Listen to audio
You nailed the pitch. The client is thrilled with your creative vision for their new brand film. You spent weeks crafting the perfect pre-production plan, location scouting, and casting. The shoot itself was a masterpiece of logistical precision. You’ve spent 80% of the total project budget, and you have a hard drive full of stunning footage. You feel a sense of accomplishment, the satisfaction of a plan perfectly executed.
Then, a quiet sense of dread begins to creep in as you open the post-production calendar.
You look at the remaining 20% of your budget and the mountain of work ahead: editing, motion graphics, color grading, sound mixing, multiple rounds of client revisions, and a complex list of social media deliverables. Suddenly, that remaining 20% doesn’t look like a healthy margin; it looks like a tightrope over a financial abyss. Every potential client note, every technical glitch, every additional deliverable request feels like a gust of wind threatening to send you tumbling.
This scenario is tragically common. In the world of video production, post-production is often treated as the final, almost magical step where everything “just comes together.” As a result, it is the most consistently, dangerously, and catastrophically under-budgeted phase of the entire process. It’s seen as a finish line when, in reality, it’s an entire second marathon.
This guide is your antidote to that chaos. It is a comprehensive, line-by-line playbook for producers, filmmakers, and marketing managers who are tired of the guesswork and the financial anxiety that comes with it. We will dismantle the entire post-production process, from media ingest to final archival, and show you how to build a budget that is not just a list of numbers, but a strategic document. A document that protects your creative vision, ensures your profitability, and transforms you into a producer who is always in control.
Part 1: The Post-Production Iceberg – Why Most Budgets Sink
The most common mistake in production budgeting is treating post-production as a small, singular item, a single line labeled “Post-Production” at the bottom of a spreadsheet dominated by camera rentals and location fees. In reality, it is a vast and complex ecosystem of interconnected disciplines, each with its own costs, timelines, and potential pitfalls.
The Myth of the 1/3rd Rule
For years, an old “rule of thumb” has circulated in the industry: a project’s budget should be split into thirds—one-third for pre-production, one-third for production, and one-third for post-production.
Let’s be clear: this rule is a myth, and it is dangerous.
It may have been relevant in a simpler time when a single 30-second spot was the only deliverable. In the modern production landscape, it’s completely obsolete. The complexity of post-production has grown exponentially, while the core costs of production have, in some cases, decreased. Consider these modern scenarios:
- The Documentary: You shoot for 20 days, generating 200 hours of footage. Your production budget is substantial. The post-production, which involves an editor and assistant editor sifting through that footage for six months, will likely equal or even exceed the production budget.
- The Animation-Heavy Explainer Video: Production might just be a one-day voiceover recording session, costing very little. The post-production, involving a team of animators, designers, and sound designers working for a month, will constitute 95% of the total project budget.
- The Social Media Campaign: A single-day shoot generates footage for a 60-second hero spot and 25 different social media cutdowns (verticals, squares, GIFs, etc.). The production cost is fixed, but the post-production effort required to create and manage all those unique deliverables is immense.
Post-production is not a fixed percentage. It is a dynamic and scalable phase of the project that must be budgeted based on the specific creative and technical requirements of the final deliverables.
Defining the Intangibles: The Hidden Costs
When most people think of post-production, they think of “the edit.” But the edit is just the tip of the iceberg. The real costs, the ones that sink budgets, are often the tasks that are invisible to the client. These are the foundational, structural, and logistical elements that make the creative work possible.
Forgetting to budget for these “invisible” tasks is the primary reason why projects go over budget. You might have budgeted perfectly for the editor’s time, but if you didn’t budget for the three days it takes an assistant editor to prep the footage, the subscription cost for the review and approval software, or the cost of the hard drives to store it all, your budget is already broken.
Part 2: The Core Editorial Budget – Building Your Foundation
The editorial process is the structural core of your post-production phase. It’s where the story is built, and it will typically be the largest single component of your post budget. Budgeting for it accurately requires breaking it down into its component parts with meticulous detail.
