WP3: Putting Post in the Spotlight

Post production must no longer exist in the invisible environment it currently resides in if we want to keep the crafts that make up this integral piece of filmmaking alive and thriving.

As argued in my previous writings “Protecting Post” and “What Keeps Me Tethered to Post,” post production is perhaps the most overlooked and sidestepped department in the entertainment industry.

This implemented invisibility cannot go on for much longer. If it does, the consequences will ultimately be dire for artists, filmmakers, and audiences alike.

Post production, the catch-all term for everything that happens to a movie between the end of principal photography to its opening weekend in theaters, is a filmmaking department almost completely misunderstood or unheard of by general audiences, even though it has been valued as a $22 billion industry as of 2021 (Allied Market Research).

In general, it involves editing, visual effects, sound design, soundtrack supervision and original music composition, color grading, title graphics, end credits, deliverables and archive management, and so so much more. It’s all-encompassing but somehow must fit neatly into the small corner of the industry it has resided in for so long.

With roles in development or production, such as screenwriters, directors, producers, cinematographers, and event stunt coordinators or costume designers, average moviegoers have a general sense of what these roles entail or what aspects of the movie these individuals oversee. While the specific, day-to-day responsibilities of these jobs may be dubious, audience members can still visualize a comprehensive idea of their importance at a studio or on set.

Some of these fields even boast more famous and well-known professionals. Trade papers and magazines help add to these public-facing personas with profiles or features of the filmmaking crew, helping non-Hollywood readers and viewers get a better understanding of how production operates.

Sometimes these individuals get boosts from famous counterparts, such as “Poor Things” director Yorgos Lanthimos and writer Tony McNamara. Both were paraded around Hollywood with lead actress and producer Emma Stone upon the film’s release and subsequent awards campaign, and when they weren’t present, she made sure to mention them consistently.

When it comes to post production, the same treatment is not typically applied. The superstars of post are more often than not the composers, like John Williams and Hans Zimmer, because their specific work transcends a film’s bubble and enters the music space. Other than that, it’s rare for non-Hollywood professionals (and even those within the business) to be able to name one or two prominent people in post. You don’t see A-listers touting around their prized colorists or re-recording mixers for every awards campaign interview they do.

With an influx of three-hour-plus runtimes hitting theaters, editors like Thelma Schoonmaker have been mentioned in the press, but because interest has never been brought forth to her’s and other’s roles in post, public reception is not exactly overwhelming. There are no featurettes of her in the cutting room glamorizing her process. There’s no exclusive interviews or awards season recaps. Editors like Schoonmaker are invisible even in their shining moments.

Post production has been able to operate in this concealed space without public ‘supervision’ since its inception. Originally, the only aspect that made up post production was the editing or “cutting” process. Editing was viewed as a task to be crossed off the production’s list of chores rather than as an expressive artform. Because of this, it was delegated to women, who would be able to accomplish the task efficiently enough and be subsequently discarded when it was done.

As with most jobs after World War II, the female editors were eventually completely pushed out of the cutting room and replaced with men eager to be reinstated as their families’ breadwinners. With men in the editor’s chair, slowly more leniency came with the role, allowing for more creativity. Eventually, editors got more of a say in how a film was brought together, instead of doing exactly as the director asked for each cut and take.

Soon enough, post expanded beyond this one role into a dynamic and even chaotic ecosystem. As technology and cinematic practices advanced, there were more areas where post production could be implemented into features. Films could be color graded, there was more room for actual sound design, and eventually, visual effects and CGI became the hottest ticket in the field.

But even with the undeniable new diversity of roles, each position is still filled by older, white men. Because many roles typically require an apprenticeship for those first starting out, it’s obvious that without anyone to push them, white men are going to only be inclined to train other white men from similar backgrounds. Entire teams in post, from the ADR supervisors to the titles artists, are more often than not from the same demographics.

In the face of this incredibly white and male-driven space, the Blue Collar Post Collective set out to collect and distribute data on post production professionals for the past eight years. What they’ve documented has proven to be depressing.

In 2017, the collective surveyed 1150 post professionals. 79.5% identified as white. 64% identified as male (Blue Collar Post Collective). Even in 2017, these statistics were absurdly disappointing.

