Post-Production – When Does It Start?

The Post-production process should start immediately after coming up with the story idea. By knowing the limitations of your post production, both pre-production and production will be a lot smoother.

Once you come up with the idea, you need to bring it down to a level where every part of the movie is mapped out. This includes post-production. You can’t make a sci-fi or animated film without consulting your post production people. You need to find out if it’s within their means, if you have to find someone else to do the post-work, or if your ideas are even remotely affordable.

Post-production needs to be planned out from the beginning stages and this planning is a very big part of your pre-production! You need to be doing lots of post-production testing (especially when it comes to things like chroma keying, 3D tracking, and 3D animation). You need to know the limitations of your NLE (Non-Linear Editors) and compositing programs, and make sure that they can work in the format you’ll be using. This is if you even decide to go the digital route! (some people still choose to shoot and edit completely in film – and that means a lot of work splicing).

Post-production is a lot of work – I know many big films will wrap a production within a few months and then take several years to finish the post work. Like production and pre-production, post is extremely hard work and not for the faint of heart.

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