Post Production Process: Understand It or Suffer the Consequences
Filmmaking is a long process and is divided into three stages. The first stage is pre-production stage, the second one is production, and the last one is post-production stage. In this podcast episode, I go into each of the following steps of the post production process and add a few bonus ones as well.
Pre-production in real is not much difficult. This process starts when the producer of the film select the cast and the crew of your film, and you develop your final script. It is a filmmaker who is trying to convince the people that the shooting will start soon. After that announcement, the producer will wait for the cast to agree to do the work and for the financial partners to fill the banks of the producer.
The Production Stage:
After getting your finances, the production process will get started. This production phase will have all kind of action. You will get started with the tight schedule of nine to eighteen days, working for 14-18 hours in a day. All the activities are carried out at once. The light, camera, action, actors, scripts, costumes, props, schedules and most importantly the temper tantrums due to the long and hectic schedules. Apart from all this, production is somewhat a fun process if you get what you want quickly but if the case is opposite, these days can turn into nightmares for you.
Whether these days are joyful or tiring, the end of the production phase always comes with a party. Everyone in the cast and the whole team will party hard at the end and will go to their homes. Their work is done. In the end, you, the producer is left with all the work. You may wake up after approximately two days because of the continuous hectic routine you followed in last days.
After that, you will have a whole tape of the film which can be twenty hours long, and then the next stage will be the post-production stage.
The Post-Production Phase:
What is post production? Post-production is not a difficult process. There will be no hectic schedule of working for 14 -18 hours like the production process which includes a lot of work. The first thing to do after the production process is complete is to call your cinematographer so that he can introduce you to different editors. All you have to do next is hire some good people and keep an eye on their work day for an hour or so. The production process will be easy for you if you follow it step by step. Here are the 13 steps of post-production process which are to be followed by every producer.
The 13 steps of post-production process are as follows:
Post Production Process: The Selection of the Editing Software:
The first step to follow in post-production is to select an editing program. Selecting your editing application can make your workflow run smoothly or cost you months and tons of cash. You can make that decision based on the needs of your creative editor and the original format you shot your film on. You’ll need to find a balance between the two.
Please consult with a Post Production Supervisor at this stage of production. They can save you a ton of time and cash.
Post Production Process: Selection of a Creative Picture Editor:
The selection of an expert editor for your film is the biggest decision. The proper formation of your film depends on the creativity of your film editor. The editor is the one who will develop the Edit Decision List (EDL). He will go through all of the scripts and the scenes of your movie and decide which shots will be used to create a flow of the story correctly. Here comes the big work of the editor’s creativity.
The best way is to hire an appropriate editor for your film before the start of the production phase. The benefit of having your editor in the production process is that he will guide you about the scenes which are required to make a perfect sequence. The editing of the film is about 8-10 weeks long procedure, and it will involve different stages. The first edited draft is called Rough cut, and the final draft is called an Answer point. A good edit has two ends; the first one is when you are satisfied with all the visual images and the second one is when you are happy with the sound effects of the film.
If you want to learn the creative art of being an editor you need to watch the videos below.
If you’re interested in checking out his master editing course click here: Inside the Edit
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Post Production Process: Selection of a Sound Editor:
After the preparation of the edited movie, there is a need to improve the sound quality. For that purpose, you have to hire a sound editor who can make the movie look more attractive with different sound effects.
The sound editor will perform some major tasks like he will cut the dialogue tracks and recreate those sound effects and then make the cue sheet for another step in the post-production process i.e. the mix.
Post Production Process: Automatic Dialogue Replacement:
This step is carried out in a big room with the projectors. The central focus of this ADR is to replace the dialogues in the film which are not adequately recorded. All the actors again deliver These dialogues, and the voice is then synced to the edited version of the movie.
Post Production Process: Work with Foley Artists:
Making the sounds of the dialogue clear is not the end of the audio editing process. You have to go again in the ADR room, and with the help of the hired Foley artists, you will include the additional sounds in the edited version of the movie. These sounds will add the sounds of footsteps and others. The sound people are called Foley artists.
