Video post-production:

everything you need to

know.
Post-production is the final stage of video creation. Once you’ve shot your
footage, the finishing touches will need to be added to your film. The process can
involve many individuals and teams, from sound mixers and voiceover artists to
editors and colour graders. Learn more about the stage of the process in our
comprehensive guide.
What you’ll learn:

What is involved in video post-production?

Key differences between pre-production, production and post-production
Who is involved in post-production?
Understanding the post-production process

What is involved in video post-production?

Post-production is the third and final stage of video creation. It’s a detailed
process that involves many different services, skillsets and types of professional
software, all working together to create a final version of your video or film. Once
your footage has been shot, you’ll enter the post-production phase of creation,
editing your reels of film together and finalising the look, sound and feel of your
film.

Key differences between pre-production,

production and post-production.
As the third stage of the video creation process, post-production follows on from
the first stage, pre-production and the second stage, production.

Pre-production.

Pre-production is the planning phase. It encompasses every stage of work that

occurs before a film is shot. This includes producers, directors, cinematographers,
storyboard artists and more. In this phase, everything for the shoot will be
planned out and the general look of the film will begin to take shape through
storyboarding  and a shot list. Equipment and staff will be hired, actors and
locations chosen and everything prepared for the shoot.

What’s involved?
Scripting, Storyboarding, Shot List, Hiring, Casting, Costume & Makeup Creation,
Set Building, Financing and Insurance, Location Scouting.

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Directors, Writers, Producers, Cinematographers, Storyboard Artists, Location

Scouts, Costume & Makeup Designers, Set Designers, Artists, Casting Directors.

Production.

This is the shooting phase. Footage is gathered by filming scenes live. Often,
footage will be shot and saved after each day, ready to send to the post-
production team as soon as possible. Depending on the length of a film and the
amount of footage needed, some shoots can take days, while others can take
months. Voiceovers and sound will be recorded on location, where needed.

What’s involved?

Filming, On-location Sound Recording, Reshoots.

Who’s involved?

Directing Team, Cinematography Team, Sound Team, Grips & Equipment

Operators, Runners, Costume & Makeup Team, Actors, Stunt Team.
Post-production.

This last stage is where the film takes shape as an actual product. Footage is
brought together, sound is recorded and added and the finishing touches are put
to the film ahead of marketing and release.

What’s involved?

Editing, Colour Grading & Correction, Visual Effects & Animation, Sound
Recording, Foley Recording, Script Sound Recording, Sound Mixing & Editing,
Soundtrack & Music.

Who’s involved?

Editors, Visual Effects Artists, Animators, Composers, Sound Mixers & Editors,
Sound Recordists, Colour Graders, Foley Artists, Voiceover Artists, Actors.

The 5 stages of video post-production.

Post-production is a very detailed process involving many individuals, but it can

be broken down into five distinct stages:

1. Logging footage. You won’t want to lose your footage, so make sure it is
saved and clearly labelled ahead of moving into the editing process.
Depending on the length of the film and your computer processing power,
this could take several days.
2. Assembling footage. This is the beginning of the editing process. All the
footage is gathered and any sub-standard footage - outtakes, misread lines,
staff in the back of shot, for example - is deleted. Gather several takes from
each individual scene into folders, labelled by scene name, for ease later.
This whole process may take a few days. Footage from each scene is then
placed into an ordered timeline as the film begins to take shape.   
3. Rough cut. A rough version of the film is edited together. This can easily
 take a couple of weeks depending on your processing power and the
number of editors involved. The timeline is cleaned up, with final takes of
each scene chosen and a rough edit put together. The post-production
sound team will also work on the film at this stage, re-recording clearer
voice acting, adding sound effects and composing music.
4. Fine cut. The film is tweaked and tightened up and finalised scenes begin to
take shape. Pay attention to each individual frame, making sure the film
works together and there are no obvious mistakes, such as changing
costumes or changing camera angles.
5. Final cut. The final cut is where all the remaining work takes place,
including colour grading and correction, motion graphics and visual effects
work ahead of release.

Read more on visual effects

Find out more about mastering motion graphics 

Who is involved in post-production?

Post-production involves many talented individuals, from a composer writing the
musical score, to large teams of visual effects artists working on the motion
graphics and computer special effects.

These are just some of the skilled professionals who tend to work in post-
production.

Picture Editors.
An editor or editors, is responsible for splicing the film footage into a finished
product. They take the reels from the location shoot and cut it all into a finished
version of the film. They often work closely with the director and adhere to the
storyboards and screenplay created during pre-production to ensure the story
makes sense and that the final edit matches the vision of the director.

Foley Artists (AKA Sound Editors).

Sound recorded on location is often unusable in the final version of a film. It

might be difficult to hear the actors’ voices over the wind or it may be they spoke
too softly. Much of a film’s sound is recorded afterwards and added to the final
edit.

Actors re-record lines in a soundproof booth and sound effects are created by a
team of professionals known as foley artists. They have access to a whole room
(or two) of different materials and record everything from footsteps and clothes
rustling to car engines and gunshots. A Foley Artist will work closely with
Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) supervisors and dialogue editors to
create sound effects and re-record actors’ lines.

Music Editors.
The music editor or composer, is in charge of creating the music for a film. Either
they will use tracks by established recording artists or they’ll create the music for
scratch with a team of musicians.

Sound Mixers.

A sound mixer usually works as part of a team. They take all the film’s sound,
from voices and music to footsteps and wind noises and ensure it’s mixed
correctly for volume and the edit of the film. It’s their job to ensure the actors can
be heard clearly by making sure their lines are louder than other sounds in the
scene. It would be odd, for example, if the sound of someone’s footsteps on a
pavement were much louder than the car driving past in the same scene.