Line Item 1: The Assistant Editor (AE) / Digital Imaging Technician (DIT)
This is the most frequently forgotten line item, and it’s one of the most critical. You cannot expect your highly-paid creative editor to spend their expensive time on tedious, technical prep work. That is the role of the Assistant Editor. An AE is the organizational backbone of the post-production process.
Key Responsibilities to Budget For:
- Media Ingest & Backup: Offloading all footage from camera cards to multiple hard drives (always budget for at least two copies, preferably three: one working drive, one local backup, one off-site backup). This includes verifying the integrity of every single file.
- Transcoding / Proxies: Creating lower-resolution “proxy” files for a smooth editing experience, especially in 4K, 6K, or 8K workflows. This is a time-consuming but essential step.
- Project Setup: Organizing bins, labeling clips with consistent naming conventions, and setting up the NLE project file according to best practices.
- Syncing: Syncing dual-system audio to the video clips. For a project with multiple cameras and audio sources, this can be a complex and time-consuming task.
- Stringouts / Assemblies: Creating long sequences of all the takes for a particular scene or all the answers to a specific interview question. This allows the editor to see all the options in one place.
- Basic Temp Work: An experienced AE might also handle placing temporary music, sound effects, or basic titles to help the editor work faster.
How to Budget: You can estimate AE time using a simple formula. For a standard narrative or commercial project, a good rule of thumb is to budget 1 hour of AE time for every 4-5 hours of raw footage. For a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage and multiple camera formats, this ratio might be closer to 1 hour for every 8-10 hours of footage. Always add a buffer for troubleshooting technical issues.
Line Item 2: The Editor
This is the heart of your budget. How do you accurately estimate the time it will take for a creative artist to shape a story?
The “Per-Finished-Minute” Trap: Avoid this common but flawed method. A client might ask, “What’s your rate per finished minute?” This is a dangerous question. A dialogue-heavy, single-camera scene might take 4 hours to cut into a 1-minute sequence. A complex, multi-camera action montage with hundreds of cuts might take 3 days to cut into a 1-minute sequence. The complexity, not the final length, determines the time required.
The Phased Approach (The Right Way): The professional way to budget for an editor is to break their work into distinct phases and estimate the number of days required for each.
- Phase 1: First Assembly: The editor takes the stringouts and assembles the first, very rough version of the story. It will be long, messy, and full of flaws. This is the “get it all in there” phase.
- Phase 2: Rough Cut: The editor refines the assembly, tightens the pacing, adds temporary music and graphics. This is the first version the client will see, and it should clearly communicate the story and structure.
- Phase 3: Fine Cut: The editor incorporates client feedback, perfects the timing down to the frame, polishes transitions, and solidifies the audio and visual elements.
- Phase 4: Picture Lock: The editor makes the final, tiny tweaks before the project is sent to color and sound. No more creative or structural changes are allowed after this point.
The Ratio Method: To estimate the number of days for these phases, you can use the shooting ratio (the ratio of footage shot to the final length of the video). A scripted project with a low shooting ratio (e.g., 10:1) will take less time to edit than an unscripted documentary with a 200:1 ratio.
Line Item 3: The Review & Revisions Process
You must budget for your client’s time and input. If you don’t, you are essentially giving them a blank check for endless changes. This line item is not just about money; it’s about managing expectations and controlling the project’s scope.
How to Budget: Your contract should specify a set number of revision rounds. A professional standard is two rounds of consolidated feedback per major phase (i.e., two rounds on the Rough Cut, two rounds on the Fine Cut). You must budget for the editor’s time to address these notes. A good estimate is to add 15-25% of the total initial editing time as a separate line item for revisions. For a particularly indecisive client, you might want to push this closer to 30%.
