Almost every major production, unless it is undertaken with an exceptional amount of rigour and discipline, will very often face the dilemma of reshooting scenes or parts of scenes to fix an error, or trying to fix it in post-production.
Every producer, production team and director will have to make this difficult decision, and whether it is the right one will depend on their post-production and VFX partners, their budget and the specifics of the problem at hand.
The term “fix it in post”, used both earnestly and in jest on modern film sets, is the decision to try and use editing, visual effects, compositing, colour correction, reframing, ADR to replace dialogue or hide set noise, and many other techniques to remove errors from a film.
Because it is used so often, it has become a loaded term, particularly since the limitations to what can be convincingly fixed in post are not always realised.
To explain the difference, here are some notable examples of what has been enhanced and accentuated in post-production and where attempts were made to rectify the unfixable.
Can Post-Production Finish A Production With A Missing Actor?
Either due to prior commitments affecting reshoots, an actor walking off a set, illness, injury or any other reason, an actor can sometimes leave a production without having completed all of their scenes.
Early in production, the best approach is to recast and reshoot with the new actor, but if there are time constraints, some directors may wonder if they can finish the film without a key actor, using what The Simpsons euphemistically calls “modern editing techniques”.
It has happened, most notably with Oliver Reed during the production of Gladiator, Brandon Lee during the production of The Crow and Paul Walker during the production of Fast & Furious 7, all of whom passed away before production could be completed.
Several scenes were rewritten to work around the scenes they had shot and reduce the presence of characters as much as possible in scenes that were not, and a mixture of careful editing, body doubles, and visual effects was used to help complete the remaining scenes.
It can be done, but it is both time-consuming and expensive to do so, and those are factors that should be kept in mind.
Can Post Production Complete An Unfinished Story?
A lot of a film’s story and pacing is the result of post-production; this is the reason why 1982’s Blade Runner has no fewer than seven separate versions, five of which are still viewable today, according to Den of Geek, each of which takes the same story and changes fundamental details.
Post-production can do a lot to transform a film, with the infamous Renegade Version of Highlander II: The Quickening changing significant portions of the plot, including removing the twist that the immortals were aliens from the planet Zeist.
However, whilst post-production can do a lot, it can only work with the material that has been shot, and it cannot be used to fix what is not there.
The biggest example of this was the 2017 thriller The Snowman, which had such infamous production issues that significant portions of the story had not actually been filmed, with the director, Tomas Alfredson, claiming to NRK that as much as 15 per cent was missing.
This is a nightmare for most post-production studios, but in a thriller where every shot matters and could potentially provide a clue, this was particularly egregious and led to a disappointing box office return and an utterly scathing critical reception.