Post Production Advice

grinner said:
...never has a team been required for post production.
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So you're telling me that - oh, let's say for example, a director - is and *has always been* the best composer/multi-instrumentalist, editor, colorist, Foley artist, ADR recordist and editor, SFX artist, VFX artist, title creator, music scoring mixer and post audio mixer?

Man...I wish I'd known that years ago. Looks like I'm gonna save a freakin' FORTUNE on my next film.

Thanks bro : )

You suppose he might also be the best screenwriter, leading actor, producer, camera operator, boom operator and casting director too?

That would be, like, AWESOME...

<cough>
 
Using a bit of imagination here...

Can one person, shoot, edit, grade and mix sound? Yes.

Can they do it at the same level that a specialist in each field can? No. But lets assume you're godlike and you can answer this question as a Yes.

So now that you can achieve same pro level of work in each field, can you do it in the same time it would take 4 pro's to do it? NO.

You'll probably say, time is of little importance to my film. When it's ready, it's ready. Any self respecting producer would never say such thing though.

So to recap, yes you can, but no it's not feasible.
 
There's a really odd step in the process of learning to do something well. It's sometimes called "stage 1". That's where you "don't know (i.e. realize) what you don't know". This is (hopefully) followed by "stage 2", where you become increasingly aware of (and often quite alarmed by) the vast expanse of what you *don't* know...yet. Only then does the *real* learning begin. Unfortunately though, some people never get past stage 1...
 
Well, I guess the question is this: Are generalists worth it?

And I would answer "yes". Generalists do exist in everything film wise. There are people who color grade their own stuff, people who mix their own stuff, people who shoot their own stuff.

That doesn't make them any less of a film maker for doing the line themselves. There are people who can't afford to send everything out and get pro-audio teams to do their mixdown. If they use a generalist that doesn't make them bad.

There are 3D generalists, who do everything you can think of. Modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, particles, dynamics, rendering. And they get hired. For people who can't afford an ILM (several people in each department), it can be considered a good decision. Will the overall quality match that of ILM? It could. Can it be done as fast? Not a chance.

There are hundreds of ways to post a production. A generalist verses a small team verses a huge team. When I was in NYC, our entire video department was made up of generalists. We shot the segment, we edited it, we posted it. Granted it wasn't a feature, but we were all generalists.

I know (and worked on) another show that is currently on the backend of post, they ran out of money because they hired a massive post team, and they haven't finished the cut yet. A generalists probably could have been called in to do it.

Here at DVXuser - almost everyone here is a generalist in some sort. Shooting, editing, sound designing, digital effecting, all the other 'ing' words that come along with filmmaking. Does that make them any less of a film maker? I'd go so far as to say not at all.

It comes down to what workflow works the best for you and what you can afford. Neither way is dead. Generalists are on the rise. But most generalists, specialize in a certain area. Big crews aren't about to go away either.

There isn't a right answer here.
 
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Mattykins said:
Well, I guess the question is this: Do generalists exist.

And I would answer "yes". Generalists do exist in everything film wise. There are people who color grade their own stuff, people who mix their own stuff, people who shoot their own stuff.

That doesn't make them any less of a film maker for doing the line themselves. There are people who can't afford to send everything out and get pro-audio teams to do their mixdown. If they use a generalist that doesn't make them bad. ...
...
Here at DVXuser - almost everyone here is a generalist in some sort. Shooting, editing, sound designing, digital effecting, all the other 'ing' words that come along with filmmaking. Does that make them any less of a film maker? I'd go so far as to say not at all.

It comes down to what workflow works the best for you and what you can afford. Neither way is dead. Generalists are on the rise. But most generalists, specialize in a certain area. Big crews aren't about to go away either.

There isn't a right answer here.
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I don't disagree. But you must also realize that many/ most? of the DVX Users are students/ amateurs (in the sense that they don't do it for a living)/ hobbyists or are just starting out. The answer to person X's question has a lot to do with what they are trying to accomplish. The OP had $15,000 BUDGETED for post finishing. Probably 1/2 to 3/4 of the filmmakers on DVX User don't even do budgets. So it's appropriate to answer him in that context. If a hobbyist asked if they should spend $15K on post I would say no. But someone who is planning on spending $15k on post is going to a mix stage etc. is planning to compete in the deep end. It IS important to them to polish that baby as high as possible. There are very FEW professional generalists. And most of them are doing closely related tasks (writer/ director, producer/ director). Walter Murch who is probably the most high profile at the moment doesn't do sound and picture on the same project, though he has done mixing and pict editing on the same film. Those tasks don't really overlap.

Part of the problem is the lack of perspective doing too much breeds. I worked on a few features that were written, directed and edited by one person. IF they have enough other people around it can be OK but it's very easy for them as editor to not cut that really awful bit of dialog that they love and everyone else hates. I worked on one that could have been OK maybe even "good", but it needed 20 min of very bad explanation scenes cut out. Director/writer/editor could never see the problem. At the opening there were laughs and groans at these scenes and a comment from someone in the back "don't give up your day job". It would have been fixable but it needed a n editor to push the director.

So yes there are generalists, hell I'm one (lighting, still photographer, set design, location sound, post sound, VFX, music editing, I've even been in a few films). But I don't generalize on professional projects (generally ;~) ). If I'm helping someone out on a 24hr film I'm all over the map, but that is a different situation.

