Why Is Post Production Important? (Even Gold Needs Polishing)

To truly know why post-production is important, we’ve got to pull back the curtain and take a peek behind the scenes.

While pre-production is all about planning (think: writing scripts and building storyboards), and production is where all the footage gets shot, post-production is where the magic happens.

Post production is a stage where a mountain of raw footage is sculpted and stitched together to create a cohesive, compelling video. This process smooths out the rough edges and turns a collection of clips into a real story.

Without it, your footage may be unfiltered and filled with awkward pauses, background noise, and the one take where the boom mic dips into the frame (yeah, we saw it).

This is where the cleanup crew comes in. Editors shape your footage into a narrative that makes sense. Sound mixers get rid of the coughs in the background, and colourists make sure your shots all belong in the same movie, not like they were filmed on three different planets.

And let’s not forget VFX, animation, and CGI, the jewels of post when you’re dealing with green screens. Without post, your epic dragon battle is just a tennis ball on a stick.

Post-production tools may change depending on budget and scale (from iMovie to DaVinci Resolve, to the full Adobe suite), but the mission stays the same: take what you’ve got, and make it better.

Alright, now that we’ve established what post-production is and why it’s a big deal, let’s look at how it all comes together.

All projects have their quirks, but the general workflow follows a pretty familiar path. And it all starts with…gear. Lots of it.

Before you can cut a single frame or fix that actor’s rogue coffee cup in the background, you need to know what you’re working with - and what you’re working on. Your project’s size will determine just how beefy your gear and tech setup needs to be.

You can edit a full project on a decent laptop, say a MacBook Pro loaded with Adobe Creative Cloud. Premiere Pro is a solid choice for cutting, tweaking, and making things look coherent. Other standout choices include After Effects for motion graphics and DaVinci Resolve for adding colour. Even the free version is surprisingly powerful.

However, depending on the content you’re creating, whether it’s a product demo or a slick brand ad, you’re going to need gear and software that can keep up.

You may need setups with state-of-the-art CPUs, GPUs, and absurd amounts of storage. Especially when motion graphics or that one client-requested explosion gets thrown into the mix. That’s when your usual laptop says nope and quietly bursts into flames.

Every single element, sound design, CGI, colour grading, the whole gang, also demands its own fancy, specific bit of software. We juggle a suite of niche tools that each require tutorials, subscriptions, and occasional sacrifices to the tech gods.

Let’s talk picture editing - just the visuals for now. We’ll get into sound later, so don’t @ us, audiophiles.

Using software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or Avid Media Composer, your editor is tasked with turning hours of raw footage into something watchable.

Editing isn’t just about chopping things up and sticking them back together. It’s a creative art form with some serious storytelling weight. The editor reads the script, reviews the dailies, and starts building a rough cut (first draft of the film).

Editing takes time (sometimes months), and it’s a team effort. Multiple versions are sliced, diced, and rearranged until you reach the picture lock, which means no more changes (seriously, hands off).

So, your cut looks sharp. Now it’s time for sound editing to step in. The sound team gets to work cleaning up dialogue, removing any rogue background noise, and layering sound effects that bring scenes to life.

Then, there’s the music. Scoring a film is about more than just picking a cool track. It’s about matching the emotion and tone of each scene. A well-placed song or a haunting underscore can make the difference between ‘meh’ and ‘goosebumps’.

Finally, everything is mixed down. That means balancing dialogue, effects, and music so nothing drowns out anything else. No one wants to strain to hear a key line while the soundtrack’s throwing a full-blown concert behind.

Some shoots don’t have everything you already need in-camera. That’s where visual effects come in.

Visual effects in commercial content aren’t usually about creating alien worlds (unless your client’s a bit extra). It’s usually about subtle, clever fixes, like adding motion graphics or animating diagrams.

Once the edit’s locked, VFX artists jump in frame by frame to work their magic. Any late edit changes can be costly, which is why timing and planning here are everything.

Now it’s time to make your content look as polished as it feels. Welcome to the world of colour grading.

First up is colour correction, making sure all of your shots play nicely together. This is crucial if you use multiple cameras, since they all interpret colour a little differently. You have to account for variables like lighting, lenses, time of day… or whatever weird green tint the clouds decided to throw at you on shoot day.

Then comes colour grading, which is where the mood-setting magic happens. Want a desert clip to feel scorched and dry? Lean into those warm, dusty tones. Need a tense, icy thriller to feel emotionally freezing? Cool blues to the rescue.

Colour grading in film can say “this is serious” or “hey, relax”, all without a single word. It’s basically emotional manipulation, but in a good way.

A skilled colourist will go through each frame, tweaking shadows, highlights, and hues until everything looks intentional and seamless. It’s subtle, but crucial work.

It’s not just about pretty visuals; colour is a key storytelling tool. Used well, it can make your audience feel something before a single line of dialogue is spoken.

At STORM+SHELTER, post-production is our playground.

Whether it’s cleaning up audio, grading footage for a seamless finish, or adding slick motion graphics that add to the story, we’ve got you.

If you’ve got a project in the works (or in your head), drop us a line at content@stormandshelter.com, or give us a bell on 02920251255.