A Director needs to make their very best effort in the season of Post Production.
Postproduction on your film is broken down into the following areas.
- The Picture Edit.
- Colouring
- VFX
- Titles
- Sound Design
- Music
- Sound Mix
- Deliverables
The Picture Edit is the area that most people are familiar with. Many people have basic editing software on their computers and they may have dabbled with picture editing before. They may have completed some very basic effects and coloured the film. Sound Post tends to get ignored totally in this situation meaning that the film feels and comes across as amateurish.
On our film courses, we always use Adobe Premiere Pro software. This is my personal favourite and is what I am using currently as I edit Tabernacle 101. There are two parts to learning how to edit.
Part One: Learning the software. This part is generally not a huge challenge to
learn. You can use the tutorials supplied with the Help section of Adobe Premiere Pro. Or you could have a one on one tutorial with our edit coaches. Often people will learn and come conversant with the software within a matter of weeks.
Part Two: Learning how to edit a film. It takes time to come a master editor. Some people take to editing very swiftly and learn to edit a film quickly. Other people really struggle to learn how to edit. It really depends on the talent of the person.
Editing goes back to the very first movies in the early twentieth century. It is a skill that was there long before computers. For example, when I first learnt to edit, I learnt on a steenback edit machine which had rolls of work print and magnetic sound tape. It was a cumbersome affair and nothing like the effective non linear editing systems we have
now.
Editing takes a special skill. It is like composing music and a good edit is a feel thing that you either have or do not have. It does not matter how good the film shoot was, if the edit is poor, the film will feel like a poor movie. Pace and choice of edits plays a huge bearing in how the film will turn out. A great edit will help a movie reach its full potential.
You can do what most people do and hire an editor to cut the film under your direction. If you have the budget, this is a great option, provided you pick an experienced editor who has cut great work in the past. It is also important that the editor is passionate about 
your film.
Then once the picture edit is complete, you are still only half way to a professional film. Yes there is more. Next Tip 10 covers the next phases of Post Production.
