A post production workflow is a series of steps taken after film production and is the final leg of the filmmaking process. It involves video editing, rough cuts, video production, video files, raw footage, and visual effects; all the extremely important elements of a post production process.

There is no singular standard workflow but there are essential concepts that have been used for the past 100 years.

Pre-Production/Production/Post-Production techniques were developed and improved upon over time with new tools and skills replacing older ones, but the core concepts have remained the same.

Boiled down – a workflow is an organized roadmap that’s used to increase productivity and maintain quality. Below we’ll talk about the steps and stages of the post production process:

Step 1: Organize Your Storage Media

With any video post production workflow the first and most important step is how to organize your media. Whether you are dealing with cans of 35mm film, or raw footage and media files stored in hard drives or cloud space – the project organization depends on the ability to find what you need and send it to where it needs to go.

Nomenclature and Naming Conventions

In order to stay organized and be able to find things quickly, especially working with a post production team or when you aren’t familiar with the material, the best tool is nomenclature. An ideal post production process would have a standardized naming convention for media assets (video files, audio files, etc) which may include descriptors such as:

  • Dates
  • Types of media
  • Sub-Labels such as:
  • “Revised”
  • “WIP (work-in-progress)”
  • Etc.

Storage

The other most important factor for a post product workflow is storage. Without storage you cannot have a post production workflow.

Storage is an absolute necessity – not only for the footage and materials from Production – but also for all the inevitable offshoots derived from the source media, such as:

  • Backup Copy of Raw Footage
  • Dailies
  • Copy of Dailies for Editors and Assistants
  • Rough Cuts
  • Breakdowns and String-outs of Selects
  • Etc.

All of these materials require lots of storage capacity in order to work efficiently. A good rule of thumb when determining how much storage capacity you need is to calculate what you think you need and then triple it (with consideration of budget of course).

Step 2 – Coordinate with Production Team

Now that we have our storage and a file naming convention – we can receive footage from production. Post production technically begins when Production teams and Post Production teams get together and share footage.

Professional Post Production Workflows take raw source media and create ‘lower quality’ media so once editing is complete we can replace all the shots with the original raw source media. This is because the media is incredibly large and cumbersome to work with. Not that it’s impossible – and many people are finding workflows that incorporate Raw Media – however – when considering using a Raw workflow you must be aware of the massive sizes of the media we are talking about. Not only is the Raw Footage obviously higher quality but the unedited footage contains all of the footage. Even a thirty second commercial typically shoots 6-10 hours of footage – even more if it’s VFX heavy. For a typical job nearly 90% of the footage is never used or seen again. So why would a professional enterprise waste so much storage space (see above) when an efficient workflow can be streamlined to accommodate more jobs and increase productivity.

Post Production wants to manipulate the footage as easily as possible – so dailies are created. In the past, dailies of the footage would be reviewed- every day during production – the day after. It took considerably more time to process film and the only way to make sure what you shot was correct – this was the way. Once approved – these dailies would then be copied multiple times as Workprints.

Film editors would take these workprints and make selects using bins – actual garbage cans with a metal frame on top to hang strips and stringouts of film.

While this might seem like an archaic practice in the days of purely digital video editing, as recently as the early 2010s commercials were still shot on 35mm film. Dailies were sent to Post Production houses who would send the dailies to be telecined or transferred onto physical tape which in turn would be digitized or transcoded into ProRes to edit on a workstation computer.

Step 3 – ‘Offline’ Process

Here is where the workflow is the most important – once Post Production has the footage and dailies – they first go through an Offline process. This is the part most are familiar with – actually editing footage. Offline will start making string-outs and rough cuts – the Editors, Assistants, and Producers work with Production to create what was envisioned in Pre-Production.

