A LOOK AT OUR POST-PRODUCTION WORKFLOW (PART ONE)

by Basil Yeo (@basilyeo)

The post-production workflow is often a mystery to those working outside the industry, especially Clients. While the pre-production and production stages of a project require massive amounts of "face-time" with the Client, the edit remains mostly behind closed doors, with Clients only managing to review edits without knowing what actually goes on during post-production.

This is the first in a three part series on our post-production workflow. Each part will cover a few stages of post-production, with a whopping ten in total (we think?)! While we do not speak for the workflow of other studios, we believe that most of the stages are prettyyy much the same with some minor differences here and there. Let's begin with the first one...

Dailies

The review of raw footage, or better known in the film industry as dailies, is the first step in the post-production process. For us, this often begins a day or two after production. This is where we throw all our footage in for ingesting, logging and organisation. We always try to view dailies as soon as possible so that we can assess the quality of the day's output. This also helps us to make informed decisions on any possible requirements for repeat or additional shooting. This normally takes about a day for each day of footage.

Asset Acquisition

Assets refer to elements such as graphics, animations, photos, music and videos that will be or are projected to be used in the edit as proposed in the project brief. Asset acquisition can range from collecting a hard disk from the Client's office, clicking a simple download link or even spending hours scouring through a royalty-free music website looking for the right music (This isn't easy!). Third party assets will often contain a watermark throughout the post-production process up till the mastering stage, and we will usually require the Client to sign off on the usage before the license is purchased and watermark lifted.

Assembly

Also known as the rough cut, this is where stuff gets put together from A-Z for the first time, based on the approved plan and direction. The objective of this phase is to produce a Version 1 (V1) edit for Client review. Watermarked assets will also be placed into the cut, as will brief suggestions for the look and feel for graphics (e.g. lower thirds). The assembly cut takes about a week to put together, and with input from the creative team working on the project, the assembly cut will usually be tweaked further before the Client sees it, but not extensively. 

To be continued in Part Two...