Post Production Process: Music:
The next step for the post-production process is to include the desired music in the film. The best thing is to hire a musician with his studio so that he can create new music for your film. Producers never use the previously used music in a movie as it is against the laws. If you have already bought the rights to use that old music than you can add into your movie.
Producers never prefer the usage of pre-cleared CD music because of its low quality. It is better to use a contemporary type of music in your film because the usage of traditional and public domain music will be hazardous.
Post Production Process: The Mix:
The mix or the re-recording section of the movie will include the setting of the sounds in the whole movie in a row where they fit. After all of the above steps, you will have a series of the music which will include the songs, the background sounds, etc. All you have to do is manage these sounds effectively in the whole film.
Post Production Process: Music and Effects (M&E):
This is a part of the film production that you have to sell the rights of your movie to the foreign nation. There is a requirement of the international buyers that they need the soundtrack which is free from the English dialogues so that they can dub the dialogues in the desired manner. So, it is better to get the only music and effect version of your film.
Post Production Process: Creating Your Opening and End Credits
After the formatting and the finalization of the sound effects and track, you have to finalize your titles for the movie. The producer has to get the 6 – 8 opening cards of the title and finally the Rear title crawl. These title files are then added to the final tracks.
Post Production Process: Digital Cinema Package:
For the final print of your film to be delivered to the cinemas, you need your digital cinema package or DCP. It will contain the final edited film in a hard drive. This hard drive will be used for the distribution of the movies into the theaters. Click here for more on DCP (Digital Cinema Package).
Post Production Process: A Dialogue Script:
A film without subtitles in a foreign country is of no use. You have to create a dialogue script for the foreign people so that they can create the subtitles accordingly. This dialogue script will contain the codes for each and every pause and the dialogues so that the subtitles can be created by the scene and the actual dialogue.
Post Production Process: Campaign Image for the Film:
Getting an appropriate campaign image for your film is imperative. The picture of the film should depict the storyline of the movie and should include the name and the credits for the films. This image will create a first impression on the distributors and the programmers of the movie.
Post Production Process: Trailer:
The last step in the post production process is getting a perfect trailer for your film. The trailer should be 90-120 seconds long. It should have the ability to deliver the moods and atmosphere of the movie. The success of the movie will depend on the strength of the trailer. This is all you need to know about the post-production process of the filmmaking. If it is followed appropriately, the film will get a good reception.
Getting a DCP created for your Indie Feature for $540!
If you are looking for a quality DCP my suggestion would be to try the indie film friendly post production company Numb Robot. Creation of a 90-min feature length DCP starts at $720 with a 5-day turnaround but if you wait a few more days it’s $540 with a 10-day turnaround. CRU hard drives for, the industry standard for distributing feature DCPs, are just $200 each. They also do short films. They have delivered masters to the Sundance, SXSW and the Toronto Film Festivals, just to name a few. Click here for more info.
If you need help with understanding post production workflow or need to consult a professional post supervisorclick here.
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Transcription – Indie Film Hustle Podcast Episode #113. – Post Production Process
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Post Production Process
Welcome Indie film hustler to another episode of the Indi film hustler film podcast, I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Today’s show is sponsored by video blocks. Now video blocks is a subscription base video company that gives you unlimited access to premium stock footage everyone could afford if you looking for like exterior shop or thing that you might want to incorporate into any of your projects whether it be a narrative documentary music videos commercials.
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So guys today’s episode is something very dear and near to my heart. Post production is where I have been making my bones for the last twenty odd years working on thousand of different projects over the course of my career and probably over fifty or sixty features easily over a hundred, hundred and fifty indie film projects shorts for features documentaries and so on.
So I have got a lot of experience working in the production filed and I wanted to come up with a pod cast that kind of talk about the steps of post production because there is a lot of confusion a lot of people don’t understand the basic understanding of what post production not work flow but just the steps that are taken in post production and a couple of tips I am going to throw at you during this list these thirteen steps is going to help you with flow which is so, so massive and there is another episode I did on post production work flow called post production work flow.
