What Does a Post Production Company Do?

What a post production company actually does

A post production company, sometimes called a post house, transforms raw footage into a finished film. The work spans far more than editing. A full-service post house manages editorial, motion design, color grading, sound design and mix, visual effects, and final delivery, while coordinating creative decisions between the agency, director, and brand throughout. That coordination is often the hardest part. When those three aren't aligned before editing begins, the edit becomes a place where competing priorities collide instead of a place where stories are refined.

Post production planning: before the shoot

Post production companies worth working with start planning before production begins. Workflow design, scheduling, and the technical decisions that determine creative flexibility downstream: codec, frame rate, dailies review process, who approves selects. A project shot in a format that doesn't support a particular color grade is a problem discovered in post that was created in pre-production.

Post planning also means setting the deliverable list before the edit is locked. A brand running a campaign across broadcast, social, and paid digital might need a :60, two :30s, a :15, a :06, and variants of each in 16:9, 1:1, and 9:16. That's potentially 30 to 50 individual files. Knowing that before editing begins changes what gets shot and how the story is structured. Directors can use the Post Planning for Directors checklist to audit the shot list against these editorial needs before production begins.

One of the most common misconceptions in commercial post is that teams can get the timeline faster, keep the budget lower, and still expect a better final product. Post follows the same triangle as the rest of production: you can usually optimize for two of the three, but rarely all three at once. The earlier a team understands which two they're actually choosing, the better the decisions get.

The alignment session: where post production really begins

The most important meeting in commercial post production happens before a camera rolls. It's called an alignment session, and most brands don't know they should be in it.

An alignment session brings together the agency creative director, the director, and the editor to agree on what the film needs to do before the shoot determines what's possible. The team works through questions like:

• What is the one emotional moment this film has to land? Not the tagline. The feeling.
• Who is the human center of the story, and what do we need to see from them?
• What does the agency need for brand? What does the director need for story? Where do those potentially conflict?
• If the shoot delivers exactly what's storyboarded and nothing more, can we cut a film that works? What coverage are we missing?
• What does "approved" look like at each stage? Who has final say on what?

A ninety-minute alignment session before production can eliminate three rounds of revisions in post. That's not an abstract claim. It's the pattern that separates projects that run smoothly from ones that don't. The Pre Edit Alignment Guide covers how to structure this session and what to resolve before editing begins.

Editorial: shaping the story

Editorial is where footage becomes film. In a typical commercial, an editor might receive four to eight hours of footage for a thirty-second spot. The first job isn't finding the best takes. It's identifying the two or three emotional moments that can carry the film, then building backward to find the structure that makes them land.

Editorial also means managing the revision process through rough cut, fine cut, agency review, brand review, and lock, tracking notes, protecting creative decisions, and keeping the process moving without letting revision cycles erode the edit. For a deeper look at why edits fail at this stage, see Why Advertising Films Fail Before the First Cut.

Another problem starts at handoff. When the project is passed into post without a clear explanation of who the film is for, what it is supposed to communicate, and what emotional outcome it needs to create, the edit gets treated like labor instead of authorship. That usually gets worse when the director drops out of the process and agency creatives take over. Notes can shift from serving the film to serving internal politics, personal preferences, or optics that have nothing to do with what is actually best for the cut.

Motion design and visual effects

Many commercial projects include motion graphics, animation, or visual effects, elements that expand what the film communicates without requiring additional production:

• Title and graphic systems: typography, lower thirds, and branded graphic elements that need to work across all deliverable formats
• Environmental VFX: removing distractions from a location, adding elements that weren't practical to shoot, extending sets
• Motion graphics: animated product callouts, data visualization, animated logos and brand elements
• Compositing: integrating CGI product renders with live footage, screen replacements, layered visual elements

Well-integrated motion design is invisible. The audience experiences the film, not the technique.