In 2023, the collective surveyed double the size of post professionals, with the final survey pool being 2306. 79% identified as white, while 67% identified as male. On top of this, researchers found that men in post made 18.5% more than their female counterparts and 30.5% more than those who identify as non-binary (Blue Collar Post Collective). Even after casting a wider net with more responses, it’s insanely clear that progress has yet to be made.

As discussed in WP1, having post production be such an unseen department helps cultivate this environment, making it so that it does not have to be held to the same standards as more public-facing roles like writing and directing (BKB).

As the outside world has been able to learn more and more about the writing and directing process, there have been calls for diversifying the writers room and bringing people from all walks of life into the director’s chair to tell a myriad of stories. But why is it that viewers believe these are the only roles that contribute to the storytelling process?

We cannot entrust older white men to effectively tell every story in post. There needs to be diversity from development all the way to theatrical distribution, not just a token writer or director. We need colorists that understand how to grade a variety of skin tones. We need music editors with distinct cultures bringing new sounds to our screens. We need post to be held to the same inclusive standards other departments are required to have today in order to make these changes a reality.

At least for now, there are a few post-centric initiatives such as Black FilmSpace and GalsNGear to help bring in filmmakers of different backgrounds. But until there is more pressure placed on post from a more-aware audience, it’s unclear whether there will ever be a post production industry that isn’t dominated by white men.

Pay gaps aren’t the only reason fellow filmmakers should be worried about this lack of diversity and visibility, however. In environments where most business happens behind closed doors rather than out in the open, the workplace and those within it can become incredibly murky and dangerous. Add the fact that nearly 80% of the people in this closed-off space are men, and you may find yourself in a climate that can foster a lot of the same issues and concerns that fueled the #MeToo movement.

Increased public awareness of parts of the process, such as casting and production itself, was an indispensable part of the #MeToo movement. Understanding the roles of the predators accused of these behaviors and crimes helped identify more men in studios and on set that needed to be taken out of power.

Xandra Ellin described it best when she wrote “the economy of visibility is a lynchpin in #MeToo.” If this visibility is what made the movement so monumental and successful, what happens when the same things occur in a field that’s completely out of sight?

If post production still has not received the visibility given to the rest of the filmmaking, how can injustices be spotted and stopped at the source? A department that is filled almost exclusively with white men from a different era cannot simultaneously be expected to uphold and protect workers within it. With a lack of diversity, there is a lack of values and therefore a lack of protection. Post production needs to be more public-facing and widely understood in order to implement better standards and environments for its workers.

Not only should the workers in this field be protected, but the art they produce with each project should, as well. Post production is a craft. It should be treated as such instead of the latest playground for artificial intelligence in entertainment.

Recently on Ringer’s “The Town” podcast series, host Matthew Belloni brought on Matt Panousis, the cofounder and COO of MARZ, an AI VFX company that boasts technology that is up to “300 times faster than traditional VFX pipelines, significantly more cost effective, and has no capacity constraints’’ (MARZ). Essentially, a company that will put hundreds of artists, compositors, coordinators, and other visual effects-related careers out of work.

Panousis, ostensibly brought on to defend the use of AI in filmmaking, argued that moviegoers “don’t understand how much AI is already in the movies they watch” (Belloni). That’s right. The average viewer does not realize how much artificial intelligence has creeped into the films they watch because the department where this takes place is not public-facing in the slightest. Right now, AI is a dirty little secret that has yet to be completely aired out.

Currently, as Panousis describes, AI is mostly used for de-aging and cosmetic practices. In A-list actors’ contracts, there are often stipulations about their appearance, on many things hair and makeup artists do not possess the power to change (such as pronounced wrinkles, skin imperfections, and weight). These are already morally-dubious practices, but leaders like Panousis are eager to take things even further.

He champions his and other companies’ technologies while simultaneously arguing that the industry is being too negative about AI’s arrival onto the scene. He offers a more optimistic outlook that actualizing artificial intelligence full time for VFX work beyond cosmetic deeds will actually help VFX artists in the long run:

“I think there’s a very realistic world where what ends up happening is Hollywood ends up creating that much more content because they’re now able to create content faster and more efficiently, and that requires the same amount of artists, but those artists are now supercharged with these tools that allow them to do things faster” (Belloni).

