Post Production Supervisor: Drew Ysias
Entry #1

Hi, my name is Drew Ysais and I am the Post Production Supervisor for "The Cleaner, for the next week I'll try let you know what post production is like for this show. It's always pretty hectic as part of the "post team" we deal with several episodes at any given time, and talk about the glamour.... there really isn't too much, just lots of work.

First of all what I am around here, I'm a oversee-er, cheerleader, calm voice of reason, the person making sure things are done and in a timely matter, "you want it when?", What my "title" means, the responsibilities change a little from show to show but here they are for this show, making sure dailies, (the film that is shot daily), are ok to view and then distributing them out to all the various people who need them which includes picking them up from the Lab where Mike Freeman, the Post Coordinator gets them and brings back to the office so we can dub them and distro them, which includes getting copies to the production , the studio and the network. I also coordinate between the studio, network, sound and music departments, I also look for stock footage for the editorial staff, I title the show, I supervise whatever visual effects need to get put in to each show, I supervise Audio layback (putting final sound on the master tape), and then QC the air masters to make sure they are ok to send to the network before the show airs. I also go production meetings when my boss, Tony Palermo, the Co-Producer, can't go and go to playback meetings as it usually means I usually need to find footage to be "played back" in TV in a particular scene, and make sure the regular day to day stuff gets done, making sure vendors get paid, ordering supplies and lunches, etc.

So here's how Post Production works in a nutshell, Once Production is finished shooting the editor gets time to finish his cut (or version), the editor will show the cut to the Director of each episode and then he/she gets a few days to finish his cut before it goes to the Producers. The Producers will get a couple days to make any changes before it gets shipped to the Studio. The Studio gets a couple of days to give their notes before it gets shipped to the Network were they will give final notes before we do what's called an online. That's were the final picture gets assembled from a list called an EDL (Edit Decision List) which is what the Editors Neil Felder, Gib Jaffe and Dave Post and Assistant Editors, Evonne Moritz and Charissa Sanjarenshuithikul supply to the lab.

Once this assembly is done several things need to happen, I'll sit with the assistant editor and we'll generate a list of any fixes or changes that needs to be addressed in my view and fix session after we online, then we'll have a sound and music spotting session so our sound and music departments can view the show with the producers and then they can start working on what they need to do. Sound will add SFX (Sound Effects), which includes doing Foley (additional Footsteps, door knocks etc.) Sound also does ADR (Additional Dialogue Requirement) or Looping where we can add or replace dialogue where it's needed. This figures into part of what I do, I need to schedule the actors and it sometimes can be quite difficult depending on shooting schedules or if they are out of town. Then we go to the dub stage to mix the final sound. Once the episode is played back for the producers and notes have been addressed, we go to the layback room where we marry the picture with sound. It's pretty cool in the layback room, it's the best place to see and hear the highest quality of the show. Once I'm done with that, I make the close captioning folks get a copy of the final show so they can go thru it and make sure all the closed captioning is correct as there might have been changes to what they've seen on the edited master they've been supplied with, also they get the lyrics for what music is featured as that needs to closed captioned as well.

Then Once All that is done we are ready to make out final air dubs for the network, it's a long and complicated process as there are basically "recipes" for each dub that gets made, it takes a day to make the dubs and then I go to the Labs and Quality Check the air masters to make sure they are good to air, then the whole shipment gets sent to A&E Network in New York.

-Drew