Hi, my name is Dan Swierenga. I’m a Senior Colorist and Finish Artist from Long Beach, California. I started my career in a tape room, became an assistant Smoke artist, rose through the ranks to Flame Artist running a Flame and Lustre room in Santa Monica and after that stepping into a new role as a Resolve colorist with conform and finish on the side. I’ve been in the post production industry for over 15 years.
The Need for Knowledge
I started this site, The Post Process, because I saw a need in the industry. The old world of hardware and barriers to entry was dying. The new world of software, remote workflows, the cloud, AI is coming. While the old world is dying, there are lessons that can still be applied from that world to today. Often with newer tools, there is a tendency to throw away the past. My belief is that the past can inform our present. We can learn the lessons of our history and apply them with even greater effect today.
Our mission at The Post Process is to empower beginners and professionals alike to create their own modern workflows by understanding high end, feature film level methodologies.
These workflows are still not well understood outside of the high end, larger post companies. My goal is to provide a window into the workflows to leverage that knowledge for smaller teams looking to grow, expend and benefit.
Telling Your Story
I believe that everyone has a story to tell. Often it can be a challenge to know where to start. With the amount of content and information all over the place on YouTube, blogs, mailing lists, websites, it can be extremely difficult to parse through all of it.
When I was starting out in post production, I absorbed all the tutorials I could. Today there are far more resources for post production than ever before. With that information though, there is a lot of noise that hampers personal development and growth.
This blog, resources, and tutorials offers an answer to that information overload.
My goal is to provide clear, actionable blog posts, tutorial videos and resources to clear any barriers to entry for those just starting out or those who want to level up their game.
I created The Post Process to teach creators to:
- Use affordable post production tools to create professional level videos.
- Unlock new layers of learning to avoid years of experimentation and struggling with workflow
- Build post teams that are flexible, robust and able to leverage the latest tools effectively and efficiently.
Accessible for All
Today, the tools of post production as more accessible than ever before. Resolve’s manual alone is a tome of knowledge that 10 years ago did not exist. The knowledge is out there. But it can still seem difficult to know how to leverage this knowledge and what to use it for.
That’s where The Post Process comes in.
We face a lot of problems in post today. Shrinking commercial budgets, a glut of content, less traditional jobs in the field, and seemingly less creative work. The world seems at once bigger than ever and more contracted and homogenized. Quite a bit of work has gone in house at agencies owned by global corporations once again limiting access to those outside of that world.
Where does that leave us in post?
While these things are true, there are more and more new ways to create today. Anyone can start their own post house from their own house. The barriers to entry are mostly gone. Cameras have evolved to the point that a $3K camera body is an A Camera for a major science fiction feature film. Blazing fast fiber internet speeds are available to many of use unlocking extremely fast cloud editing or file sharing.
The only thing limiting us is imagination. Instead of thinking of ourselves as employees or just cogs in a machine, we can think of ourselves as equal creators. This is the beginning of our growth into artists. And artists need to be cultivated and grown in their own time and environment to succeed. The artists bring value and growth to the field. And no one can copy or replicate that individual point of view. The Post Process offers an incubator to help and facilitate that growth for anyone with the imagination.
Who I Am
I’m a Senior Colorist and Finish Artist. I’ve been a staff colorist, finish artist and assistant editor in the major commercial markets of Chicago and LA. I’ve worked at agencies, post houses, production companies, film restoration companies, film studios, with filmmakers, DPs and executive producers. In the course of my career, I’ve been a workflow pioneer first for file based, all digtial workflows, cloud based, all remote workflows and pushing the envelope of efficiency and quality in our industry.
I know through experience what works and what doesn’t. I’ve seen trends come and go. At its most basic, the rules of quality and efficiency don’t change much. They just evolve with the tools. My tool of choice currently is DaVinci Resolve. Formerly I’ve used After Effects, Flame, even dipped my toes in Nuke and Unreal. For what I do, Resolve has ticked all the boxes for color, conform, finishing and vfx work. Fusion in particular has replaced all my former experience in the above mentioned softwares.
While originally I planned on keeping The Post Process more general to the whole post world, I have decided to focus more exclusively on color, finish and vfx with DaVinci Resolve. Resolve is still a tool that has the most accessible mass appeal of any post software. But there is still so much to learn and explore within the areas of finish and vfx specifically that I hope to share through creating more content for this blog.
What You’ll Get
It’s all here. Everything you need to know to start your project and everything you need to know to finish it. Here’s a sample of what is on the site:
- Blog posts with in-depth knowledge of professional post production color grading, finishing with Resolve and vfx in Fusion
- Guides for understanding various aspects of post production like vfx workflows, color space and gamma, frame rates, resolution, codecs and more
- YouTube videos breaking down complex concepts into simple, short explanations
- Workflow guides for working remotely with large teams or artists
- Working with teams efficiently as you scale, breakdowns of color management and more
These resources are invaluable to skip the countless hours and experience that it took me to get to this point in my career.
The Future of Post Production
Post production is beset on all sides. By AI threatening traditional post skills on one side, by global corporations buying agencies and post houses on the other, by social media companies demanding more and more content to feed their algorithms, and by competition from more and more accessible software and hardware. These forces can make it feel like there is no hope for our industry, for the innovative contributions of individuals, the small teams outside of the big cities or the creative spark within each filmmaker.
Ultimately these forces are not all negative. It’s a matter of perspective. They can seem like the total reality around us. And in that reality there is so much room for breaking out of those systems of thought. That is what The Post Process is about. Empowering individuals to make real change within our industry. To develop their own tools, to find their way through the glut of information and light their own fires in the dark. The power is in the hands of individuals. I hope you’ll join me on the the journey. There’s so much we can do together. If you resonate with this site, please consider contributing to my tip jars that you’ll find at the end of this and every blog post.
Join my mailing list below for a free ebook and we’ll get started!