What is the name of your organization and what is your area of focus in the film and video space? 

The Los Angeles Post Production Group (LAPPG) is a member driven organization for everyone with an interest or passion for content creation and the film finishing process. We provide educational opportunities for exploring workflows, learning about cutting edge technologies, and gaining valuable insights, techniques and tips from leading processionals, manufacturers, well respected experts and filmmakers in the industry.  The LAPPG is an open membership group and is free to join.

What’s your organization’s origin story? 

LAPPG was founded 15 years ago when my husband, Woody Woodhall moved our audio post production company, Allied Post Audio, into a new studio that we built. We realized that we now had a great meeting space, our new lobby, to bring clients and neighbors together to educate them on the post audio process. Woody was one of the presenters at our first meeting and we learned that there was a lot of people who were interested in the entire post production process as a whole, not just the audio side of things. We out grew the lobby space quickly so we continued holding monthly meetings in various locations around the Westside of Los Angeles. There were terrific groups that were meeting in the valley and in Hollywood, but there was nothing like that on the Westside of LA. If anyone knows what traffic is like at 6:15pm trying to get to a 7pm meeting across town, well all I would say is good luck! So we continued growing the membership and holding monthly meetings for 12 years. Then when Covid hit we pivoted fairly quickly to an online community and for the past 3 1/2 years we’ve been streaming our  monthly meetings. In that process we’ve garnered an international audience who really values the content that we deliver each month. When we have the opportunity to host a meeting at one of our partner’s spaces like the ZEISS Cinema Lens Demo Cener in Sherman Oaks, for example, it’s great to see our longtime members, as well as meet new members in the flesh. Now it’s a balance between providing for our local community as well as the international community, but we love being able to share content and networking each month.

What is your organization’s ethos and how does it set you apart from industry competitors?

What makes LAPPG special is that we were built as an inclusive and technologically agnostic community. We like to introduce the tools that are used but also highlight the artistry and the process that it takes using these tools to make a feature film or a television series.

What projects are you most proud of and why?

We’ve hosted some really great meetings and events. We partnered with HP and Adobe to bring some of the post production team in from David Fincher’s film, “Gone Girl” and it was a huge event because it marked the first 6K real-time review pipeline in any feature film. We did an event with FilmLA and New Filmmakers Los Angeles where we presented Blumhouse Productions with an Award of Recognition for their work in keeping production in Los Angeles. I also love things where we are among the first to premiere certain software or hardware to the public like did with RX 10 from iZotope (Native Instruments) or when we showed a “still in process” Blackmagic camera for the first time.

I think the event I am most proud of was in 2016, we created a film festival/contest called LA Post Fest where we challenged filmmakers from around the globe to complete their own version of a short film that we produced called “Protocol”. We supplied the filmmakers with the raw footage, script, downloadable assets, and a folder of music cues from Sony Creative Software. The final short films were judged by an award-winning panel of post production experts and the winners received more than $15,000 in prizes. The competition culminated with an incredible screening event in Santa Monica, CA at the American Cinematheque Aero Theater and it was such an exciting opportunity to highlight the huge impact post production has on storytelling! When we watched the shorts, all from the same media, back to back, we saw all the incredibly creative choices that were made.

What initiatives are you working on that you’re excited about? 

We are always busy with our monthly meetings. Doing 12 events each year keeps the calendar full and we are always seeking new ways to show our members how to create amazing content with our partners tools.

What’s one part of the video and television industry you would change and why?

Its not up to us to change anything in the industry but rather to highlight the endless changes that occur with all the new technology. Sometimes its even hard for us to keep up with all of the evolving tools and workflows! When we started we talked about decks and tape, now we talk about shooting footage straight into the cloud!

Where is there opportunity for collaboration or intersection between your community and the Telly community? 

As a networking and informational powerhouse, LAPPG lets our members know about the upcoming awards deadlines and promotes the Telly Awards screenings that they host in various cities around the country.

How can people join or learn more about what you do?

It’s very easy to join LAPPG. Just head to LAPPG.com and fill out your information on the top right hand side of the homepage and you’ll be added to our membership list! We are mindful of our members’ inboxes and we don’t share our list. Join today!