Line Item 4: Project Management & Supervision
Your time as a producer is valuable, and it must be budgeted for. During post-production, you are not passive; you are actively managing the process, acting as the crucial link between the client and the creative team.
Key Responsibilities to Budget For:
- Leading the post-production kickoff meeting.
- Being the single point of contact for the client, shielding the creative team from direct, and often conflicting, feedback.
- Consolidating and clarifying client feedback for the editor.
- Reviewing cuts to ensure they are meeting the goals of the brief before they are sent to the client.
- Managing the post-production schedule and ensuring all artists are hitting their deadlines.
- Coordinating with finishing vendors (color, sound, VFX).
How to Budget: A standard industry practice is to budget producer/supervisor time as 10-15% of the total post-production labor costs.
Line Item 5: Motion Graphics & Animation
“Graphics” is a dangerously vague term. You must break it down into specific, quantifiable deliverables.
- Templated Graphics: This includes standard lower thirds, simple opening titles, and call-to-action end cards. These are often modified from pre-built templates (e.g., MOGRTs in Premiere Pro). Budget this on an hourly basis.
- Custom 2D Animation: This is for explainer videos, animated infographics, or complex logo animations. This is highly skilled work and is often budgeted on a “per-second” basis (e.g., $100-$500 per second of finished animation). A full 60-second explainer video is a major project in itself.
- 3D Animation: This is for complex product modeling, architectural visualization, etc. This is the most expensive form of animation and is always bid on a custom, per-project basis by a specialized studio or artist.
Line Item 6: Visual Effects (VFX)
VFX is not a single line item; it’s a collection of specific tasks. You must identify every single shot that requires VFX work in pre-production and budget for it on a per-shot basis.
Common VFX Tasks to Budget For:
- Screen Replacements: Replacing a blank phone or computer screen with a graphic. (Estimate: 2-4 hours per shot).
- Object Removal: Removing a stray boom mic, a crew reflection, or a distracting element from the background. (Estimate: 1-8 hours per shot, depending on complexity).
- Green Screen Keying: Replacing a green screen background with a new environment. (Estimate: 2-6 hours per shot, not including the creation of the background itself).
- Beauty Work/Retouching: Digitally smoothing skin, removing blemishes, or other cosmetic fixes. This is meticulous work and can take hours for a single shot.
Line Item 7: The Color Grade
Color grading is an art form, and there are distinct levels of service that carry vastly different costs.
- Tier 1: Primary Correction: A technical pass to balance the exposure, contrast, and white balance of every shot to make them match. This is the bare minimum for a professional video.
- Tier 2: Secondary Correction & Look Development: This is the creative grade. It involves using masks (power windows) to isolate and adjust specific parts of the image (like a face, a product, or the sky) and developing a unique, stylized “look” for the piece.
- Tier 3: Advanced Finishing: This includes tasks like beauty retouching, sky replacement, grain management, and ensuring the final master passes technical broadcast standards.
How to Budget: A professional colorist with a dedicated suite typically charges by the hour or by the day. A simple primary correction might take a few hours. A full creative grade for a 2-minute video could take a full day or more.
Line Item 8: The Audio Post Suite
Audio is half the experience, but it’s often only 5% of the budget. This is a critical mistake that can ruin an otherwise great video.
Key Audio Post Line Items:
- Dialogue Edit & Cleanup: The process of editing all the dialogue, removing breaths, and using tools like iZotope RX to surgically remove background noise, clicks, and hiss.
- Sound Design & SFX: The art of building the sonic world of the video. This includes adding Foley (footsteps, cloth movement) and sound effects (whooshes, impacts, ambient tones).
- ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement): If any on-set dialogue is unusable, you must budget for a studio session to re-record the lines.
- The Final Mix & Master: The most important step. A professional sound mixer takes all the elements—dialogue, voiceover, music, SFX—and balances them so they are clear, impactful, and meet broadcast or web loudness standards.
