Post Production Advice

P

pekar1876

Active member
We're into the final stages of our doc and have completed editing.

What I wanted to ask is would you recommend spending $15,000 on the grading, sound layback, titles and playout to HDCAM?

We've managed to get a deal (50% discount) with a big well respect company in Soho London. I'm sure they would do a good job but my concern is with the grading which comes to about $7,000 and if it's going to make a big difference?

Sound is covered, it's been cleaned up at the moment and will be mixed in a studio with a top pro who mixed Mamma Mia!

Is this how you would finish your film?

www.beyondbibamovie.com for the trailer
______________
 
The information given is way too vague to give an educated answer. $7,000 for grading a full length feature is definitely not expensive, though.
 
Sounds rediculas. Today, this stuff should be done in the edit itself. You obviously are not done editing at all. I fail to see ther point in making edits that all have to be attended to again. If there anyway, why not just make it look and sound how it should? This method multiplies a budget with no reason to.
 
:) not to completely contradict grinner, but you are not going to be able to mix the film or clean up the sound in an NLE to the degree to which a professional can do it using protools in a room with proper acoustics and professional grade monitors. you are not going to be able to render gfx work using an NLE title tool to the degree a professional using after effects can. there are significant limits to the amount of control one has grading picture in an NLE. I don't see any evidence in your post that you are still editing. this all sounds like finishing costs and $15,000 for all of that on a feature length doc is a steal.
 
A good editor can.
and should.
I could have posted his entire movie for 15k.
Old school offlining then onlining is, well, old school. As budgets decline, this is a fine place not to throw money away.
 
grinner said:
A good editor can.
and should.
I could have posted his entire movie for 15k.
Old school offlining then onlining is, well, old school. As budgets decline, this is a fine place not to throw money away.
Click to expand...

hehe, hey i'm not trying to antagonize you, grinner. fortunately for me, I only know good editors. and delivering for broadcast is one thing. but finishing for theatrical is quite another level. you really going to give me a theatrical 5.1 mix that complies to industry limits and standards from your Avid?

i don't think one should half-ass this final stage of post so it looks good on a 19" monitor and a pair of yamaha NS10s. if you don't have the money, forge the relationships necessary to get it reduced or donated.
 
grinner said:
A good editor can.
and should.
I could have posted his entire movie for 15k.
Old school offlining then onlining is, well, old school. As budgets decline, this is a fine place not to throw money away.
Click to expand...


One thing I've learned is you pay for what you get. I could have edited the whole film but once I had completed a rough/assembly edit, I hired a oscar nominated editor to finish the edit on a deferred payment.

Again I could have done the sound mix myself but we had access to people who have high quality equipment and who work on many feature films every year, again they are working on a deferred payment.

I agree with what Zak said, there is only so much you can do with a NLE editing suite...
 
grinner said:
Sounds rediculas. Today, this stuff should be done in the edit itself. You obviously are not done editing at all. I fail to see ther point in making edits that all have to be attended to again. If there anyway, why not just make it look and sound how it should? This method multiplies a budget with no reason to.
Click to expand...

The above is just wrong. Well might be less wrong if your meaning in "in the edit" has separate "edit's" for picture and sound. But I suspect that your talking about doing it all in the NLE, and that is bunk.

First picture editors are NOT sound editors. Even the (good) ones that do both don't do both on the same film. Different mind set, different tools. Picture edit suites are as a rule acoustic nightmares and one of the absolute worst places to do sound work.

Color grading needs to happen on high quality properly calibrated monitors with color grading software, though you can sort of get by in AE and FCP comes with Color. But mostly it's a specialty and you should use someone who does it a lot not someone who's trying to figure it out.

Titles are a motion graphics thing. If your editor was a motion graphics person they would probably be doing that and not editing.

Editing is very important but it's not color grading OR motion graphics OR sound (unless your a sound editor, and then it's not picture).

The tools are available to anybody, but a 10 year old can drive a car, doesn't mean they are any good at it. Any time you can get professionals to help polish your project you should. It's what will set you apart from the semi home movie one man band no budget films that are flooding the market.

