Post-Production For Your Independent Film
What is 'post-production'?
Post-production is when a film is being edited. It's when a film is being scored, the music components are getting put in the film, and audio things are being checked and balanced out. Sometimes, the actors have to come back during post-production and do ADR, which is when they do voiceovers and match it to the footage they shot. Post-production is when, as any good independent filmmaker knows, the movie really takes its shape. It finds its voice and it becomes the movie that the director had originally conceived; it's really shaping up and becoming the movie that it is. Post-production is editing, it's correcting things, it's cutting things out, it's making sure certain things are put in there. Post-production is really when a film finds its voice.
How do I know what to cut from the film?
A great story comes from the making of 'The Godfather', when Francis Ford Coppola delivered the first cut of 'The Godfather'. The head of Paramount and the producer on the film, Robert Evans, said, "You know what Francis? This movie is two hours and fifteen minutes? Go make it longer." It is almost unprecedented. Usually, studios try to tell their film-makers to cut down on the time of a film because they think it's more profitable if it fits a certain time, as opposed to being three hours long. But Robert Evans told Francis Ford Coppola, "Make me an epic, go make me a three hour movie: lengthen this, I know you've got something there, so stretch it out." That was really unprecedented and it's a good reason why 'The Godfather' became 'The Godfather', the movie that it is, revered by so many people. A movie really finds its voice in post-production; you know how long it's going to be, and you have a feeling. You sit and watch one cut of the film and if it feels a little long, then it probably is. You take out certain scenes, and see if the film still work without this scene in it. If it's a little short now, we have to add it up with something else. In the editing process and the post-production process, you have the freedom to play with the movie like that and provide several different cuts. Some cuts are funnier, some cuts are darker. If you got everything you needed in production, if you shot everything you needed, then you have a lot of stuff to play with in post-production.
