Here are some skills that seem to pop up quite a bit in the search for postproduction jobs. Always good to have a heads up in your search.
Leadership and the ability to make crucial decisions, this could make or break a film, and can create important ongoing trust and relationships which will need to be maintained over the course of varying types of projects. This includes anticipating the needs of the client (from production to sound to editorial to camera to DIT to producers to the director) before they even know what they want. There may be a lot of leaning on you and you need to know how to answer their questions and concerns. The primary goal always to maintain the vision of the director without going outside the constraints of the agreed budget and schedule. You need to be able to guide a filmmaker and their film safely through the post process and onto deliverables.
It will be important that you are able to work internally and externally to maintain budgets and schedules. You will most likely be involved with negotiating bids between the filmmaker and the facility/vendor. Meeting timelines, may call for some creative adjustments along the way. Maintaining schedules and understanding workflows between camera, dailies, editorial, sound, VFX, etc. is crucial to delivering your show by the expected deadline. It is a good idea to have a firm understanding of not just the workflows but the key crew and postproduction staff that you will be acting as liaison to, as well as the equipment they will be working on (such as non-linear editing and color correction systems, sound editorial). You will want to know the end game for each respective show and the pipeline to meet that deliverable (each show will be unique and may require several workflows for varying platforms theatrical to OTT…). What are your color pipelines? What is the difference between Rec 709 and HDR or DCI-P3? What do I need to deliver a DCP vs. a ProRes file? What is a DCP? And down the rabbit hole you will go. Get to know the acronyms and their meanings and their importance in the workflow and decision making when keeping deliverables in mind.
Quality control and identifying potential issues before they make it to the deliverables stage should always be top of the list with the vendor and the filmmakers. Security is also key and should be considered from the very start of a project during the dailies stage when content may need to be transferred via the cloud or when a hard drive must be delivered from A to B… This should be well planned and thought out with your post facility.
Don’t forget before going to the distributor you’ll need those music and footage clearances, legal guidance, marketing most likely… (See blog from 3/29/21)
Postproduction requires major organizational skills and quick thinking on your toes.
For more details check out Guide to Managing Postproduction for Film, TV & Digital Distribution where we cover scheduling and budgeting to digital workflows vs. film laboratory, dailies and editorial, VFX, sound, mastering and deliverables and all the fun stuff around delivering a film.