What is post-production? Edit, colour, sound and delivery, step by step

What is post-production?

A film is made in three stages. Pre-production is preparation: brief, script, storyboard, shot list. Production is where the images are captured; in traditional film-making, that’s the shoot day. Post-production, often just called “post”, turns that footage into a finished film.

Raw footage on its own isn’t a film. The same footage can become very different films depending on the edit and the sound. That’s why post-production is often described as the place where a film is written a second time.

What are the stages of post-production?

On small jobs one person may take on several of these roles. The order isn’t always linear either: music and sound take shape while the edit is still moving.

Editing: where the film is rewritten

Editing is the backbone of post-production. The editor first makes a rough cut: is the story in the right order, does the length work? Then comes the fine cut: where each cut falls, how long each shot runs, the moment picture and sound meet.

In a commercial, the hardest part of editing is cutting down. A script that reads as 30 seconds on paper often runs long in the edit. A good editor will drop even their favourite shot if they have to. We cover how length relates to channel in our commercial length guide.

Colour: same frame, different feeling

Colour grading does two jobs. The first is technical: it makes shots captured at different times and in different light look like parts of the same film. The second is about storytelling: it sets the film’s mood. Warm, orange tones carry a summer evening; cold, teal tones carry the night and tension.

The cover of this article is a frame from Night, Cinela’s automotive sample film. After the warm street lamps at the start, the tunnel’s teal light suddenly cools the night down. It isn’t client work; it’s a study we made to test the method. To see how the colour shifts from shot to shot, watch Night.

Sound: the invisible half of the film

Viewers rarely notice it, but much of a film’s feeling is carried by sound: a creaking door, rain on asphalt, the moment the music comes in, a silence. Sound design builds these layers one by one; the mix balances them.

Muted feeds need thought too, but this time in text: subtitles if there’s a voice-over, and on-screen text that stays up long enough to read and is short enough to read. Cinela’s sample films have no dialogue; an original score and sound design carry the story.

Music: original or licensed?

Music for a commercial is either composed for the film or licensed from an existing track. Licensed music is quick, but the licence is often limited to certain channels, a certain period and certain territories; if the film moves to TV or the campaign runs longer, the licence has to be renegotiated. There’s also a chance of hearing the same track in another brand’s ad. An original score belongs to that film alone and is written to its edit: the cuts land on the beats, and the music follows the feeling of each scene.

Delivery: which files come out?

The last job in post-production is delivery. A commercial comes out as a package, not a single file:

A vertical cut isn’t a cropped landscape film. The framing, the placement of text and sometimes the order of shots change, and that’s work for the edit and design.

Revisions: what to change at which stage?

Asking for changes in post-production is normal; the trick is to ask at the right stage. Going back after a stage is approved means redoing everything that came after it.

A practical rule: don’t move to colour before approving the edit, or to delivery before approving colour. Lock the legal copy and tagline during the edit; a line of text that changes on the last day reopens all three formats.

How does post-production change with AI?

In AI production there’s no shoot day; the images are generated shot by shot. That brings the three stages closer together: a storyboard frame becomes the film’s own frame, and changing a shot means regenerating it, not reshooting it. We explain where the storyboard sits in this process in what is a storyboard.

But post-production doesn’t disappear. Choosing and ordering shots, building the rhythm, matching colours and writing the music and sound are still a team’s job. Not every generated shot makes it into the film; the edit still picks the best moments.

The traditional timeline is an industry-wide range, not a firm quote.

How does post-production work at Cinela?

At Cinela, post-production isn’t a separate job but the last step of the process: on day 1 a brief of about 20 minutes, on day 2 the script and shot list, on days 3–4 a frame for every scene, and on day 5 music, sound, edit and delivery. You approve the final cut; the files are yours. We describe the full process in our AI commercial production guide.

The Commercial package includes edit and colour, an original score and sound design, 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1 cuts and two revision rounds.

Questions to ask in a post-production quote

1. How many revision rounds, and at which stage? After the edit or after colour?
2. Is the music original or licensed? If licensed, which channels and how long does it cover?
3. Are vertical and square cuts included in the price?
4. Who handles subtitles and voice-over?
5. Which files will be delivered? Will music and sound come as separate stems?
6. Who owns the usage rights, and for how long?

At Cinela the music is original, three formats and two revision rounds are included, and full usage rights pass to you.

If you want one team from pre-production to delivery, the packages and process are on our AI video production page; a 30-second commercial starts at $1,990 (excl. VAT), delivered in 7 business days.