Cheers
SK
 
grinner said:
A good editor can.
and should.
I could have posted his entire movie for 15k.
Old school offlining then onlining is, well, old school. As budgets decline, this is a fine place not to throw money away.
Click to expand...

I have to agree. You can absolutely do a good surround sound mix with Final Cut Studio, you just need the right speakers, which aren't even expensive, and a decent room. And you should already have a color-accurate pro monitor for editing, we do, and we do all coloring after we lock the picture.

I wouldn't pay someone $7,000 to do something that you can do easily in Color. That is OLD school! You can get perfect results just tinkering with it in Color, which before it was added into Final Cut Studio 2 was a program that cost many tens of thousands. It's not cheap software. It's extremely good software.

You can't really say $15,000 is a "steal" when most features simply are NOT selling for that much money anymore on the indie distribution circuit, so every dollar counts.
 
well okay. to each his own, right? I honestly think it will show. and work against your efforts to sell it. I say "steal" because the guy who mixes my films charges three, four, five up to ten times that for everyone else depending on budget level. but he's my bud, so while i bring him well-financed studio gigs to mix, he does my work for nearly nothing, just covering his incidental expenses. and it makes a huge difference. HUGE. I should post some before and after if i get the chance. maybe i'll make that a portion of the Heart of Now DVD. there are aspects of what he's doing that astound me. for color, I do that professionally so I save by doing it myself. owning a post boutique has its benefits. and I have friends who donate motion gfx for the same reason, i bring them studio gigs.
 
JonathanLB said:
I have to agree. You can absolutely do a good surround sound mix with Final Cut Studio, you just need the right speakers, which aren't even expensive, and a decent room. And you should already have a color-accurate pro monitor for editing, we do, and we do all coloring after we lock the picture.

I wouldn't pay someone $7,000 to do something that you can do easily in Color. That is OLD school! You can get perfect results just tinkering with it in Color, which before it was added into Final Cut Studio 2 was a program that cost many tens of thousands. It's not cheap software. It's extremely good software.

You can't really say $15,000 is a "steal" when most features simply are NOT selling for that much money anymore on the indie distribution circuit, so every dollar counts.
Click to expand...

No one is saying it's not possible to do it but it can be done to a higher level with experts in their field and machines designed to do that particular job.

One of the reasons films don't sell is the post production is not done to a high enough quality. Poor sound mix and color grading.. I was in Cannes this year and independent films are still selling.
 
I have to agree. You can absolutely do a good surround sound mix with Final Cut Studio, you just need the right speakers, which aren't even expensive, and a decent room.
Click to expand...

Not for theatrical you can't. And well you can't anyway. You can do an amateur time mix.


And you should already have a color-accurate pro monitor for editing, we do, and we do all coloring after we lock the picture.
Click to expand...

This is at least possible, for broadcast anyway.

I wouldn't pay someone $7,000 to do something that you can do easily in Color. That is OLD school! You can get perfect results just tinkering with it in Color
Click to expand...

Now there is a professional at work. I really want someone "tinkering" with an app they don't know on my finished film. It's not "old school" it's called professional.

, which before it was added into Final Cut Studio 2 was a program that cost many tens of thousands. It's not cheap software. It's extremely good software.
Click to expand...

Shows your level of knowledge, it sold for $18,000. Yes it's not a cheap program, you still need someone who knows what they are doing when using it. The space shuttle isn't cheap, but I wouldn't want to try and fly it.

What all you "new schoolers" are missing is that your not paying for the features, your paying for the skill. Apple can give you the tools, it doesn't mean you know how to use them. Hell I can edit a feature, color it do titles and finish up the sound. I'm a sound editor so that part would probably be pretty good but the rest... Anybody can talk about "doing it all". I'll be impressed when a film made by one of these one man bands makes me think it was done by a team of professional. When that happens maybe I'll join the "new school" but so far they all look much more "pre school".

You can't really say $15,000 is a "steal" when most features simply are NOT selling for that much money anymore on the indie distribution circuit, so every dollar counts.
Click to expand...

Maybe films made with out professional finishing are going for under $15K. Instead of trying to lower your standards maybe try raising them instead, maybe you can join the "old school" folks who are selling for considerably more than $15K.
Cheers
SK
 
Last edited:
Noiz2 said:
Not for theatrical you can't. And well you can't anyway. You can do an amateur time mix.




