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Glossary

Post-Production.Where raw footage becomes a film.

Post-production encompasses all processes that occur after principal photography wraps, including editing, visual effects, sound design, color grading, music composition, mixing, and mastering.

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Definition

Post-production encompasses all processes that occur after principal photography wraps, including editing, visual effects, sound design, color grading, music composition, mixing, and mastering. It is the phase where raw footage is shaped into a coherent story. Post-production can take longer than the actual shoot and is where many of the creative decisions that define the final audience experience are made. Understanding post-production workflows during pre-production and storyboarding helps you plan shots that will cut together effectively. M Studio supports export workflows designed to feed into post-production pipelines.

In practice

See it on screen

Samples made in M Studio.

Script → board
Clip 1 / 6

Script → board

How it works

From script to screen in six steps

M Studio builds a film shot by shot, and you direct every shot — this is the whole path, start to finish.

  1. 01

    Start a film

    Start from a one-line brief, or import a screenplay PDF and build straight from the pages you already wrote.

  2. 02

    Add your script

    Scenes, action and dialogue laid out shot by shot — editable line by line before anything renders.

  3. 03

    Add your characters

    Add each character once with a reference image so the same face carries across every shot in the film.

  4. 04

    Build the storyboard

    Your script breaks into shots on a canvas. Reorder, reframe and re-prompt any shot until the board reads right.

  5. 05

    Make the video clips

    Turn approved storyboard pictures into video clips one shot at a time, then layer voiceover, music and sound effects.

  6. 06

    Export the cut

    Take the finished cut out as an MP4, MOV or WebM, up to 4K on Professional and up, ready for the edit or the pitch.

There is no length cap in the editor. Because films are made shot by shot, how long a film can run comes down to how many video clips your plan includes — not a limit in the tool.

FAQ

Common questions

For a feature film, post-production typically takes 4 to 12 months. A commercial might need 2 to 6 weeks. A short film might take 1 to 3 months. VFX-heavy projects can extend post-production to 18 months or longer. The timeline depends on the complexity of effects, sound, and the number of revision rounds.

Picture lock is the point in editing where the visual cut is finalized: no more changes to shot selection, timing, or order. After picture lock, VFX artists, composers, sound designers, and colorists can begin their work against a fixed timeline. Changes after picture lock are expensive because they cascade across all downstream departments.

Sound design is the creative process of building the film's sonic world: creating and selecting effects, ambiences, and foley. Sound mixing is the technical and artistic process of balancing all audio elements (dialogue, music, effects) into the final soundtrack. The designer creates the ingredients; the mixer combines them.

Video clip made in M Studio

From learning to making

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M Studio brings the script, the storyboard, and the video clips together in one place.

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