Post-production - Definition and Overview

Post production is the general term for the last stage of film production in which photographed scenes (also called footage) are put together into a complete film.

Post production is in fact many different processes grouped under one name. These typically include:

• Editing the picture.
• Editing the soundtrack.
• Writing and recording the soundtrack music.
• Adding visual special effects - mainly computer generated imagery and digital compositing.
• Adding audio sound effects - like ADR, Foley, and sound design.
• Color grading, and neg cutting the final master copy from which release prints will be made (although this is expected to be made obsolete soon by digital cinema technologies).

Typically, the post production phase of creating a film takes longer than the actual shooting of the film, and can take several months to complete.

Other film production stages include (very broadly) - financing, writing the screenplay, rewriting the screenplay (repeat), and the actual shooting.

Major post-production companies

• Digital Domain
• Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound
• Framestore CFC
• Cinesite
• Soundelux