This is at least possible, for broadcast anyway.



Now there is a professional at work. I really want someone "tinkering" with an app they don't know on my finished film. It's not "old school" it's called professional.



Shows your level of knowledge, it sold for $18,000. Yes it's not a cheap program, you still need someone who knows what they are doing when using it. The space shuttle isn't cheap, but I wouldn't want to try and fly it.



What all you "new schoolers" are missing is that your not paying for the features, your paying for the skill. Apple can give you the tools, it doesn't mean you know how to use them. Hell I can edit a feature, color it do titles and finish up the sound. I'm a sound editor so that part would probably be pretty good but the rest... Anybody can talk about "doing it all". I'll be impressed when a film made by one of these one man bands makes me think it was done by a team of professional. When that happens maybe I'll join the "new school" but so far they all look much more "pre school".
Cheers
SK
Click to expand...

Smart man.. The space shuttle part made me laugh.
 
I don't want to cross post, and it's rather long, so here is the link to the Mix stage requirements to do a Dolby Digital theatrical mix. The requirements are slightly less for Matrixed surround (Dolby analog surround) and DTS has similar requirements to DD. Those are the ONLY theatrical surround formats in common use today.
 
I truth still overlooked by many is old school thinking that multiplies budgets is the very reason so many projects never leave the ground and why many filmmakers are struggling to find work today. We overspend in every industry and it's something that will stop sooner or later, to avoid going under or as a result of going under.
I understand the old mentality of off-lining first but because it's no longer a cost-effective approach, we'll see less and less of it as we evolve...and evolution is only as fast as the slowest slackers.
But do try to look at the common sense of this approach today. There is simply no reason to throw this money away.
 
grinner said:
I truth still overlooked by many is old school thinking that multiplies budgets is the very reason so many projects never leave the ground and why many filmmakers are struggling to find work today. We overspend in every industry and it's something that will stop sooner or later, to avoid going under or as a result of going under.
I understand the old mentality of off-lining first but because it's no longer a cost-effective approach, we'll see less and less of it as we evolve...and evolution is only as fast as the slowest slackers.
But do try to look at the common sense of this approach today. There is simply no reason to throw this money away.
Click to expand...

I don't totally disagree with you and I will point out that in film there is no offline / online, that's a video workflow.

Offline/ online is an out dated workflow that is wasteful. And I will admit that film post flow is pretty wasteful. But the solution isn't to "do it all yourself", in my opinion. The solution is to optimize it. But first you have to separate film (even if it's shot on video) from video, they end up in different places and have different expectations. It's a very different aesthetic. Video is much more compatible with a do it all in the edit work flow since that is how it pretty much has been (then it all gets done again on better equipment in the online). Edit stations mostly ARE the better equipment now. I know this comes down to a somewhat arbitrary division but it's an important one. If your doing Entertainment tonight then I think absolutely you are correct and shows like that are going to move into a one man band flow. Films are different and need more people for a bunch of reasons. One is of course specialization. Someone who does X for a living and has a lot of experience is going to be better at it than someone who doesn't. Films are in competition with other films made by "old school folks with pretty high standards (technically anyway, we won't look to closely at scripts ...). If you look and sound significantly worse than they do you loose, and it doesn't matter if at the core you are a better film. There are a fair number of pretty good indi (under $100k indi) films. But most of them are unmarketable because they look and sound so bad. The looks are getting slicker and maybe a little better but sound almost always sucks. And better cameras are actually making it worse. When you had that low budget "video" or 16mm look your audiences expectations were lowered and they accepted more. Sound in old video and 16mm sucks by nature and the weakness of the deliverable masked the flaws of the edit. Same with picture. When the picture isn't great the aud. is distracted enough that some sloppy editing can get overlooked and color correction is a bit lost on VHS...
But now that "consumer" formats are getting good enough to project and look REALLY good people are expecting more. What I'm calling video still has a lot of distracting eye candy that lets you get away with murder. Can't make a decent cut, use a cube transition bingo!

