Post-Production : How long was your longest or shortest post-production for a film, what contributed? by Merri Christi Pemberton

Fastest post-production phase for me was 30 mins at Manchester's 'Filmonik' film challenge! I've also had to write and produce entire orchestral scores in just a few hours at those events. Loads of fun but sorry I can't be of much use to you for realistic advice! Still, it's worth trying insane deadlines sometimes because it makes you realise just how little time is actually needed if everyone is present and ready.

My quickest turn around for production was a couple months ago for Patagonia Clothing. 6hr from ingest to color grade on-site in Ventura, CA: https://vimeo.com/77520779 Longest I was on was about 5-6 moths if you count submissions to festivals and such. The First, Last Race: https://vimeo.com/1588322

My post took about 11 months, but once you start looking at footage, for better or worse, you begin to see structural faults, or new ways or editing, and find yourself needing to add inserts or whole scenes. If no one is telling you when to finish, and you have other issues like family and bills, or even some depression or evil eBay disappearances, three months of intensive post can easily turn into a year. A film project has it's own mini-quantum leaps in it. You're continuously learning and readjusting. Lessons are learned about your dream and it's limitations. I highly recommend that you read Cocteau's book, Beauty And The Beast-Diary Of A Film. He dealt with post WWII French conditions...frequent electrical failures, illness, and out of date film stock. Naturally most of the book deals with production and not post, but you feel like partners in arms reading it. My film, Bum Rap, completely changed in post when I discovered the animation timeline in P.S. it became another film. I'll quote Cocteau below. "Cinema is not an art. Absurd statement. It's being prevented from becoming one. It will only be an art when the silk industrialists stop thinking they're silkworms. In my bed of fever, I toss and turn, worrying how I can edit the end of the film so as to avoid a certain weakness (of Alekan). We had to finish up in such a panic of haste, what with our sets being demolished and other people waiting to come into the studios. We only see our mistakes when we stop. When you're actually shooting the film, there's no pause in the rhythm. The mind never rests or enjoys the least objectivity. I spend my periods of insomnia thinking up methods of editing to hide my mistakes."

@Andre: Thank you for sharing your experience. Cocteau's book sounds very interesting..I may give it a read. It is interesting how some films take many months of pre-production and some take just a few months, which happens for a variety of reasons even if these films may have close to similar obstacles. I also see that it depends on how much you see your mistakes as potential works of art, which may actually complement the film..or if you see them as just mistakes. Looking back at some of the projects that I have done, (music and art showcases (videos), video promos for albums, and interview shows), all of these projects experienced mistakes and editing problems that could have taken me much longer to fix, if I was determined to make these productions "exactly" the way that I wanted. One thing about being a trained artist, is that we can look at these mistakes and even look at our unpredictable circumstances that may otherwise make us our projects take much longer to finish, or we can instead turn these mistakes and circumstances into something that not only works in our favor...but if we work these hiccups just right they actually save us time and help us finish the project a little sooner.

@Derek: Wow, I love your video! Do you do a lot of promotional videos for companies?

@Dave. Wow! Now I am impressed. Do you have the project online that took you 30 minutes for post production? I believe what you say..I have experienced what its like to have crazy deadlines, and it is surprising what you can get done if you knew that you don't have a lot of time to finish. This doesn't mean that the work needs to be sloppy, but it does mean that sometimes its human nature for us to take longer to get something done, when we know we have the time to do it. Its surprising to see how much we can get done, and do it well, in a short period if we know that that's all the time we have.

Merri, I have worked on several promotional productions. That one was shot and edited on the spot during a sales meeting for Patagonia. We shot during the day and I edited that night to deliver for the clients proposal the next day. I used to do the same thing for Tony Robbins all over the globe.

Wow! That is awesome. It must have been cool to work with Tony Robbins.

You get to see some interesting things.

@Derek: I am sure! What were a few of the interesting things you have seen?

There are plenty to choose from. Tony is a very animated and emotional man.