Understand it or die which is episode fourteen and you can download that one at Indiefilmhustle.com/014 and that’s a really good episode a very popular episode as well so lets gets into it guys.
Step One: selecting the editing software they are going to be using to edit your movie. A lot of people you know just grab what they have access to and not think about things going down the line.
So a lot of people day well I have access to a (3:48) or I have access to a premier or I have access to final cut seven or I have access to final cut x or God forbid Sony Vegas I am sorry for anyone editing out here in Sony Vegas land, stop. Joking, joking but no really stop, it’s hurting yourself and people around you but anyway but making that choice is very integral because depending on the format you are shooting on.
So if you shot on external you shot on a DSLR you shot on a red and so on there is different work flows you are going to have to understand so picking that software is going to be very crucial to you and I know a lot of times creative editors especial older creative editors or more establish creative editors will work with habit which is great.
AVID is the you know is the industry leading piece of soft ware but sometimes habit does not work really well with anything other than edit which is going down the line working with red or working with specifically red.
I am in the middle of a project right now we are having issues reconnecting certain things you know as just a thing get wanky/lanky in am not sure as much of that might be the problem or it might be with AVID, but I know that premier is much more stable in our world and I know final cut is and I know DaVinci Resolve handles it wonderfully and I am a big, big fan of editing in DaVinci as everybody who listened to this podcast know I edited this is completely one hundred percent edited in DaVinci.
Any way picking that is very important so understand that you will have to pick something that is going to work with your work flow going down the line whatever that work flow might be but make sure you are very cautious about what you are editing on and it is going to be achieved what you need.
Second is selecting a editor someone who understands story understands what they are going to be doing and that will also determine what software you are going to be using because the editor generally speaking uses a software that they are most comfortable with, but choosing that editor is such an important job in the production process because you can find editors that are creative editors only that are just going to do the creative which is generally speaking which is what most people do.
Occasionally you will find a creative editor who happens to understand the technical aspects of things which are really, really beneficial if you can find someone like that but as a gain generally speaking you are going to find just creative editors who are going to be able to do creatively what you need to have happen with your mover so picking that person is very, very important.
Now the next part of the post production process would be selecting the sound editor someone who is going to be able to, not even as much as a sound editor but a sound house someone either a house a post production company an audio post production company or a person who is going to do all the aspects of what is needed in audio post production.
Now I have worked with guys who do everything in their house and they are a one man band and they can literally do everything I found that guys that do everything like that in their house they are really not capable of giving you everything that you need to have unless they have a fully stage or a full LDR suite all these kind of stuff. Is it possible? Yes. But generally speaking I would go with a post production house of some sort and there is many of them there that would work at a low budget world that I know of.
The guys working at Monkey land audio here in North Burbank they definitely work with low budget and work with independent film marker’s and are Indie friendly, again I am not doing this as a marketing campaign for them but there are many other ones in LA that do that as well but, definitely finding a sound editor someone or some production house is going to get you all the sound elements that you are going to deliver you are going to need to make your movie move forward.
The next step is ADR so I am explaining to you what ADR is Automatic Dialogue Replacement which basically means that if you report something on the day o location and there happens to be a plane flying by that’s not going to be useable in the final mix of your movie so you are going to need someone to go in and the actress coming to an ADR session which will then pull up a picture upon the screen and then at that point the actor will map off the same lines she or she had on the day and replace that audio cleanly.
I am not a huge fan of ADR I actually hate ADR because I feel that never matches exactly the way the energy was on the day or the vibrance of the performance of the day so I really like on MEG I think I have two lines of video on which are mostly grunts and like…kind of stuff it was not like full blown dialogue.
So I kind of run with it towards a movie like Meg made sense to do something like that because it was very kind of wah and naturalistic, but it is something that you have to do. I had to do ADR in other movies of mine and other projects of mine so definitely keep that in mind that you will need to do that.