Go to the Web sites for some no budget films and the production values are MUCH higher than what's on the screen...WHY??? I think it's because no marketing department told them they should do it all them selves so they actually got someone who had experience. All I'm saying is that if more indi filmmakers thought the same way about their films as their Web sites their films would turn out better.

If you on your own can make your film so that you can flip back and forth between it and any well budgeted Hollywood film and yours sounds and looks good in comparison, then congratulations. I have never seen it and I have seen thousands of super low budget indi films. Now do the same with successful indi films (yes higher budgets but that's because they paid people, you can do it for less - though marketing is a killer) like My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Pipe Dream and what do you find? They hold their own. Why? Polish, they look and sound like a "real" film. I don't think you can get there by your self. Film is a team sport, you can't play in the big leagues with a team of one, and basically if your not in the big leagues (or at least on a farm club) your not going to pay your rent so what your doing is a hobby.
 
While that use to be true, one man bands are rapidly becoming the norm. In this "reality" world we live in, large crews are often not required at all to get a hand-held look and never has a team been required for post production. It's something hollywood was able to create and milk for a long freakin time but it's pretty crazy to think one guy has to cut it, one guy has to tweek color, another guy has to tweek audio and another has to do the effects. It makes it easier to jack up the price and that's why it's still practiced. It use to be very profitable to be a specialist. Today, that's an easy way to be unemployed.
 
Ah, I love it when people think their way is the 'right' way and everyone else is doing it 'wrong'. C'mon, horses for courses people. :grin:

Sometimes the best solution is to hire specialists sometimes the best solution is to hire a jack of all trades. Sometimes offline editing first is a better way to go while other times it's not. There is no single answer or approach that is right for everyone and every situation. It's like arguing over whether flip-flops or running shoes are better footwear. I'll put on flip-flops for the backyard barbecue but if I decide to run a marathon I'm sure as heck gonna bust out the running shoes. And, to carry the analogy a little farther, just because I own a really nice pair of running shoes doesn't mean I'm good enough to make it onto an Olympic squad.


-A
 
grinner said:
While that use to be true, one man bands are rapidly becoming the norm. In this "reality" world we live in, large crews are often not required at all to get a hand-held look and never has a team been required for post production. It's something hollywood was able to create and milk for a long freakin time but it's pretty crazy to think one guy has to cut it, one guy has to tweek color, another guy has to tweek audio and another has to do the effects. It makes it easier to jack up the price and that's why it's still practiced. It use to be very profitable to be a specialist. Today, that's an easy way to be unemployed.
Click to expand...

Well first lets be up front about where were coming from. You are coming from music video and cable promos some ad's. Nothing in your resume was long form, let alone narrative feature. No real docks either and your in a smaller market. So everything you say may be true for you in your niche and your area. But it's far from universal. I'm coming from a very different place. I'm in a maybe bigger market but most of the features with budgets came up from LA. Most of my work is in long form narratives and docs. But I have done a lot of national ad's quite a few shorts and even some cable promo's.

Your a one man band and I'm almost exclusively audio post, on smaller projects I'm often a one man audio post band.

Your wrong about Hollywood and crews, "Hollywood" would like nothing more than to move all feature production down to one over worked under paid person. Unions are probably the weakest they have been since ~~20's. The reason it won't happen is it doesn't work. Not for a Hollywood Feature. India produces more films that anyone in the world and they have bigger crews than Hollywood. England has some of the smallest crews around but they are still using crews. If you just think of any major release in well forever and then try to imagine one person doing it all it becomes obvious that for a big budget narrative it just isn't going to happen. Crews have gotten smaller and post times have shrunk, but they sort of hit the wall ten years ago. Since then it's been a balancing of smaller crew/ longer post or bigger crew/ shorter post.

In your market your probably right. When we did this cable rollout we did (audio post) on 75 bumpers and lower thirds and such in I think it was three weeks. It was insane and they wouldn't have hired us except it was claymation and it wasn't covered in music so it need real sound post. So I can easily see that if they had been your typical
smothered in music spots the editor would have been knocking those out in no time. But that experience doesn't translate to long form very well.

To be really accurate there ought to be another three or so posters that have different experiences/ markets and it ought to be one big sticky that covers the many different ways films/ content is getting created.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top