues; Class A issues are fixed at no charge. Written acceptance — or ten business days without a list — closes the project and triggers the final invoice.
What we need from you. One person with authority to approve at the gates; consolidated feedback rather than a thread; brand and product assets before Gate 1; and answers within two business days, which is what the schedule assumes.
A review round is one consolidated set of notes and one revised version in response. Refinements within the approved scope are rounds; a change to the story, the look or the deliverables after its gate is a change of scope, and we will quote it before doing it.
Generative production has failure modes that cameras do not, so we define them in advance. A film is accepted when it passes the four lists below at delivery resolution on a reference monitor. This is the same checklist our editors use before anything reaches you.
| Class A Fixed before acceptance, at no charge | Anatomy or geometry errors on hero characters or products · garbled text, logos or interface elements · continuity breaks on hero elements between shots (face, costume, colour, product detail) · visible morphing, flicker or warping on hero elements · product detail that contradicts the approved reference · audio out of sync · a mandatory missing |
|---|---|
| Class B Fixed within the included rounds, or accepted by you in writing | Anomalies in background and non-focal areas · brief texture or motion artefacts away from the subject · small deviations from the boards that do not change meaning · secondary characters or crowds that drift between shots |
| Class C Characteristics of the medium, agreed at Gate 1 | Stylisation choices in the approved look · softness in non-hero depth · generated crowd and background faces that were not individually art-directed · the particular motion signature of the chosen models |
Masters and versions as specified; a textless master; stills; the character and product reference sheets and the style bible made for the project, so later work can match; the provenance sheet; and a rights statement listing what was licensed and for what. Working files and generation records stay with us and are kept for twelve months in case of versions or extensions.
Usage rights to the deliverables transfer on final payment — by default worldwide, all media, in perpetuity for the films as delivered. We retain our methods and the right to show the finished work after launch unless an embargo is agreed.
Typical ranges in 2026, in US dollars, for director-led AI production finished to broadcast standard. Live action and hybrid projects are quoted conventionally. We would rather you knew these before the first call.
| Brand film, 30–90 seconds | from 40,000 · most between 60,000 and 120,000 |
|---|---|
| Launch or keynote film set, 3–4 films | 120,000 – 300,000 |
| Animated series with a recurring cast | from 15,000 per finished minute |
| Social and versioning packages | from 2,500 per asset · monthly programmes from 15,000 |
What moves the price: photoreal human performance; the number of hero characters and products that must stay consistent; the number of markets and language versions; delivery in under three weeks; paid-media usage beyond the default terms.
Whichever suits the shot. In 2026 that is mostly Seedance and Kling for video, with Veo, Runway and others where they do a particular thing better, and Midjourney and image models for look development. We choose per shot, we record what was used, and the delivery includes a provenance sheet. If your legal or procurement team needs a project kept to specific models or hosting regions, say so in the brief and we will scope it that way.
You do. On acceptance and final payment you receive the agreed usage rights to the deliverables — by default worldwide, all media, in perpetuity for the films as delivered. We keep our methods, tools and working files, and the right to show the finished work in our portfolio after launch unless we agree an embargo.
It will look like what the director intended. Some briefs want a style that could only be generated; some want nothing that gives the method away. Both are achievable, but they are different projects, so we ask at the brief and lock it at Gate 1. We will also tell you when a brief is asking for something the current models do badly — photoreal human dialogue scenes, for instance — and propose a hybrid with live action.
Photoreal human performance with dialogue is where generative video is still weakest, and where audiences are least forgiving. We do it when the shot design allows — wide, short, no lip sync — and we recommend live action or hybrid when it does not. We never generate a real person's likeness without their written consent.
Yes. Roughly half of what we are asked for comes through agencies and production companies. We can work under your name, join your client reviews or stay out of them, and follow your paperwork. Credit is agreed per project.
We follow the rules of the market the film runs in and the platform it runs on — FTC guidance in the US, the EU AI Act, platform labels — and we recommend disclosure for pre-release hardware and anything a viewer might mistake for documentary footage. Disclosure wording and placement are part of the Gate 1 approval, and we document the method either way.
We are in Beijing (UTC+8). Reviews are asynchronous on a shared review link with frame-accurate comments, with one scheduled call a week on your morning (Americas) or your afternoon (Europe). Schedules assume two-business-day turnarounds on client feedback; faster is welcome, slower moves the delivery date.
We invoice in USD or RMB, 30% on signature, 40% at Gate 1, 30% on acceptance; projects under US$40k are 50/50. We work on our standard agreement or your MSA, sign NDAs before the brief if you prefer, and carry the usual production insurances.
Yes. Dirty Monkey Pictures is a film company; several of the best-performing films on this site are live action or hybrid, and our directors move between the two. We will recommend the method the idea needs, and tell you which one it was.
Use the form — it follows the ten points above — or write to us. We reply within one business day, in English or Chinese.