Why post-production deserves a seat at the creative table
As demand for deliverables grows and AI becomes more embedded in post-production workflow, Bianca Redgrave, Managing Director at Studio Private, makes the case for bringing post in from the very start of the creative process.
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There's a description I've heard countless times: post-production as "the finishing stage." As though the real work happens somewhere else: on set, in the brief, in the room where the director and client first shake hands. It makes it sound like we simply arrive to tidy things up at the end.
Post is often scoped late, is often underestimated, and routinely treated as the place where other people's creative decisions get implemented.
I spent over two decades working across shoot production and four years in post, and that framing has never felt so outdated. Global brands now produce hundreds, sometimes thousands, of assets annually. A campaign is no longer a film and a print execution. It's a hero film that becomes cutdowns, motion stills, social content, e-commerce edits, OOH adaptations. All of which needs to fit across platforms with completely different demands. In that environment, the shoot is no longer the centre of gravity.
It’s the starting point. It captures the raw material and brings the vision to life. But post is where much of the creative work now happens and where a concept-to-delivery production strategy can unlock real efficiencies in team structure, time, and budget. The opportunity isn’t just better finishing, it’s a smarter production design from the outset. But that only happens if the post teams are brought in at the beginning, not at the end.
When post teams are brought in after production is locked, they're compensating for decisions made without them, rather than shaping outcomes from the start.
I'm aware that sounds like a provocation. I don't mean it as one. Pacing, tone, visual identity, the emotional arc of a piece; these are constructed in the edit, the grade, the CG environments, the increasingly hybrid workflows that combine live action and AI-assisted processes. The decisions that determine whether a campaign feels like one thing or another: they happen in post. And yet the industry's resource allocation hasn't caught up. Time, budget, and prestige still flow overwhelmingly toward the shoot. Post is often scoped late, is often underestimated, and routinely treated as the place where other people's creative decisions get implemented.
When post teams are brought in after production is locked, they're problem-solving rather than building.
I had a meeting recently with a creative director at one of luxury’s most globally renowned heritage brands. He told me he doesn't enjoy being on set anymore, as the deliverables list has become unmanageable. It feels like the creative spirit of the shoot has been deeply impacted. He described spending vast amounts of money making the shoot happen, only to spend the same again in post. This is where a concept-to-delivery production strategy actually makes sense, as a way to help brands balance high-impact shoots with emerging technologies and post-production expertise. It’s about allocating resources where they'll have the most creative and financial impact.
None of this is abstract. When post teams are brought in after production is locked, they're problem-solving rather than building. They're compensating for decisions made without them, rather than shaping outcomes from the start. Earlier involvement changes the quality of the decisions themselves, as it allows for deliberate choices about hybrid workflows, about where AI tools genuinely help versus where they flatten what they touch. It makes financial planning more honest, too. Most budget overruns I've seen in post were predictable. They just weren't predicted because nobody with post-knowledge was in the room early enough to flag them.
Post-production teams need to be engaged as creative partners from the start, not vendors, confirmed once the shot list is finalised.
On AI specifically: the conversation has become strange. It tends to collapse into either enthusiasm or anxiety, and both responses treat it as a single thing. It isn't. AI is embedded across post workflows in dozens of different ways, some of which are genuinely useful (reducing friction, accelerating certain kinds of exploration, assisting with technical precision at scale) and some of which are shortcuts that cost more than they save. The difference usually comes down to whether AI is integrated thoughtfully into a layered process or positioned as a substitute for craft. When it's the latter, often work lacks texture and specificity. That's not a sentimental objection; it shows up in the final output.
Post-production is where ideas are tested against reality. Brand coherence is maintained or lost there.
What I'm arguing for, really, is a structural change that reflects how the work is actually made. Post-production teams engaged as creative partners from the start, not vendors, confirmed once the shot list is finalised. Briefs that begin with the full content landscape, that is, the platforms, the formats, and the longevity of the work. And followed by building production around that understanding, rather than retrofitting post to whatever was captured.
Some companies are already working this way. The results tend to speak clearly. But it requires the people commissioning and producing work to update a mental model that's been in place for a long time. Post-production is where ideas are tested against reality. Brand coherence is maintained or lost there. So is the relationship between technology and human judgment, whether they reinforce each other or work against each other. Calling post a finishing stage isn't just inaccurate. It actively limits what the work can be.