Line Item 9: Music & Stock Footage
- Music Licensing: Budget for a professional music licensing site. A standard web license might cost $50-$200. If the video will be used in a paid ad campaign or on broadcast TV, the cost could be significantly higher ($500 – $5,000+).
- Custom Score: If your project requires original music, you’ll need to hire a composer. This is a separate creative process with its own costs for writing, recording, and mixing.
- Stock Footage: If your project requires stock footage, budget for it on a per-clip basis. A standard HD clip might be $80, while a 4K clip could be $200-$500.
Part 4: The Final Mile – Budgeting for Delivery & Archival
You’ve finished the creative work, but you’re not done spending money. The final delivery and archival phase has its own set of costs.
Line Item 10: The Deliverables Slate
The client rarely wants just one file. You need to budget for the time it takes to create and export all the required versions.
Common Deliverables to Budget For:
- The 16:9 4K Master
- A 9:16 Vertical version for Instagram Reels/TikTok
- A 1:1 Square version for Instagram/Facebook feeds
- A “Textless” version (with no on-screen text) for international use
- Split audio tracks (stems) for the client’s archives
How to Budget: Estimate 1-2 hours of an editor’s or AE’s time for each unique deliverable format.
Line Item 11: Quality Control (QC)
Before you send the final files to the client, someone needs to watch them. A formal Quality Control pass involves a technical review of the master files on a calibrated monitor, looking for any digital glitches, compression artifacts, audio dropouts, or incorrect graphics.
How to Budget: For a short-form project, budget for 2-4 hours of a trained technician’s or editor’s time. For a broadcast delivery, you may need to budget for a specialized QC house, which can cost several hundred dollars.
Line Item 12: Data Management & Archival
Your project is finished, but your responsibility for the data is not.
- Hard Drives: You need to budget for the physical hard drives to store the raw footage, project files, and final exports. A good rule is to have at least three copies of everything.
- Long-Term Archival: How will you store the project for the long term? Budget for either a larger RAID storage system or a subscription to a cloud storage service like Amazon S3. For true long-term archival, many professionals use LTO (Linear Tape-Open) tapes, which have their own hardware and media costs.
Part 5: The Contingency Clause – Your Project’s Safety Net
No matter how perfectly you plan, something will go wrong. A key piece of software will become corrupted. A client will have an “emergency” revision request that you have to accommodate. A hard drive will fail.
The “What If” Fund
This is why every single post-production budget you create must have a contingency line item. A contingency is a percentage of the total budget set aside for unforeseen problems. The industry standard is 10-20% of the total post-production subtotal. For a project with many unknown variables (like an unscripted documentary), a 20% contingency is wise. For a straightforward, scripted piece, 10% might suffice.
How to Present it to the Client
Do not label this “Miscellaneous” or “Other.” Label it clearly as “Production Contingency.” When you present the budget, frame it not as “fluff,” but as a professional safety net that protects the project’s quality and delivery date from unforeseen challenges. It’s a sign of an experienced producer. As a leading agency, our partners at Okay Digital Media know that their ability to navigate unexpected challenges is a key part of their value proposition, and a budgeted contingency is what allows them to do so without compromising the project or the relationship.
Conclusion: From Guesswork to Precision
A post-production budget is more than a spreadsheet. It is a roadmap, a communication tool, and a professional shield. By moving away from vague guesswork and embracing a detailed, line-item-by-line-item approach, you transform the budgeting process from a source of anxiety into a source of control.
This level of detail empowers you to have transparent, professional conversations with your clients. It allows you to accurately price your services, protect your profitability, and ensure that you always have the resources you need to do your best creative work. A well-crafted budget doesn’t limit creativity; it enables it. It is the foundation upon which great, stress-free post-production is built.
To learn more about our philosophy and team, please visit our About page. All practices and data handling are in accordance with our Privacy Policy. parasprunki 15.0 Fast, fun, and totally addictive