Post-production

Let’s look at what happens to the production after shooting has finished, and how you can protect the mental health of the post team. You’ll be able to build on any changes to the working culture you have been able to make so far and continue the same approach.

Man working with editing equipment at desk on film or TV production

For many, post-production can feel like the end of the project, but for others it might be the start of their journey. It’s fundamental to ensure that a mental health and wellbeing plan has been put in place for post-production teams. It’s important to consider and prioritise the wellbeing needs of your post teams right from the start and put in place the right support for them. If you’re just about to start on the production and are thinking about what mental health support you want to put in place, you may want to start with Mini Guide 1: Discuss and agree your production wellbeing plan useful too.

Be sure that your existing wellbeing plan is reviewed and handed over to the post team, just as you hand over other project essentials and continue to prioritise the needs of all individuals, working at each stage of the production.  The Working well with me document is a good place to start.

Making changes to established ways of working on a busy production isn’t easy. If you’re reaching the end of your project and you’ve taken the time to embed some of these suggestions throughout the shoot, then post-production can be the perfect opportunity to monitor how it’s going and gather any insights and learnings for continued improvement. This stage, when production has wrapped and you may be entering the edit phase, can also be invaluable in taking what you have learnt on to future productions.

This is about keeping track of what’s worked, here you would change things and listening to your staff and production team’s experiences. Asking for feedback is important for this learning. You can share these learnings with senior teams to encourage others to start working in this way.

Cameraman filming on a TV or film production

The Mini Guides in this section will help you provide ongoing support, share insight from any new actions you have implemented, debrief your team successfully and have wellbeing-focussed handovers that don’t forget your team working in post-production. They could also help you plan which areas of the Toolkit you’d like to explore next time, so you can make future productions mentally healthy too.