What an idyllic and lovely and exceptionally pro-worker way to put it, especially considering how highly improbable it would be, since major studios like these all share a business model that doesn’t have room for artists and this kind of technology in this fantastical equation. Still, this is the rhetoric that public-friendly AI leaders like Panousis will continue to champion to alleviate the public of any worries they might still harbor about AI-generated “content.”

Companies like MARZ want more than anything to see post remain invisible, because it keeps AI’s presence invisible, as well. During the dual WGA and SAG strikes last summer, AI suddenly became a hot buzzword, its presence becoming more tangible. This was a worst case scenario for AI companies. When both WGA and SAG locked in deals with the AMPTP towards the end of the year, it was ensured that there were plentiful restrictions on AI usage for writing and acting. With AI shut down in the development and production departments because of these contracts, the only avenue available to pursue is, naturally, post production.

While AI is currently attempting to corner the visual effects industry, what’s stopping it from dominating more of the department? Without checking AI’s influence, there could be a future where films are artificially colored, or scored with AI-generated music, or completely edited by an AI-powered program. The possibilities are unfortunately endless, and this should be a cause for concern for anyone who isn’t interested in watching a movie with its finishing touches completed by AI.

In conversation with Sofia Coppola, writer and director Celine Song put it aptly: “[Post production is] day in and day out. It’s like a partnership and you feel connected to it. Then every day it gets better and hopeful. Then sometimes, some days it doesn’t. Then you’re grumpy. But you’re annoyed. But also, you do it again and it’s amazing. Then you build on something. You build a life” (A24).

This is post, in the crux of it all. It is building a life out of a script. AI cannot build a life.

So many genuine artists bring so much to every post department on a film. To keep post hidden is to not only limit the backgrounds and experiences these artists come from, but also to limit artists in the field as a whole with the implementation of artificial intelligence shaping up not only to be an irresponsible future, but an incredibly bleak one as well.

In “What Keeps Me Tethered to Post,” I discussed the various aspects of post that keep filmmakers continuing careers within in, despite these positions being thankless and frankly unloved and unprotected. As I wrote, any film can “showcase just how many different ways post can make a movie complete, or elevate it to something greater than what it was first given to work with” (BKB).

This evolution, and the beauty of it, can never be overstated, and it is this magical process of taking a vision and turning it into a reality that keeps post professionals in this department. They don’t need public adoration or “Variety” covers. They need public protection, they need watchdogs holding their bosses accountable and ensuring the same standards across the board. They need audiences interested in the work they do to keep them from being replaced by artificial intelligence.

Post production deserves the visibility that has been afforded to virtually every other part of the filmmaking process. A film does not come together or get completed without it, and it should be treated accordingly.

Works Cited

Allied Market Research. “Post Production Market Statistics | Industry Forecast — 2031.” Allied Market Research, May 2023, https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/post-production-market-A74601.

BKB. “Protecting Post.” Medium, 4 February 2024, https://medium.com/writing-340/wp1-122e297065ac.

BKB. “What Keeps Me Tethered to Post.” Medium, 10 March 2024, https://medium.com/@bkb2001/wp2-what-keeps-me-tethered-to-post-29178f229f03.

Blue Collar Post Collective. “Previous years.” POST PRODUCTION DATA, Blue Collar Post Collective, 2016–2023, https://www.postproductiondata.com/previous-years.

“Burning For Something with Celine Song & Sofia Coppola.” 2024. The A24 Podcast, created by A24, A24, 1 February 2024. Spotify, https://a24films.com/notes/2024/02/celine-song-and-sofia-coppola-pod.

Ellin, Xandra. “Damage Control: Why Are We Allowing Hollywood to Codify the #MeToo Movement?” Literary Hub, 8 December 2022, https://lithub.com/damage-control-why-are-we-allowing-hollywood-to-codify-the-metoo-movement/.

“How AI Is Already Transforming Filmmaking.” 2024. The Town, created by Matthew Belloni, The Ringer, Puck, 21 March 2024. Spotify, https://www.theringer.com/2024/3/21/24108101/how-ai-is-already-transforming-moviemaking.

MARZ. “Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies VFX — Vanity AI — The world’s first end-to-end AI solution for Hollywood VFX.” Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies, https://monstersaliensrobotszombies.com/vanityai.