But they will not be the only ones working on this footage. They need to collaborate with multiple teams and vendors, including:

  • Audio House – The audio or sound team consists of sound engineers that work on things such sound editing, audio quality, background noise, sound mixing, sound effects, etc.
  • Color House – Colorists are specialists that work on color correction/color grading and creating a ‘what the footage should look like’-look for the footage.
  • Graphics (Offline) – A team, either in house or third-party vendor, of designers working to create 2D/3D assets including titles, legal, endcards, comps, offline VFX.
  • Conform/Flame House (Online) – Flame Artists and Online Editors are Visual Effects wizards that make all the final graphics and final picture. They ‘Online’ the ‘Offline’ edit replacing the edit and redoing VFX – but now with the Color Corrected Source Media and with more expectations to ‘make it work.’

This is also where the exact steps of a post production workflow gets very muddy. In todays digital environment changes are able to be addressed much faster than in the past, allowing for simultaneous steps by multiple teams.

In the past all these steps required one to be done before the next, making it a more clear-cut step-by-step process. But now, we can do several steps at once and can even revert back to a previous version more easily.

This however also makes the post production workflow extremely important – as we are now handling multiple versions of media files and video post production workflows are all about organization.

For instance, the concept of a “Locked Cut” used to be set in stone. Locked Cut means when the picture is ‘locked’ meaning no more changes to the picture. This allows audio/color/conform to work on their aspect of the full job without worrying if their work is being used on the wrong version.

In the past, once you handed the Locked Cut to Audio or Color teams, you couldn’t change anything. Nowadays Locked Cut is more of a suggestion and it is possible to make changes to a job practically minutes before delivery to the a client or going to air.

Now, just because we can always ‘go back to any version’ does not mean it’s ideal. Deadlines still exist and you’d rather spend as much time making sure everything is moving rather than always stopping and reverting back and double and triple checking that you didn’t (or someone else didn’t) make a mistake.

The reason the Locked Cut is so important is to ensure that the Audio Mixer and the Colorist and Visual Effects (VFX) teams are all working on the correct part needed for the whole. There is nothing scarier than realizing all the hours of work and money spent on the wrong version after the fact.

Audio Mixing

Ideally the Locked Cut would go to an Audio Engineer for a proper mix. They take the offline mix from the original rough cut and isolate audio tracks by type. Voice-Over, Sound FX, Music, and Dialogue and balance them to create the best sound possible. If the video is intended for broadcast – the Audio Mixer will also ensure the levels are CALM act compliant (adhering to -24 dB standard for broadcast).

Once complete, the Final Mix and Splits are generated and given back to Offline or Online editors depending on the Post Production Workflow.

Colorists and Color Correction

The Colorist is a specialist that manipulates the source media to enhance the representation of light and color of the footage (i.e. color correction/color grading).

In the past – once the film was shot there wasn’t many options to alter it’s look. The look had to be composed on set with some tweaking possible during telecine to ‘crush the blacks’ or ‘open it up.’

Now, thanks to digital sensors – a camera RAW image can contain much more data allowing a Colorist more options to manipulate the image, even after shooting. Many of these RAW images look ‘flat’ which looks unappealing and you can go into a rabbit hole about LUTs – but that ‘flat’ image contains millions of bits of data imprinted with all the red, green, and blue values of each pixel.

The Colorists then Grades the footage, called “color grade”, and utilizes the actual original camera footage from set. Thanks to a Post Production Workflow – they can take the rough cut and match it to the original footage so they make sure they are using the right shots.

Once the Colorist “Grades” the footage – the Conform happens – this is also when VFX happens.

Step 4 – Conform and Visual Effects (VFX)

Conform is the final part of Post Production Workflow – it’s when all of the elements are ‘conformed’ into a single Final Cut or Final Picture.

When an Online Editor or Flame Artist ‘conforms’ a job – what they are essentially doing is recreating the Offline Edit, using a reference Work Picture or WIP from Offline, and using the now Color Corrected high res source media. After a base conform is complete – they now have a Online Edit that matches the Offline Edit with higher quality footage. Then they begin doing the VFX – sometimes they work in conjunction with Offline Graphics – who can make higher res versions that the Conform can incorporate into the Online Edit. Or, more typically, the graphics are ‘redone’ using the Offline Graphics as a reference.

