Post-Production: The process of assembly
Post-Production: The process of assembly
Date
Jan 22, 2026
Category
Production 101
Post-production is where we take all the footage and finally begin assembling it into your film. From organizing the media and selecting the best takes to adding music, sound effects, and color grading, every detail is carefully crafted by a team of specialists who will elevate your film to its highest potential. It's a collaboration that puts you in the middle of the process, ensuring the final edit aligns with your vision while keeping the story clear and engaging.
The first priority after leaving the set is to make several copies of the footage, which are stored in different locations for safety.
Organizing the media
Once the footage arrives from our set, the editor gets to work ingesting it into our system. The first step is to transfer all the media onto our server, where it becomes accessible to everyone involved with your project. Next, the editor backs up the footage a second time onto an LTO tape for another layer of redundancy.
Now it's time to begin organizing the footage inside the editing application. This involves hours of syncing the sound files to the picture files, generating smaller proxies for smooth editing, and sorting the footage by scene into long "string-outs" of every single take. If the footage contains interviews, the editor strings them out separately and exports each one for AI transcription, which the director will later clean up and use to build the paper edit (more on that later).
Even though our process is streamlined and we use AI assistance where we can, setting up a project correctly is time-consuming. Our editors scan through each shot, tagging the best ones for quick retrieval. They download temp music for auditioning in the edit. And they begin to gather any archival footage, photos, and other assets we'll need along the way. As tedious as it is, this organization pays off once we're deep into editing and we need to move as quickly as inspiration strikes us.
The first cut
On scripted projects, the editor refers to the storyboards for guidance as he or she begins to assemble a first pass. What begins as a clunky timeline gradually takes shape as the editor continues refining — trimming shots, inserting better music, and finding the story beats that set the overall pace and tone. It's an exciting process to watch as the the story you've been envisioning all this time slowly comes into focus.
Clients are always invited to sit-in with the editor and director to collaborate in real-time, but most often they prefer to review the first cut when it's ready. We send out a link, which you can forward to the rest of your team to watch and make notes. This back-and-forth collaboration is really where the story takes shape and the polishing begins.
This is what a timeline looks like in our editing application. Each box represents a piece of media.
The paper edit
Documentary-style projects come together a little differently. Since they don't have storyboards or scripts to work from, the director will create a paper edit that gives the editor instructions on how to sequence each scene and soundbite from beginning to end.
The paper edit looks much like any other script, except each line of dialogue is actually a soundbite from an interview that's accompanied by a timecode which tells the editor where to find it within the footage. There are also instructions on what b-roll (or shots) to use and how the scene should unfold visually.
This extra step makes the editor's task of finding the story much quicker and more efficient. It also ensures that the director's intention is baked-in from the very beginning, so there's no time wasted capturing the creative vision.
A director's paper edit from one of our projects. Not much to look at, but it gives our editors everything they need to starting building the edit.
Music
We begin the editing process with temp music, which are tracks we've selected to establish the mood. As the edit begins to take shape, we'll audition other tracks until we find that piece of music that "just fits" and gives life to the edit. You know it when you hear it, but the process of finding the right track can sometimes take as long as the edit itself.
Depending on the budget, we'll keep the temp music in until you've approved picture lock (see below), at which point we'll send the edit to a composer to create an original music score. What composers offer is the ability to create soundscapes that are tailored to each scene, allowing for more precise creative control over how we want your audience to feel.
A composer works on a music score with virtual instruments at his workstation.
Animations and motion graphics
If your creative plan includes animations or motion graphics, we'll bring in a separate team to begin working on those. Our illustrators and animators design every digital element with intention so that they blend seamlessly with the live-action footage.
Animation still from our healthcare documentary "No Matter Where"
Picture lock
The review process typically only takes two or three rounds of revisions for clients to get to where they’re completely satisfied with the edit, but we give you as long as you need. We'll keep working until you've got what you're envisioning.
Once everyone on your team has weighed-in on the edit and there are no further notes for us, we'll get you to sign-off on "picture lock," which means everyone agrees that there will be no more changes to the edit. The reason we do this — and it's a standard best practice in our industry — is because the next phase requires a colorist, sound designer, and re-recording mixer to work from the exact same edit in their own applications and return them as a single file with all their work baked-in. If changes come in during this process then everyone's work is affected and keeping them all in sync becomes nearly impossible.
Once you approve picture lock, we move your project into the final finishing phase.
The finishing process
Up to this point, the edit you've seen looks and sounds pretty good. But what you may not have noticed is that there are slight mis-matches in the exposure between shots and an inconsistency in the overall "look." Same thing with the audio: the dialogue is a little low in some places or gets lost in the competing music. The finishing process fixes all that.
After you sign-off on picture lock, our editor exports the edit to a colorist, a sound designer, and a re-recording mixer.
The colorist is the one who goes through every shot, first correcting any exposure inconsistencies and then creating a uniform "look" that gives your video that signature polish. This process goes beyond applying a generic LUT, or filter. Professional colorists like the ones we use are storytellers in their own right, using their sophisticated tools and deep knowledge of color science to transform your edit into a film with its own custom visual style.
A colorist's control panel
Next, the sound designer and re-recording mixer get to work on the audio. The sound designer begins by adding a layer of sound effects. These can be subtle whooshes, atmospheric tones, and "foley" sound effects that replace or supplement the already-recorded sounds that match what's happening on-screen. This process fills in the empty spaces and gives the edit a fullness that feels immersive.
Finally, once the sound designer is done, she hands-off her work to the re-recording mixer who inserts the effects into the mix and begins "sweetening" each individual audio track. You can hear the difference immediately. The voices are EQ'd and moved up-front in the mix to feel clear and resonant. Then the other tracks — music, sound effects, and natural sound — each get fitted into their own slot in the EQ spectrum so none of them compete with each other. The result is perfectly-mixed audio cleared of any imperfections.
A re-recording studio is where a professional sound mixer pulls in all the audio from a film project and sweetens each clip in the timeline.
Final deliverables
Putting all these elements back together into the timeline is the highlight of the process because your film finally looks and sounds as amazing as we've been imagining it all along.
Now it's a matter of creating optimized versions for all the different platforms where you'll be posting them. Maybe it's a TV commercial that's going to broadcast; we'll export a version to the exact specifications you need. Need a vertical version for social media or captions for embedding? No problem. It's all included in our standard services.
Once we're done and your files are ready, you'll receive a secure link to download them along with a folder that includes all the licenses, releases, agreements, and other paperwork you'll need for your records.
That's our process from start to finish.
Ready to begin your own project? Schedule a call with one of us and we'll reach out to begin the conversation.