ABSTRACT
The producer plays a pivotal role during this final stretch of the postproduction process. He serves as creative partner, negotiator, dealmaker, troubleshooter, independent eye, and promoter. There is one certain fact: postproduction can be a quagmire if you don’t know the terrain and have not done your homework. It can also drain whatever funds are left in your budget. There are many hidden expenses. The general rule is: always give yourself a financial cushion in the post budget because some of these funds might need to be deployed to the production budget due to unanticipated cost overruns during the shoot. Visual effects come in two basic varieties: simple effects such as fade-ins or fade-outs, dissolves, superimpositions, green screen, and titles, and more complicated effects that involve creating entire 3D worlds. Simple effects are typically called opticals.