All this is planned ahead of time. For example, if you have a camera that can shoot at 4K, and make dailies at 1920×1080, edit in 1920×1080, you can then take your edit and match it back to the 4K source footage – to then conform a new 4K sized edit that’s higher quality. If you shoot at 1920×1080 and just blow it up to 4K – it won’t look as good.

VFX can be done in Offline but most of the time that is used as a reference for the Conform to then recreate using the color graded source media from the Colorist. And it gives the client more time to make further tweaks and adjustments they were unable to in Offline.

The VFX process includes multiple steps, including:

  • Cleaning up defects from set which can be anything from Starbucks cup a la Game of Thrones, or a wrinkled shirt on an actor, lens glare on a window, client decides an actor’s teeth are too crooked, a sign or logo not cleared, etc
  • Removing safety rigging/greenscreens/rotoscoping – all considered ‘painting out’
  • Adding special effects such as:
  • Comps – replacing screens on phones/tvs with a ‘composition’ of another shot or piece of media and or adding GUI overlays onto already shot footage.
  • Split Screen
  • Mattes – Literally cutting out and cropping pieces of an image to be used in a more complicated ‘composition’, also includes Sky Replacement
  • Head Replacement/Alt Take swaping – Use an actor’s line from an earlier take and make it seem like it was in-fact a later take, or for stunt-double replacement
  • Time-warping – speed ramps and speed changes from Offline edit needed to be recreated for the base conform to match
  • Graphics and titles created by a dedicated Graphics team.

Step 5: Final Picture – Marrying Conform and Final Audio Mix

Once the Conform is complete you now have to marry it with the Final Mix from the Audio team. The resulting product is the “Final Picture”.

When the audio house makes their Final Mix using a DAW (a Digital Audio Workstation like Pro-Tools) – they almost never have good quality picture – they need a locked cut – not a high quality cut. So when the Final Mix is approved – the Audio house would ‘bounce’ (or export) several types of files for Post Production to then ‘marry’ the mix to the Final Picture. These would include the Mix and Splits. The Mix is the audio all together into one file whereas the Splits are all the separate audio tracks of the Mix split out. So a track for just Sound FX, another for VO, another for in-camera dialog, etc. If the edit is expected to be broadcast – the audio house would have to ensure that the mix adheres to the broadcaster’s regulated standards.

Step 6: Master – Final Tweaks and Approval for Broadcast

The Final Picture, while sounding like the final part of post-production, still needs approval and tweaks before being approved. This is always different depending on the exact type of industry but typically a Post-Production house is a vendor to a client that wants a video/film made. And that client is also answering to investors (or another client). And then the Post House will hire vendors to do specific tasks for a job. Each company involved have Producers – whose job is to make sure things go smoothly and liaisons between client/vendor as needed.

And with the revolution of digital workflows – this entire approval process has changed. An utter impossibility not 15 years ago – but last second changes are becoming more the norm. The very concept of a ‘locked picture’ have almost disappeared now being replaced with a cutesy “soft lock.”

After these approvals to Mix, Picture, and Conform it becomes a Master and is ready for broadcast – if it passes the Broadcaster’s or Digital Platform’s Quality Control.

Step 7: Post-post Production – Final Platform Deliverables

This is typically where most Post Production Workflows end – but lately many digital platforms have decided to have their own specifications for media output.

So the Final Picture gets made into a Master which is used to create deliverables for all the various platforms they will inevitably live on.

These can include video files specifically for Social Media Platforms (Facebook, Spotify, Instagram, Tik Tok), Digital Billboards on buildings, Taxi Cab tops, anything outside of just Broadcast.

Step 8: Archiving Project Files and Media

After it’s delivered the Post Production company will then archive the Masters and Deliverables as well as all the project files and media used – so that if at some point – we need to go back to this job and use a part of it for a new one – thanks to a proper Post Production Workflow – that can be easily retrieved and worked on.

Conclusion

That’s a Post Production Workflow, an organized way to process media from Production to Broadcast. Following all the elements of this workflow you can stay organized and manage your video production and video editing process in a smooth and timely manner.