VFX Artists.

Visual effects artists (VFX) are the team behind the film’s computer-generated
images and effects. These effects aren’t just monsters, aliens and blockbuster
elements in the latest Hollywood release either. Visual effects can include altering
backgrounds slightly or creating new ones following green screen shooting. VFX
are different to special effects, however, which usually include things like monster
makeup, explosions and stunt work.
Post-production involves many skilled professionals, not least the few mentioned
above. There can be hundreds of artists and animators working on the latter
stages of a film’s production, sometimes taking months to finalise the motion
graphics or perfecting a film’s musical composition. Other roles include trailer
editors, responsible for putting together a film’s marketing trailer and credit
artists, who create the credits showcasing the names of everyone involved in the
production. 

Understanding the post-production process.

Post-production is a detailed, multi-step process that involves many different
teams working in tandem to create the finished product ready for release. Find
out what’s involved in each stage of the process.

Editing format.

Raw video footage takes up a huge amount of computer file space, especially if
it’s high definition. First off, make sure you have enough space to store the
footage.

You’ll then need to select an editing format. Video is edited in a different file
format to the files used for the final delivery of a video, such as MPEG. This is
because you’ll need to access the raw video footage for the editing stage, which
will likely consist of hundreds of different individual files from your on-location
shoot. Later, when exporting the final product, you can master and compress your
finished film into a smaller file size.

The two types of file codec are:

Intra-frame - for editing. All the footage is stored and accessed as individual
frames ready for cutting and splicing. File sizes are quite large, but it’s
important to use detail at this stage.
Inter-frame - for delivery. The footage is not stored individually, with a
 computer using information from previous frames to help it to process the
file data. File sizes are much smaller and easier to transport or send, ready
for uploading to the Internet or exhibiting live.
 
Using a video editor.

You’ll then need to choose your video editing software. You could start with
Adobe Premiere Pro. Which video editing software you choose can be personal
preference, but they all perform differently, with their own add-ons, features and
interfaces.

Clips are placed in a timeline to create one singular full-length version of your
video. You can choose to cut between different camera angles and scenes by
moving the clips around in the timeline and tweaking the length of each of them
individually.

Get to grips with video editor software

Video editing.

Once you have a finished edit and the creative team is happy with how the story
Once you have a finished edit and the creative team is happy with how the story
plays out on screen, the film is ready to enter the latter stages of post-production.
To prepare it for release, the film’s images and sound will need to be improved
and all mistakes ironed out.

Colour correction.

Colour correction, also known as colour grading, is the art of improving the
overall look of the film by manipulating the colour palette of each scene. When
shooting on location, there may have been issues with lighting and overcast
weather. You may, on the other hand, want to make artistic choices with the
colour of costumes or scenery.

Enter colour correction. A colour grader will amend the way a film looks,
saturating certain colours, adding filters to certain scenes and improving the
lighting of others - similarly to how you may edit photos at home. It’s their job to
ensure the film has a similar look throughout and that scenes generally have the
same aesthetic feel.

Visual effects.

Modern blockbusters have incredible special effects, including monsters, pirate

ships and suchlike. Of course, many of these things don’t exist or are difficult and
prohibitively expensive to build in real life. Enter the visual effects team, which
uses powerful computer tools to create monsters and pirate ships for the world of
the film.
Big budget special effects aren’t the only things the VFX team create, however.
They may be responsible for generating the backgrounds for green screen shoots,
for films where the background might be fantasy or difficult to replicate in real life.

Main titles and credits.

Graphics and titles will be added next, creating the opening and closing elements
of the film. Any in-film graphics are added too, such as language subtitles or
location stamps. Also, don’t forget to include everyone who has been involved in
your production in the film’s closing credits.

Sound editing.

A film’s sound is just as important as the images. Sound problems can be

disconcerting and risk pulling the audience out of the world of the film. Poorly
mixed sound can make it difficult to hear what the characters are saying, meaning
vital elements of the story could be missed.

ADR: re-recording audio.

ADR or Automated Dialogue Replacement, is the stage in which the screenplay is

re-recorded for slotting into the film’s edit. Sound recorded on set can often be
poor quality - you might find actors are difficult to hear or you’ve recorded the
rustling of a microphone accidentally.

Dialogue is recorded in a soundproof booth by ADR teams, working with actors

and voiceover artists to re-record lines. This is then added to the final edit - the
tricky bit is syncing the spoken words with the actor’s lip movements. 
Considering foley sounds.

Foley artists are responsible for recreating sounds from the world of the film, such
as footsteps, gunfire and car engines. They’ll record the sounds using materials in
their sound studio before adding into the film where required.

Music and effects.

A composer will add the music to the film. This can be an original score
composed for the film exclusively or existing music for which they’ll need to buy
the rights. Music will then be overlaid in the scenes where it is needed.

Mixing audio.

The sound mixer brings together all the sound elements and mixes them to make
sure they can be heard at a suitable volume. A mixer will want voices to sound
louder than a musical score, for example, so the audience can hear what is being
said. They may also add sound effects, such as reverb or an echo effect if the
characters are in a cave.
Creating graphics.

You may then need a graphics artist to add any finishing graphical touches to the
film, such as on-screen elements or scene transitions. Once they have been
added, the film is ready to be exported for distribution.

Making the trailer. 

You’ll want people to be excited about your upcoming release. For that, you’ll
need to market it effectively. A trailer or a short collection of clips from your film,
is a good way to do this. A trailer editor will take exciting elements of the film and
edit them together to create a short video that drums up anticipation ahead of the
big launch. 

There may be more steps involved in post-production than you thought.

However, making sure it is carried out properly will enable you to add the final
flourishing touches and make your footage truly shine. Need further support?
Find out more about video editing.
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