Post Production: "The secret to film is that it's an illusion" - George Lucas
So to begin with this is what my post production work flow looks like. 1) Syncing sound and picture together so footage can be watched in viewings (only if picture and sound have been recorded separately). 2) Screening dailies for you and your producing partner after each day of production. 3) Making notes on your editing script strictly according to what was shot. 4) Logging material in preparation for editing. 5) Rough assembly of your film. 6) Evolving the rough cut into a fine cut. 7) Recording A.D.R (Automated Dialogue Recording). 8) Editing A.D.R tracks. 9) Recording and track laying atmospheres and foley effects. 10) Recording your music to picture working with your composer. 11) Mixing down (or bounce) all tracks into one smooth stereo track. 12) Grading and mastering of your picture. 13) Out putting your film to DVD screeners. The entire post production process is easy now with digital editing systems. What's difficult is making sure that you spend the time on your film and that you don't rush through the post production process because you can so easily miss a step. The great thing about being a guerilla filmmaker is that no one is waiting for your film. We have no bosses sitting on our shoulders during post production demanding we finish the film within six weeks because they're waiting to release the film. I personally love this fact. I take my time during post production and make certain that every frame has been given careful consideration and that the audience will only see the film when I'm well and truly ready. Post production is where you need to spend some money on making your film look and sound as good as possible. Surprisingly you can do this for hundreds of $$££€€ instead of thousands. At this point I'm usually very anxious. My film is shot but as yet still might not work and I could have shot one of the most expensive home movies ever. When I've edited for other directors they swan in full of bravado but I can tell they're all to aware of their film's failures. Five minutes after the session begins they begin to tell me of where they had problems in the shoot. I am, of course, no different except I don't do the bravado thing. I go the other way and curl up rocking like a baby sucking my thumb! Just kidding, however it has been said many times that after a shoot directors are liable to suffer from a kind of post natal depression and editing the film only makes this worse. Thinking positively of course, it's now time to edit, grade and sound design the film. I do my own A.D.R ( Automated Dialogue Replacement) and dialogue editing, record the foley and work with my composer or compose my own soundtrack for my film. John Carpenter often composes his own sound tracks and Quentin Tarantino hates to work with composers because they have so much control over the film. The composer sets the tone and feel of your film. Compose bad music and the whole film fails. Quentin chooses instead to use pre-recorded music and pay for the music license which is something we, as mere mortals, will not be doing, unless we win the lottery! Post production is easy if you do it yourself. It'll take a lot of time, energy and artistic effort but you'll save thousands of dollars. You certainly won't need to go to any post production house who will charge you astronomical fees and then produce a mediocre to poor result. Julia and I made the mistake of doing just that, even though I knew how to post produce our own films. I thought somehow our film wouldn't be valid if I didn't go to a recognized post production company. What a load of rubbish! Stanley Kubric freed me from the matrix so to speak and gave me permission to do everything myself and taught me that not only are my films valid but they're even more valuable because I did everything myself. When I get my Hollywood break no one will be able to pull the wool over my eyes and over charge me. Even when I arrive in Hollywood I will use my budget to build my own studio which will still work out cheaper than going to the post production houses. Knowledge is power and if you post produce your own film you will become more powerful then you could possibly imagine in the film industry. In doing so you will then attract agents and financiers who will recognize your knowledge and invest large amounts of money in you to produce your next film secure in the knowledge that you know your craft backwards. This is not to say that if you go the post production house route that this won't happen, of course it might. It just means that you run the risk of being over charged. If that's something important to you, as it is with me, you'll find that unacceptable. However, some people don't care and will spend whatever money they have on the easiest routes which are always the most expensive. The people who populate post production houses are like the old style mechanics who'd look under the hood of your car and whince and with a large intake of air begin shaking their heads and rubbing their chins disapprovingly as they view your film. We all know what this means - the bill is going to hurt. However, my dad who knew a lot about cars wouldn't get over charged because the mechanic knew that he knew that the job was only going to take an hour and the part cost $25. Well, it's the same principle working here. That's why, as a guerrilla filmmaker, you need to learn the knowledge for yourself so that you are protected financially.
On our filmTHE GREENWICH VILLAGE MASSACRE, Julia and I went online and bought a MAC-PRO with as much power as we could afford and filled up the hard drives with memory. We also bought the latest video editing software. Generally most people buy Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere or Avid Media Composer / Express. Having worked on all three I prefer Final Cut because I find it a lot more like cutting on film which is the medium in which I was taught and is the basis for all my filmmaking. I like MACS because they were designed with video post production in mind whereas personal computers weren't. With Final Cut Studio you also get Sound Track Pro which I use to re-record and edit my dialogue tracks. It's a simple but effective program as long as you use it properly.However, on the negative side, I wouldn't use Final Cut Studio Color. Final Cuts grading programme is really bad and gives a horrible result. Ridley Scott suggested to me that I use RED GIANT software. It's simple and intuitive to use for grading mastering my film. RED GIANT is truly amazing. Their programs are excellent and you won't believe how good your film looks in a matter of seconds using their 'Looks Theatre' to preview different grades which then can be edited to create a truly unique look. They also have fantastic tutorials by top visual effects guys who give you great tips on how to create the latest blockbuster looks. RED GIANT is reasonably priced and won't break the bank and works with Adobe's creative suit of programs for P.C users and Final Cut Pro for macs.
