Podcasts for Post Production Pros

Latest update: September 2020

I am a little late to the podcast game, but there are a fair few that I’ve fallen in love with.

Some of these are about post production and filmmaking, some of them are focused on entrepreneurship and creativity. Either way, they’re all worth a listen.

If you’re after some decent headphones for listening to these shows on the move or in the edit suite I’d recommend anything from these posts:

In this first section I’ll point to a few post-production related podcasts I like to listen to when I can, although I actually spend most of my time listening the podcasts in the next section!

If you’re after even more podcasts from the world of filmmaking check out this new list from the folks at StudioBinder.

Scroll to the bottom of this post for some unmissable additional podcasts including those from Roger and James Deakins, Peter Bogdanovich and more!

Inside The Edit Podcast – Once Upon a Timeline

Paddy Bird, the hugely experienced editor behind the superb documentary editing course, Inside The Edit, has recently launched a brand new podcast called Once Upon a Timeline, which focuses on the art, craft and technique of film editing.

A new episode arrives every week with ten episodes available so far, including:

The Power of Editing
The Greatest Fallacy in Editing
Essential Editing Skills for the Self Shooter
How To Give Perfect Editing Feedback
How to Design Character Behaviour on Screen
In Conversation: Eddie Hamilton PART 1
In Conversation: Eddie Hamilton PART 2
Method Editing: Cutting in Character
Cultivating Memories for Editing
How to Streamline Our Sequences

Inside The Edit is probably the best course on documentary editing available today, with hugely in-depth lessons and professionally shot footage to practice with as you hone your skills. I’ve reviewed it in detail in this previous post, and in a later update here and most recently here.

The ITE team were kind enough to offer my readers 25% off any subscription with the discount code: “JONNYELWYN“.

Listen at Insidetheedit.com

AOTG The Cutting Room

The Cutting Room podcast from Gordon Burkell’s excellent AOTG.com is a treasure trove of insightful interviews with editors and filmmakers.

There are (currently) 116 different interviews on the Cutting Room Sound Cloud page, which is probably the fastest way to scroll through all of the interviews.

Here are a few highlights to get you started:

Listen at The Cutting Room official site

Listen at The Cutting Room SoundCloud page

The Colorist Podcast

The Colorist Podcast is one of the best free resources I know of that gives you direct access to the thoughts and opinions of professional colorists working today.

Created by colorist Josh Petok, it sort of follows up where The Coloristos podcast left off, which Josh also co-hosted, and features in-depth interviews with a different colorist every month.

The podcast covers a range of topics from personal career trajectories to technical nuances to creative tips and tricks. If you’re interested in becoming a professional colorist this is a must listen!

It is sponsored by both the Colorist Society International and colorist training site Mixing Light.com.

Here is the latest episode with Light Iron founder and colorist Ian Vertovec.

Coloring David Fincher films and working with extremely dark images
The challenges of working on VFX heavy projects
Making HDR look both cinematic and realistic
Advantages of working with high-end systems like Quantel Pablo

Listen at The Colorist Podcast.com

Fitness in Post podcast

After 117 episodes film and TV editor Zach Arnold’s Fitness in Post podcast has now been superseded by his new Optimize Yourself.me site and podcast.

The original Fitness in Post show chronicled Zach’s passion for helping post production professionals prevent physical and creative burnout and live all round healthier lives.

His post on why ‘sitting is killing you, and standing isn’t the answer‘, is an essential read.

The FIP podcast is also another treasure trove of interviews, with some fascinating post production professionals, on a wide range of topics:

The new Optimize Yourself show takes this idea to another level and broaden’s it’s listen base to a wider context.

Listening to both will be a transformative use of your time! Do it.

Listen to Fitness In Post (Archives)

Listen to Optimize Yourself

FCPX Radio

Richard Taylor’s FCP Radio is now moving past the 50 show mark and also has hit over 1 million downloads (split with another podcast he produces) and continuing to deliver entertaining and insightful conversations with some of the most vocal FCPX professionals working today.

In episode 54 a gang of FCPX editors and trainers get together to discuss the latest release of FCPX 10.4. Richard is joined by Steve Martin and Mark Spencer from RippleTraining.com along with Patrick Southern from Lumaforge and FCPX editors Bill Davis, Gabriel Spaulding and Felipe Baez.

The show is sponsored by Lumaforge, who make the amazing Jellyfish.

Richard’s other main FCPX site is fcpx.tv

More Recommended Podcasts from an Editor

Although I love working in and writing about post production, I also love listening to, reading about and being curious around interesting ideas, technology and people from outside of post. Yes, it’s really true.

This short list of podcasts are some of my all-time favourite never-miss-an-episode-listen-to-some-of-them-several-times podcasts.

Listen to them all – you’re in for a treat!

NPR’s – How I built This with Guy Raz

This is currently my favourite podcast, which comes out pretty much weekly, telling the personal stories of the founders behind some of the biggest brands on the planet.

I would highly recommend checking out these episodes in particular. These are direct download links.

I’ll just stop there… there are just too many great episodes!

Listen on NPR

Launch – John August

This new podcast reveals how screenwriter John August came to write his first novel, a children’s book called Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, and the journey of publishing a book, as told from the inside.

It’s a really well structured, produced and delivered podcast, revealing ‘how the sausages are made’ in the publishing industry.

Listen at Wondery.fm

It’s also well worth checking out John’s long running podcast Scriptnotes (336 episodes and counting!)

Start Up (seasons 1 & 2)

The first two seasons of Start Up are incredible. They’re the model on what much of Gimlet media’s podcasts (and many other shows) are based.

Start Up season 1 takes you inside the journey of Gimlet Media founder Alex Blumberg to create Gimlet Media from scratch. I binge listened to the whole thing in a couple of days.

Season 2 continues the journey of the company with some interesting insights and challenges as they grow.

After that the seasons mostly track with other businesses for a season, or just a show, and are well worth a subscription.

Listen at GimletMedia.com

The Pitch

Another great show from Gimlet Media, The Pitch is essentially a podcast version of ‘Dragon’s Den’ or shows like that.

Although the investors almost never invest, somehow that doesn’t detract from the show being an enjoyable listen.

The host, Josh Muccio, does a great job of telling the stories, crafting the drama and playing referee.

Plus I’ve discovered some really interesting start ups listening to the show.

Listen at GimletMedia.com

Masters of Scale

Reid Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn and, after selling it for $26 billion dollars, now seemingly for fun runs the Masters of Scale podcast.

This features some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley sharing tips and insights on business life, especially when it comes to scaling your company to it’s biggest possible size.

Guests include the co-founder of Slack and Flikr, Mark Zuckerberg, Ceo of PayPal Peter Thiel, Reed Hastings founder of Netflix, Eric Schmidt Chairman of Alphabet (Google’s new parent company) and many more…

Listen on Mastersofscale.com

S Town

Possibly the best serialised podcast of all time. S Town is an incredible display of storytelling, investigative reporting and a compelling personal journey.

I can’t recommend it more highly. Not one to listen with kids around though.

Listen at stownpodcast.org