Post-Production Schedule
Enter your wrap date and get real dates — with sound, VFX and music running in parallel, the way post actually works.
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Elapsed time is shorter than total phase days whenever phases overlap — that gap is exactly what running sound, VFX and music concurrently buys you. Dates are calendar days, not working days; add contingency for holidays and festival deadlines yourself.
How a Post-Production Schedule Is Actually Built
Post-production runs from the last day of the shoot to delivery, and it has one hinge in the middle: picture lock. Everything before lock is a single chain — assembly, editor's cut, director's cut, notes — because each depends on the last. Everything after it forks. Sound design, VFX, music and titles all work from the locked picture at the same time, and they converge again at the mix and the grade.
This is where most downloadable templates mislead. A flat list of phases implies each waits for the one above, which turns a 14-week post into a 30-week one and produces a delivery date that nobody can plan against. Mark a phase as running in parallel here and it starts when its predecessor started; the schedule then waits for whichever branch finishes last before moving on.
How to use it
Enter your picture wrap date and adjust the durations — the defaults are a conventional independent feature, not a rule. Toggle each phase between After prev. and In parallel to match how your post is actually resourced, add or remove phases, then use Print / Export PDF. Nothing is stored and no account is needed.
Everything here you type in by hand. The Story Maker's post-production planning starts from the shooting schedule that produced the wrap date in the first place, so moving a shoot day moves the delivery date with it.
Post-Production Schedules — Frequently Asked Questions
How long does post-production take?
For an independent feature, commonly 12–20 weeks from wrap to delivery, with the editor's and director's cuts taking roughly half of it. Documentaries run far longer because the edit is where the story is found; a short can be done in three or four weeks.
What is picture lock, and why does the schedule hinge on it?
Picture lock is the point where no further changes will be made to the edit. It matters because sound, VFX, music and titles are all cut to specific frames — every change after lock means re-doing paid work in four departments at once.
Which phases genuinely run in parallel?
After picture lock: VFX, sound design, music and titles. They are separate vendors working from the same locked cut. The grade and the final mix generally do not — the mix needs the finished stems and the grade needs the finished VFX shots.
Are these calendar days or working days?
Calendar days. Converting to working days depends on the territory's holidays and on whether your vendors work weekends, so the tool does not guess — build your own contingency into the durations.
Is signing up required?
No — every field and the PDF export work without an account, and nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.