Also some areas lend them selfs to generalist skills. MANY ad's for instance don't really do a post sound. They mix in a room so they can hit specs but everything else is done by the picture editor. They also rarely have a track that would fly on a feature level. It's not a quality issue it's a style issue. I don't think folks who are generalists because of budget or the market or style are "bad". But it is wrong to think that because a national ad can be cut by one guy in a day on his own that the same applies to a feature film headed to a theatre. Ship builders have similar but different skills as house builders. You shouldn't advise the shipbuilder to build the same way as the house builder, houses don't sink, ships don't have to withstand earthquakes (you can tell I'm from CA).
Cheers
SKs
 
Mattykins said:
Well, I guess the question is this: Do generalists exist.
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I don't think anyone is debating whether or not generalists exist because they obviously do. I think the back and forth was along the lines of when to choose between one or the other.


-A
 
Perhaps "Are generalists worth it?" is a better question. That's hopefully the point I was attempting to get across. Not do generalists exist. It's been a long day in front of the computer. So forgive my mis-speaking.

And I'm not saying OP shouldn't use specialists. He should use the colorists. They are magic in human form. Sound designers, they are the same. It's incredible what specialists can do.

I think the "debate" rolled off the tracks a bit and became a generalists v. specialists. You gotta take it on a case to case basis. That was my *intended* point.
 
Mattykins said:
Perhaps "Are generalists worth it?" is a better question. That's hopefully the point I was attempting to get across. Not do generalists exist. It's been a long day in front of the computer. So forgive my mis-speaking.

And I'm not saying OP shouldn't use specialists. He should use the colorists. They are magic in human form. Sound designers, they are the same. It's incredible what specialists can do.

I think the "debate" rolled off the tracks a bit and became a generalists v. specialists. You gotta take it on a case to case basis. That was my *intended* point.
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Exactly. Case closed.

P.S We managed to get the deal down to $7,000....
 
Zak Forsman said:
I'm in stage three... knowing enough to know I can't know everything.
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There's a handy little fortune cookie-sized list (ok, maybe a large fortune cookie) called "The Four Stages Of Mastery". It applies more to a specific discipline than knowledge of things in general, but the first two are identical to what I described previously:

Stage 1: Unconscious incompetence (not realizing what you don't know)
Stage 2: Conscious incompetence (realizing what you don't know)
Stage 3: Conscious competence (effortful skill)
Stage 4: Unconscious competence (effortless mastery)

Stage 4 is tough to get to : )
 
Ted Spencer said:
There's a really odd step in the process of learning to do something well. It's sometimes called "stage 1". That's where you "don't know (i.e. realize) what you don't know". This is (hopefully) followed by "stage 2", where you become increasingly aware of (and often quite alarmed by) the vast expanse of what you *don't* know...yet.
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In other words Ted,

"because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
 
Noiz2 said:
You are coming from music video and cable promos some ad's. Nothing in your resume was long form, let alone narrative feature.
Actually, I specialize in longform. I just prefer not to split the budget with others. I shot a longform piece in Texas over the last 4 daze. I have until Wed. to have it posted. I could not do that deligating to others, hoping they understand, then hoping they are capable, all the while sifting money from the jar.
I'm not saying everyone can make a movie as a one man production unit but it's something I am very comfy with. Bottom line, I'd certainly never pay anyone 15k to color correct a movie I edited. Again, I see this as counter productive. It's quicker and easier for me to just do it while I have that clip up working with it.
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Ted Spencer said:
So you're telling me that - oh, let's say for example, a director - is and *has always been* the best composer/multi-instrumentalist, editor, colorist, Foley artist, ADR recordist and editor, SFX artist, VFX artist, title creator, music scoring mixer and post audio mixer?
Click to expand...

Very few are. I enjoy being one of them. It would frustrate me to no end to hand these positions away, wait on them, be out the expense and then redo them.
This is why I don't hire freelancers unless I absolutly have no choice. I always end up redoing whatever it was I paid them to do. I just don't find it cost effective.
 
It really seems to me like you just have a problem with collaboration. I'm sure I could get to a point where I was very competent at color grading, and able to do it quite well. But, will I ever do that? No, because the more talented professional visions you can bring into a production, the better it will be. Film is a collaborative artform, and that's one of the things that makes it so great. I want to work with as many professionals as possible. I am a very competent cinematographer, but that doesn't mean I don't want to work with a director of photography, because the collaboration can bring many things to a production that one man would never think of.
 
grinner said:
Very few are. I enjoy being one of them. It would frustrate me to no end to hand these positions away, wait on them, be out the expense and then redo them.
This is why I don't hire freelancers unless I absolutly have no choice. I always end up redoing whatever it was I paid them to do. I just don't find it cost effective.
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Sounds like you need to make better hiring decisions? ;)


-A
 
grinner said:
Very few are. I enjoy being one of them.
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No offense intended, but as much as the above sounds like hubris, it really just suggests a production quality goal that's way below, let's say, a reasonably well budgeted narrative feature, where "reasonably well budgeted" might be, for example, $2M+. Which of course is ultra-low in Hollywood.

It was on that basis, as opposed to more of a "guerilla" approach, that I was commenting previously. Thus your statement that "a post production team has never been necessary", when that includes all the personnel I listed, is, frankly, laughable (at least for a feature) above a certain threshold of budget, and that threshold is probably no higher than $50K or so.

And on many productions, that's probably about what they set aside for petty cash...
 
then I digress. Hire cuts only editors then go pay to have somebody else color correct what they could not.
 
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