Jul 15, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 14 segments
In this installment of The Offset Podcast we're discussing quality control or QC for short. If you've worked in production & post for long enough, you've probably encountered QC challenges and QC…
Robbie CarmanHost
Joey D'AnnaHost
So I guess before we dive in, let's just define this just a little bit more because QC, I think, can kind of mean a few different things.
So QC is kind of the verification, as the abbreviation says, quality control process.
You know, mostly what we talk about is the kind of final QC of the project's finished deliverable because we're at the end of the pipeline.
But QC happens, at least it should happen, ideally, at every stage of the process, from acquisition to editorial to... color to final finishing and deliverable right every one of those stages should have a set of predetermined requirements and that's the really most important thing about qc is that you need to know what standard to which you as a vendor you as an artist need to meet if that's not clearly defined the whole process breaks down so even if starting on set if nobody defined what format you're shooting on how we're doing slates how we're timing things how we're rolling you know do we run do we run multiple takes per reel or do we do a new reel per take especially if you have multiple cameras do we have time code on this one time code on that one do we have a multi-cam setup where we have a cam cutting between takes and b cam continuously rolling between takes if those kind of details are not established for every stage you can't do QC because what are you comparing against? And then by the time it gets to the next stage, let's take that on set example, the editor will pull it in and be like, why is your multicam setup a complete disaster? Was nobody paying attention? So then from the editor, To them doing their edit, getting their timeline in order to the next stage, going to audio mix, going to graphics, going to finishing.
If they don't have a set workflow where, okay, the colorist is getting this, the audio mixer is getting this, and that's all planned for.
or in advance, if they're just kind of winging it, well, guess what? The audio makes me like, well, I can't take this AAF because of the way you organized it.
Or the colorist might be like, well, you're coming from Avid, you exported a sequence without flattened multicam clips, my whole timeline's blank, right? And then of course, with us, it's things like gamut, color space, metadata, flash frames, video quality, stuff like that.
But every stage of the process should have, ideally, Of course, with any workflow, there's some wiggle room and flexibility, but ideally, every stage from pre-production to production to editorial to finishing should have clearly defined specs and scope and then validated at the stage where you go from one stage to the next.
So I guess before we dive in, let's just define this just a little bit more because QC, I think, can kind of mean a few different things.
So QC is kind of the verification, as the abbreviation says, quality control process.
You know, mostly what we talk about is the kind of final QC of the project's finished deliverable because we're at the end of the pipeline.
But QC happens, at least it should happen, ideally, at every stage of the process, from acquisition to editorial to... color to final finishing and deliverable right every one of those stages should have a set of predetermined requirements and that's the really most important thing about qc is that you need to know what standard to which you as a vendor you as an artist need to meet if that's not clearly defined the whole process breaks down so even if starting on set if nobody defined what format you're shooting on how we're doing slates how we're timing things how we're rolling you know do we run do we run multiple takes per reel or do we do a new reel per take especially if you have multiple cameras do we have time code on this one time code on that one do we have a multi-cam setup where we have a cam cutting between takes and b cam continuously rolling between takes if those kind of details are not established for every stage you can't do QC because what are you comparing against? And then by the time it gets to the next stage, let's take that on set example, the editor will pull it in and be like, why is your multicam setup a complete disaster? Was nobody paying attention? So then from the editor, To them doing their edit, getting their timeline in order to the next stage, going to audio mix, going to graphics, going to finishing.
If they don't have a set workflow where, okay, the colorist is getting this, the audio mixer is getting this, and that's all planned for.
or in advance, if they're just kind of winging it, well, guess what? The audio makes me like, well, I can't take this AAF because of the way you organized it.
Or the colorist might be like, well, you're coming from Avid, you exported a sequence without flattened multicam clips, my whole timeline's blank, right? And then of course, with us, it's things like gamut, color space, metadata, flash frames, video quality, stuff like that.
But every stage of the process should have, ideally, Of course, with any workflow, there's some wiggle room and flexibility, but ideally, every stage from pre-production to production to editorial to finishing should have clearly defined specs and scope and then validated at the stage where you go from one stage to the next.
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