How To... Make the Most From the Post Process

Who will lead us through the project & will they accompany us throughout?

Often the lead creative is wheeled out to woo the clients with his or her understanding of the most creative and challenging aspects of the job. But I've seen all too well that the demands on this person's time often means that they can't be with you for the whole journey. They may make it to the shoot. Especially if it's in Cape Town.

You'll hear their justifications - "We have the budget to fly business, right? After all it's a night flight and I'll need to be on top form at Mavericks the next day."

But when you get back, you may well find yourself explaining why you couldn't shoot the baby hippos against green-screen to a much more junior, less sympathetic artist. Establish your lead person's availability at the beginning.

Should clients be available for feedback? And what happens if the project overruns?

There is nothing more frustrating, on both sides, than a team of artists waiting for the big client to comment on their latest work, only to find they are stuck in an all day board meeting, or away for a week skiing with their wife (which happened to me once). That's an expensive team you have sitting around waiting for the vin chaud to go froid!

Also if you can, it's best to agree how many rounds of changes you are allowed within the quote, and establish a cost for extras if the project goes over. Some companies automatically revert to their rate-card prices (which are usually a throwback to the glorious heydays of the 1980s, where you were charged a small fortune for the press of every button). Coffee & TV always tries to stick to the negotiated rate, but it's best to establish this in the beginning.

What's NOT included in your quote?

We've all done thousands of projects before and can hopefully predict most eventualities. If a post house can't tell you the main things that aren't included, they probably haven't really thought about the project properly. It helps both sides to be clear about the unexpected and possible pitfalls, as well as how they will be dealt with if they arise. Get them considered by everyone from the outset, even if they aren't included in your initial budget.

How secure is my data secure? 

With the increasing prevalence of smaller boutiques, some of the best practices of the more established facilities aren't always a priority in their early years. I must admit, Coffee & TV weren't great at this ourselves initially. If we had suffered a flood from upstairs, or a break in, all of our project data would have been lost. Imagine breaking that news to your client! These days, projects are continuously backed up locally, and copied securely in the cloud. Most post facilities, archive work safely storing it in duplicate locations off-site, so a catastrophic failure would be a pain in the ass but not an outright disaster. Hopefully this will never happen, but it's clearly best to make sure.

What resolution will you be working at? 

Technology is changing all the time. We are having to continually invest in new equipment to keep up. So we are keen to work at the highest possible resolution. Not only does it protect our clients from future requests for higher-res versions, but actually gives us more control during the process. And the pictures look bloody great at 4k and above!