The Changing Shape of Post Production

The Changing Shape of Post Production

The recent closures of so many legendary post houses has been very sad indeed. My heart goes out to everyone affected.

These businesses meant a great deal to the creative community. They were admired, respected and, in many ways, pioneering. They created work that people talked about and aspired to. They gave a platform to exceptional talent. They helped shape what great creative facilities feel like.

So I don’t think this is a moment for easy commentary. The truth is that none of us are immune to the pressures affecting businesses right now.

The closure of great facilities is not a story about individual businesses failing. It is evidence that the industry has changed. And if creative or production businesses of any stripe want to continue supporting clients, nurturing talent and employing great people, we have to evolve.

I feel this personally. I started working in Soho straight out of school. First selling keyboards in a music shop, then as a runner in an audio post house that is no longer with us, before assisting at the world-famous Olympic Studios. Those early years made a huge impression on me.

Great facilities have a kind of magic. The beautiful furniture. The pace of the producers. The calm confidence of brilliant engineers. The feeling that when a client walked through the door, they were entering somewhere special. There was a hospitality to the best facilities akin to a high-end hotel. People were looked after. Ideas were given space. The environment mattered. I loved all of it.

And along with the most amazing team of people, we built our own facility on Tottenham Court Road – the very same road that the music shop was on – and that is something we’re immensely proud of. But maintaining that kind of environment is harder than ever.

Remote working has changed how we think about physical spaces. Costs continue to rise. AI is changing expectations around speed, volume and process. Margins are tighter. Clients, quite understandably, need production partners to do more, faster, with greater flexibility and greater reliability.

That does not make clients the villain. It does not make technology the villain. It does not mean the old model was wrong.

The classic post production model was built around highly specialised facilities, often with very visible individual talent and a very clear sector focus. That model produced brilliant work. It created legends. It helped define the sound and look of advertising, film and television for decades.

But the landscape has shifted.

The businesses that flourish over the next decade need to combine creative craft, production experience, technology and operational resilience. They will need the care and instinct of a great studio, but also the adaptability of a modern partner. That does not mean craft becomes less important. Quite the opposite. It means craft has to be protected by a business model that can survive.

At Forever Audio, we have never really gone in for the “star engineer” model. We have exceptional individual talent in the team, and we are always happy to share individual showreels when that is helpful. But our culture has always been democratic and collaborative.

Teams are built around the needs of the project. Engineers move around the building depending on what is required. Producers, sound designers, writers, music specialists, casting specialists, technologists and client service teams work together in different combinations. The work determines the shape of the team, rather than the other way around.

That approach is not better because it is newer. It is simply the way we have evolved. And in the current market, I think it gives us some resilience.

Over time, the needs of clients have changed with growing lists of deliverables and tighter budgets. Audio no longer sits neatly in one place. A project might start as a campaign, but require thinking about platforms, music, casting, versioning and complex technical delivery. Children’s audio, immersive experiences, drama, live events and branded work all borrow from each other more than they used to.

We made a decision, consciously or otherwise in the early days, not to build the company around one narrow part of the audio world, we always combined creative, production and digital expertise. Perhaps we were not easily defined. But the more the industry changes, the more I believe that breadth has become one of our strengths.

Not because every client needs every service. Most do not. But because modern work benefits from people who can see the whole picture and know when to bring the right expertise in.

There is still something powerful about bringing people together in a collaborative, creative space. There is still value in a room where clients feel looked after, where ideas can be tested quickly, where a performance can be shaped in the moment, where a sound designer and producer can solve a challenge together, and where confidence builds as the work improves.

Businesses are not abstract things. They are groups of talented people. Nearly 50 people work at Forever Audio across the UK and US. They have families, mortgages, rent, creative pride and careers to build. Running a business in this market means being honest about what’s changing and making decisions that allow the company to survive and hopefully grow.

The work, the culture, the knowledge and the relationships created by places like Wave London, No.8, LipSync, The Mill and Halo do not simply disappear. They live on through the people who made them what they were.

The next generation of creative and production partners will need deep craft, but also breadth of services. They will need beautiful studios and remote capabilities. They will need brilliant operators and collaborative teams. Strong producers, creative instinct, operational discipline and a willingness to embrace new technology.

We all have to be emotionally invested in the work, whilst being commercially clear-eyed about the realities of the market.

We’re on a rollercoaster, and every business is learning in real time.

To everyone whose careers have been affected by recent closures, the work you helped create, and the standards you helped set, are deeply valued across this industry. If our industry is going to thrive in the years ahead, it will be because we find new ways to protect what matters.