Preparing for Post: never leave 'til tomorrow what you can do today - video post production

Post,  Oct, 2002  by Ann Fisher

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Twenty five years ago, when the Texas-based post house Matchframe was started, the idea of post production supervision was nonexistent. "Today we just assume it's something that's needed." says Ken Ashe. the facility's post production supervisor "We don't feel comfortable taking on any commercial or other longform project without assigning a post production supervisor just for keeping track of the elements alone." He dates the shift in thinking to about a decade ago when the sophistication of motion capture, coupled with strong animation departments. brought clients into a world that was beyond the understanding of an average person.

Ashe also points out that a post supervisor onsite is necessary to lay the groundwork for special effects that will be created in post. "The DP wants to create a mood. The director wants to focus on the actors' delivery. Neither of those people, and usually no one else on set, has that as their primary focus," explains Ashe. "A post production supervisor is going to be there to help look at the scene, recognize the challenges that occur that day and help solve them. As Woody Allen says. "Every day, a fresh truckload of compromises comes through the front door."

A handful of post pros have offered tips to guide others doing post production supervision work, and they talk about recent projects that presented challenges and how those were solved.

TIP#1 "Experience other post houses," suggests Matchframe's Ashe. "If you've worked at one post house your whole life, you're limited in scope to what devices and systems might do. Get yourself out to a lot of other places, even if it's just to observe. Go on your own self-improvement, educational tour Ask if somebody will let you sit in on a session. You may have to go a few states beyond you, some place that's not competitive might let you do that. The more exposure you have to all the tricks and toys and different people that use them, the more you'll know where and when a certain effect might work, what system might be best, whether or not motion control is necessary or just a luxury, down to even the different ways things can be composited and therefore shot when using greenscreen. which is a science unto itself." Matchframe (www.matchframe.com), a post facility with branches in San Antonio. Austin and Dallas. finds requests for post supervision growing because more clients are shooting on HD. a less exp ensive format than film. The company has years of experience providing this service for its television commercial and, increasingly, longform, clients. Matchframe offers all post services except audio or film processing.

Project/Challenge: On an indy film out this fall, a shot called for a person to be trapped in a structure. During discussion with the client, Ashe recognized that it would be more believable, and reasonably priced, if done as a practical rather than re-creating the entire environment and structure with 3D animation.

"Although you can go a long way to be realistic these days. I think there are certain times there's an innate understanding in a person's mind whether it's going to look realistic or not," he says of his experience and instinct that influenced his suggestion.

TIP #2 "Our regular clients know that a 10-minute phone call before they get deep into a script or into the shoot winds up answering a lot of questions in their minds." says Greg Browning. president/editor of DV-Ent Artists Group (www.dvent.com). "We do know that we're being asked to provide a lot of flash for smaller and smaller amounts of money, and the best way to do that is talk ahead of time."

This consortium of independent editors and artists who operate under one roof in Minneapolis was established two years ago and does provide post production supervision for its corporate and commercial clients. The individual owner/operators provide offline, online, telecine and graphics services.

Project/Challenge: When General Mills bought Pillsbury merging the two companies together it wanted to create several corporate programs with a commercial flair to explain the merger to employees. DV-Ent put three editor/producers on the job to create eight two- to five-minute programs which, tied together, was delivered at the end of 2001. Each editor acted as a producer and post supervisor taking the script and materials, then cutting the pieces with little supervision. One music video style piece. House of Meals (a parody of the cable show House of Style), was influenced by the post supervisor's idea.

"The client needed to shoot with Digital Beta and MiniDV," says Browning. "The editor helped coordinate with the director the best way to use high-end and cheaper resources. They used Digital Beta for essential shots, the wide master shots, and then went crazy with MiniDV. That influenced that director; so in subsequent shoots for the same project they used that technique as well. We encouraged them to use multiple cameras in situations where they thought they could only afford to have one nice one." The client was an internal producer plus two freelance producer/directors. DV-Ent editor/producers were Rich Coleman, Brian Kerr and Browning.