Another thing you will need too is finding a place that does only is basically somebody going out and making all the sounds for every little movement that happens in the movie so obviously when you are recording someone running down the street and they are, let’s say two people walking down the street and they are talking your focus on the day is to record the dialogue with the actress talking you are not focusing on recording the footsteps or the wind blowing or the tress that or the bush that they ran into.
Or anything like that that’s what follies for and you have to find a studio that has a full folly stage, in the folly stage they have they are so awesome these places is basically like a junk yard of a million different sounds things that can make sounds.
They have floors where if you lift up one part of the floor they have sand gravel water wet dry for sand it‘s awesome it is really, really awesome, but you need a studio that can handle that that’s why I am saying a lot of times these one man bands can’t do that.
Now could you replace those sounds and a set of folly with can sound effects like can people walking, when I say can like someone recording generic footsteps somewhere and then the sound mixer sound designer can actually replace your foot steeps with those can footsteps.
Yes of course you can but it is never a hundred percent sometimes it worked wonderfully and again you MEG as an example. We use a lot of sound effects in MEG’s that were canned that were perfectly fine you don’t need to do a brand new folly session for those but there were other things that were very specifically you know when MEG is getting up out of bed and her sheets are kind of rubbing up against each other it kind of give a little bit of a sound it is very difficult to find that in a sound design scenario.
In a can scenario you are going to have to find you know folly that match that exactly or to sound right so it is definitely something you have to keep an eye one but that is something else you will need and if for deliverables you will need a full MNE track and this is a little bonus side track for deliverables but an MNE tract means music and effects so when you try to sell this movie overseas you will have only music and effects tracts and then they can replace their dialogue with foreign actor replacing the dialogue of your actors but without that MNE track they can’t do that so then you will not be able to sell your movie to other territories.
So having a fully laid out MNE tract and fully more of that you can actually separate the music and the effects and then every single sound effects has to be created in a folly session or sound design session and that’s much more expensive and one for hiring movies but that’s something else that you would have to keep an eye on for your project.
So speaking of music that is our next step is music finding a composer to be able to bring music to life in your movie now it could be with a pre recording music, an existing music or you hire an actual composure to compose original music for your movie something that you will definitely need.
In about ninety nine percent of all movies will have some sort of music in it so definitely hiring some music composer is extremely important now my experience is working with music and doing all the movies I have done is generally speaking you always waiting for music at the end of the edit is done the colors done the mix is ready the sound house is waiting for music to do the final mix.
So just stay on top of your composure to make sure those deadlines are hit when working with a composer and again I am being very general here guys not all composers take time but a lot of times you are rushing the composer to create music based on time lines they are doing the best jobs that they can.
Hiring that composer will bring life to your movie or putting in a prerecording music a need little drop music as they say which is a stop music you can easily get the rights to you can do that as well.
The next step is the mix, now the mix is extremely important when mixing the audio all the audio elements together so a lot of times I have this happen the sound guys have created the sound effects for certain let’s say moments that need to be like accented so you know I’ll use the example of a horror movie when someone you know goes in and slices somebody you know like the axe murder comes in to slice something.
The sound effects might be really big just to really scare the hell out of the audience well look the composer might have the same thought and created a big hit of music at that same moment, well those two sounds are going to fight each other so then that’s where we have to kind of work around okay what do we want in the mix and that’s why it is so important.
The mix is so important because certain things you want to bring down lower certain things you want to bring up higher depending on what kind of emotional reaction you trying to get from the audience. Hitchcock was the master if this he literally played his audience like a fiddle because he was able to just bring things in out he was able to do that with images as well.
As far as the mix is concern he would just pop things out just right at the right moment and bring back down and that is why mix is such an important part of it so being in the room in a properly constructed room where you can hear five one mix, five one is a surround mix.
They have seven one they have at most multiple different kinds of mixes that you can create and the next step is something that I have already spoken about which is music and effects, creating the MNE track. Very, very important going forward because you will not be able to sell movie international unless you have a full M&E track laid out.