Color grading

Color grading establishes the visual tone and consistency of the film. It's not correction. It's craft. A colorist translates the director's intention into a cohesive visual language across every frame.

Grading also has a technical dimension production rarely accounts for. A campaign running on broadcast, streaming pre-roll, and social exists in multiple color spaces simultaneously. Broadcast has strict luminance limits. Mobile screens have different peak brightness. A grade that looks perfect on a reference monitor can look flat on a phone or blown out on a broadcast master. Post production companies with broadcast finishing experience deliver masters that pass QC on the first submission, not the third.

Sound design and mix

A well-mixed commercial communicates brand authority, pacing, and tone independently of the image. A poorly mixed one undermines everything the picture got right. Post production sound includes:

• Dialogue editing: cleaning production audio, removing noise and inconsistencies between takes
• Sound design: building the sonic environment of the film, including ambient sound, Foley, and designed effects
• Music integration: editing licensed or composed music to picture, managing transitions and emotional cues
• Mix: balancing dialogue, music, and effects, then delivering stems for each deliverable format

Broadcast, streaming, and social all have different loudness standards. Social video auto-plays muted, meaning the first three seconds of the visual cut need to work without sound entirely. Post production companies that understand this design the mix accordingly.

Finishing and delivery

Finishing covers final quality control, technical mastering, and packaging deliverables for every platform on the spec list. Deliverable volume is something brands frequently underestimate. A mid-sized broadcast campaign with social extensions might require:

• Broadcast master in ProRes or MXF with specific audio configuration
• Multiple cut-downs at different lengths (:60, :30, :15, :06)
• Social variants in 16:9, 1:1, and 9:16
• Platform-specific encodes for YouTube, Meta, TikTok, and CTV
• Versioned cuts for different markets or regional campaigns

That adds up to sixty or more individual files, each requiring its own technical review. A finishing house with a dedicated delivery pipeline manages this systematically, not as an afterthought at the end of the edit.

How to choose a post production company

Most brands start with the reel. That's reasonable, but a reel shows what a company has done. It doesn't show how they work or whether their process fits the project. Better questions to ask:

• What does your process look like before the edit begins? Do you do alignment sessions, and who's in the room?
• How do you manage revision rounds? What happens when notes conflict between the agency and the director, or between the director and the brand?
• How early do you build the deliverable list, and how does it affect the edit structure?
• What's your QC process before final delivery? What happens if a master fails broadcast spec?

The best post production companies have clear answers to all of these, and they ask about the project's emotional goal before they ask about the specs.

FAQ

What services does a post production company provide?

Post production companies provide editorial, motion design, color grading, sound design and mix, visual effects, and finishing services. They also manage workflow planning, deliverable packaging, and creative alignment between agency, director, and brand.

When does post production begin?

In commercial filmmaking, post production planning typically begins before the shoot, sometimes weeks before. Editors, agency producers, and directors meet to align on story structure, emotional goals, and workflow design before a single frame is captured.

What is the difference between a post production company and a production company?

A production company handles the shoot: directing, cinematography, location, and on-set logistics. A post production company takes that footage and transforms it into a finished film through editing, color grading, sound design, motion graphics, and delivery. Some projects use separate companies for each; others work with integrated teams.

How long does post production take for a commercial?

Post production timelines for commercials typically range from two weeks to three months, depending on complexity. A social-first :15 spot might turn in ten days. A broadcast campaign with VFX, multiple cuts, and 40+ deliverables can run eight to twelve weeks.

What does a post production supervisor do?

A post production supervisor manages the workflow from editorial through final delivery, coordinating between editors, colorists, sound designers, VFX artists, and the agency. They track schedules, manage technical specifications, and ensure all deliverables meet platform requirements on time.

How do I choose a post production company?

Look for a post production company whose reel shows work in your category, whose process includes creative alignment before editing begins, and who can walk you through their deliverable workflow. The best partners ask about the film's emotional goal before they ask about specs.