Production companies are increasingly waking up to the importance of collaborating with post companies in pre-production as a way of managing costs in a world of tighter broadcast budgets.

The latest evidence of this growing trend in production is Platform Post’s early involvement on ITV gameshow The Great Pretender from RDF Media.

Platform senior editor Simon Cruz was invited to sit in on pre-production meetings with RDF, and - according to RDF director of production Jane Wilson - helped deliver cost savings during elements of the production process.

Cruz was made aware of the camera layout and sound set-up which helped him prepare for the editing process. He was also able to see how many tapes (including those from ISO cameras) would need digitising in post-production.

Cruz was able to assess how much editing time was required for each show while RDF could more accurately estimate how much of its budget should be allocated to post.

Platform Post also advised RDF to shoot the show’s graphics both with the footage of the gameshow and against a clean screen meaning it could rework the graphics in post.

RDF’s Wilson told Broadcast: “It is good management to involve a post house in the production process because the time and money allocated to post needs to be a known quantity.”

Pepper Post joint managing director Patrick Holzen said that closer collaboration of this sort has increased as more HD footage is shot. Pepper worked on location with Carnival Films before shooting Hotel Babylon and helped the team set up shots that would eliminate the need for removals and concealing in post-production.

In another recent example, Thomas Urbye, managing director of post house The Look, was approached by Double Jab Productions before it began shooting its recent show Andrea Bocelli: A Child Destined to Sing. They collaborated on how best to achieve a filmic look on a reconstruction scene and whether it would be better to acquire the look in camera or post.

They decided to connect a Sony HDW-750 to a film prime lens using a Pro 35 adaptor from P+S Technic to get the look they wanted when filming.

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