Another step that you are going to be dealing with is titles the basic titles and beginning the basic titles in the end and the full in credits and so on. I have been involved with so many movies I have yet once, not one time in the seventy odd movies that I finished that the end credits or any of the credits were done in the first pass they are always adding something, something was always misspelled someone changing their credit like oh, I need to have this guy up above this other guy or this girl up above this other girl because of ego or because of contractual issues and so on and so forth but you will need to create these titles.
So whomever is going to be doing your online being your online editor you will have to find se if you will be able to create those he or she will be able to create those opening credits which they could do basic opening credit or you can do like you know seven style. David venture (15:55) seven styles credits which are much more elaborate and a production within themselves and a basic world and credits.
That’s a conversation that you have to have with your on line editor now as opposed to a creative editor and I will talk about this very briefly creative editors they are just there to be creative. The on line editors is the person who is going to put everything together that’s is going to put in the final edit that is going to put in the color graded images that is going to put in the final mix put in your titles and get everything ready for your deliverables.
Editors extremely, extremely important and very over looked by producers oh my editors will just put it all together and I cannot tell you how many times that I have movies comes into my office that just happen, oh I thought my editor was going to be able to do it and the editor the creative editor had no idea technically what needed to be done or they are moving on to another project and they are being creative and they are not worry about deliverables and any of those crap.
So very, very specific you got to find a good on line editor and another side note guys please for God sakes talk to a post production supervisor. I mean seriously it is so upsetting you can either talk to a post production supervisor if you have the money hire a post production supervisor if not consult with one so that they can talk to you about work flow and make sure that things are done right if not you might get stuck and loss in that is post production unless you understand the road map that you need to take to get out of the forest, sometimes I have seen people wondering that forest for months if not years trying to get their movies finished but just a little conversation a little consulting with a post production supervisor could save you thousands upon thousands and months upon months of time so please keep that in mind.
Another part of the process is obviously colored grading so without a colorist color grading your movie it’s going to look like crap and if you want to create high production value in your movie you got to get it color graded even if you want a simple basic color like I don’t really need it color graded I am just going to do it myself in my habit I am just going to do it myself in premier final cut it just something basic I don’t need to really create something crazy. I don’t want it to look like a Michael Bane movie.
Well even the basic stuff is hard to do and you have to make sure everything evens out scene to scene and fanatically everything works the same way. You know colors is very well needed and if you don’t use the colors now a days you not going to sell your movie but it is very difficult to do so without having some basic color and I am not talking about crazy stuff I am just talking about getting everything to look even and nice and clean or you can create very, very cool looks as well.
So next on the list is the DCP the Digital Cinema Package as part of you deliverables. So now you have created your movie your movie is edited it is colored it has a final mix to it, it has your title to it everything is ready to go now you created a DCP.
Now a lot of people say you got to create your DCP right away I disagree. DCP is basically a digital cinema package it is only for theatrical exhibition so if you are going to go to a big festival then you might need a DCP depending on like a sun dance or a Tribeca or any of the big festival they only exclusively will project in the DCP format.
So you will have to create one eventually so don’t spend the money until you need it, alright please do not spend the money until you need it. Another part of the deliverables a lot of people don’t really pay a lot of attention to is the dialog script. So a dialogue script is basically that just lays out a dialogue of your movie so that way you can send that dialogue script in so people in foreign countries can create a sub titles or things like that that they might need to sell your movie but you need to create a dialogue script as well.
Now you also another step guys a lot of people forget about is the campaign image of your films now campaign image is basically a still and you are going to need multiple stills a lot of distributors are going to ask foe sixty seventy stills this is something that a lot of people forget I even forgot about it in MEG.
It don’t have a tremendous amount of behind the scene stills and when I stills I am not talking about go behind the scene stills of you and the camera and the crew shooting the scene those are great and those are needed as well I am talking about promo stills a campaign image meaning that when a camera man is literally or a photographer is standing right next to the camera man taking an image a shot of the scene as it is being recorded those are the scenes that they go out and help promote your movie. Something you have to have if you expect to sell to a distributor or get those out there and it’s helpful regardless. Now you will say I know a lot of people well I am shooting in five or six..(20:52) I can just pull it off the red or I can just pull it off the rhyme you easily could do that as well especially if you start shooting at a higher resolutions that is a lot easier to do now a days.