The results you get from using IZOTPE RX are amazing from their suite of plugins. I then opted to buy LOGIC PRO to mix and master my completed sound design and music tracks. A lot of people buy a PRO TOOLS system. If you're a well funded independent production and can afford it then of course that's the system to buy. But Logic Pro does the job to a very high standard. When I released my documentary "I WAS JONATHAN PITT" I used a Logic Pro system to do the sound design. The film was shown in theaters in America and several other countries as well as the UK and we had no complaints. However, I wished I used IZOTOPE RX to clean up the sound but I didn't know about it then. Of course I will go into more detail about how I built our A.D.R studio in the following articles but this way of doing our post production only cost us a few hundred dollars rather than thousands of dollars. The way I look at it is like this, for those people who know how to build a computer out of component parts they can put together a high end gaming machine for next to nothing, whereas I with little or no experience of computer building have to buy an off the shelf machine which carries a premium. This is the way you should think about post production, learn how to do it yourself and save a fortune. 
Once I'd acquired everything I needed to post produce our film it was a matter of getting down to work. Before I began digitizing up the tapes I went through each tape and viewed my rushes. Even though I'd viewed the rushes after each day whilst in production to see if we were getting the coverage we needed; I still needed to get to know the film as I shot it. However, what I didn't realise was that three weeks later and with a full pad of all my notes I was still watching the rushes. It became clear very quickly that I'd shot a great deal of tape. Julia and I would pause during these mammoth rushes sessions to discuss the shots and concentrate on the film's construction. Even though we were following the script sometimes it's good to talk about juxtaposing stories so instead of them playing concurrently they play together.After the rushes were viewed the logging began. When filming every new camera start receives a new clapperboard. This allows me to synchronize the sound which was recorded on a solid state recorder as a guide track. However, for some scenes like non sound scenes I attached a mic on top of the camera. In these cases the clapperboard isn't necessary even though I do use them for recording scene number and take. Final Cut Pro makes logging easy but any log must facilitate easy access to the material. So when I log each shot I make sure that I use a very simple description for example; 01:00:00:12 WS (Wide Shot) Joe running down the street The numbers indicate hours: minutes: seconds: frames. Editing to me is really another stage of directing. Editors are often called the second director especially in documentary filmmaking. The editor has so much power over your film that they can turn an incoherent shoot into a beautiful film. All the most successful filmmakers can edit. They may not edit their own films today but early on in their careers they learnt the principles of editing so that they understood what shots were needed when directing on the set. Good directors are usually good editors. Post production can mean so many different disciplines from video editing, sound design, foley recording and editing to complex visual effects. It's got so complicated it's sometimes difficult to see where to begin with your film.
Putting the story of The Greenwich Village Massacre together for the first time was the most exciting part of the video editing process for me. I didn't worry about the length of the film or agonize over the sequence of what I was doing. I just did it. It's important at this stage to say that Julia and I sat down and watched the entire film as soon as it was ready in this rough form before doing any detailed work on scenes and sequences. Ideas seem to jump out at you and problem areas become obvious. I had a seven minute chase scene, too long for any movie! Likewise you see sections of the film which work really well and I'm always surprised at what I thought were going to be problem areas never are. Once we did the initial first edit I stopped working on the film altogether to let the film breath. Again this is why we own our own equipment you can't do that in a high end post production suite. The problem with filmmaking is this - you're always having to look at the film as though you've never seen it before. Which just gets harder and harder so by the time you've finished editing you have no idea if you have a good film or not. This is why I'm so nervous at screenings and can be seen snapping into the fetal position when the film begins to roll. What if the audience hate it? So to stave off the inevitable Julia and I decided to go off and do other things for a while like go on holiday and helping out friends like Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple and BBC Radio 2's Bob Harris with their projects. Once I returned to the post production of the film it was a matter of editing it down to a fine cut with fresh eyes. I still want to work on the film even now it's finished and being considered by film festivals. Stanley Kubric once said that he informed hundreds of projectionists to cut a few shots out of one of his films prior to exhibiting the film while it was in the cinema. Someone once said, "Films are never finished they're abandoned", so with a great sadness and after three years of working on the film the majority of the time spent in post production "THE GREENWICH VILLAGE MASSACRE" has now been abandoned, hopefully finished - but you never know. Visual Effects - The Guerilla-Filmmaker Gold Medal Awards
Editing Basics - A Simple Guide
ADR- How To Do Your Own Automated Dialogue Replacement
Composing for a Feature Film by Imran Ahmad
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