But for the rest of us who are not shooting at that super, super high resolution it’s helpful to have something more additional by shooting it with a high end iPhone or shooting it with having a professional having a professional photographer shooting stills for you on set and the second to last thing is so important I can’t even express to you how important this is.
The trailer, the trailer is so, so, so important to your post production process to the process of selling your movie. Have I mentioned how important the trailer is? The reason why I laugh is because a lot of people forget about the trailer they are like oh I am just going to kind of throw something together.
You have to understand that the trailer is going to be seen by more people at least fifty a hundred times more people will watch that trailer than will watch your movie and it is going to be, that is your biggest calling card for your movie not the poster not anything it is the trailer.
In today’s social media world that everything is video, video that trailer you know I release MEG and within the first couple days we got downloaded almost twenty thousand times a little bit over twenty thousand times throughout all of our platforms which is pretty amazing for such a small little movie with you know no major backing or no major studio behind it.
So it is just a small little film and I was just like that was really, really cool I was able to do that, but that trailer was being seen and gaining the interest so keep it, take it very seriously about shooting or about editing a trailer. Hire a professional trailer a trailer editor who understands how to sell movies if you have the money hire a trailer producer and have them actually write a script for the trailer.
Super, super important guys and the very last thing that’s not on the list but I thought I would throw it in there is the website now I know this is not part of your post production process but it is the process of selling your movie so at the end of it if you don’t have a website a real website for your movie you are screwed.
You need a website you need a hub for everything and everybody to come to a website to help sell your products to sell your movie to tell people where screening are to show your trailer to show behind the scene footage to connect to your face book twitter and Instagram and Pinterest and all the other platforms as well.
You need a hub to creating a very cool website is very, very imperative and especially in today’s world, now you can go to many different places to create a website you can create your own website by using different plug in on word press multiple things like that.
I have a whole course or I have a whole not course but I have a whole article written about how to create a kid ass website and I will leave that in the link in the show notes which of course the show notes is at indicomemuscle.com/113 and I hope that’s it guys that’s basically all the steps I went pass thirteen steps I added a few other ones in there as well but I wanted to kind of give everybody a brief overview of the production process. I can go on in details about every aspect of what I talked about today but this is a very broad overview of basic production process and you might have known a lot of it you might have one or two, hey I didn’t know that I need to do that.
I am going to do a whole other thing about deliverables coming up in the weeks and months ahead and a bunch of other stuff that I probably tossing into the syndicate doing some mini courses on post production work flow, post production deliverables and so on in this syndicate which of course you can check out at indisyndicate.com.
Now guys I know it’s a holiday season and we are now official in the holiday season and I know you guys if you listening to the show you are fans of the show and you really love what we do at Indi Film Hustle and I want to get just, if you guys want to help us out and you can’t afford to buy any of our courses or join the syndicate anything like that there is a really easy way for you guys to support Indi Film Hustle.
Super, super easy way and all you got to do is go to indifilmhustle.com/amazon so if you guys are going to buy anything in the holiday season on Amazon or anything else like that just head over to indifilmhuste.com/amazon and we get a small commission on anything you buy and you guys get charge nothing for it by the way, nothing it’s just a way for you to help support the show.
So I would really, really would be just completely grateful that if you guys are buying anything anytime in the year but of course now because of the holidays and Black Friday and all that kind of good stuff just head over to indifilmhustle.com/amazon book mark it and anytime you are going to buy anything buy it through that link and it helps support us.
Anything as little as a bar of soap or as big as a camera package it really would help us out so indifilmhustle.com/Amazon I really, really greatly appreciate it and of course head over to film making podcast.com and leave us a good review on iTunes you have no idea how much that helps us to get the word out on what we are trying to do here at the Indi Film Hustle Podcast.
Guys thank you again so, so much I have some really cook guess coming up in the coming weeks stay definitely stay tuned and as always keep that hustle going keep that dream alive and I will talk to you soon.
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