Best Post-Production Studios in San Francisco (2026)

Introduction

San Francisco and the wider Bay Area have 10 post-production studios worth shortlisting in 2026, covering commercial editorial, colour and finishing, and a strong group of audio post houses. The city has no separate colour, editing or sound pages in this series, so specialists in each of those crafts appear here alongside full-service shops.

Sound is where the Bay Area is deepest. Skywalker Sound, at Skywalker Ranch in Marin, is home to the re-recording mixers and sound editors who shared the Oscar for Best Sound for F1 in March 2026, and a cluster of smaller mix rooms in North Beach and along the northern waterfront serve agencies, documentary makers and game studios. In February 2025 San Francisco added One Union Recording to its Legacy Business Registry after more than 30 years in business. Picture post is smaller: several production companies now edit and grade in-house, and the commercial editorial and finishing houses that remain tend to work closely with them and with the city's agencies.

Every studio below has an active base in San Francisco, Marin or the East Bay in 2026. Visual effects houses are covered on a separate page. The list runs in no fixed order of merit, since the right fit depends on the format, the delivery spec and whether you need picture, sound or both.

The best post-production studios in San Francisco

1. Skywalker Sound

Lucasfilm (Disney) · Nicasio, Marin County · skysound.com

Skywalker Sound is the Bay Area's largest audio post facility, based at Skywalker Ranch on Lucas Valley Road and owned by Lucasfilm. Its services cover re-recording mixing, sound design and editorial, music recording and scoring, Foley and sound for games and interactive work. At the 98th Academy Awards in March 2026, the Best Sound Oscar for F1 went to a team that included Skywalker's Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo and Juan Peralta.

Recent work includes The Mandalorian and Grogu, Lucasfilm Animation's Maul series and Leslie Iwerks' documentary Disneyland Handcrafted. The ranch also has a scoring stage. Skywalker mostly takes features, series and games, so commercial clients usually book it for a specific mix or stage rather than a full campaign.

2. One Union Recording

Owner-run · Embarcadero · oneunionrecording.com

One Union Recording is an audio post house at 1 Union Street, founded in 1994 and run by president and owner John McGleenan, who has been sole owner since 2007. It grew from a single room to five studios, two of them Dolby Atmos rooms, and the facility was rebuilt in 2018. The city's Small Business Commission added it to San Francisco's Legacy Business Registry in February 2025.

Its work covers voice-over, ADR, sound design and mixing in stereo, 5.1 and Atmos for advertising, television and film. Past credits include Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Fruitvale Station and Milk. Senior engineer David Michel-Ruddy spent time at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, and has mixed work for BMW, Sam Adams, Chevrolet and the NBA.

3. Cut+Run

Independent · Embarcadero · cutandrun.com

Cut+Run is a commercial editorial company with offices in Santa Monica, San Francisco, Austin, New York, the Midwest and London, where it works in partnership with The Quarry. The San Francisco office is run by managing partner Amburr Farls and executive producer Brian Stanley, and shares the 1 Union Street building with One Union Recording. The company was named to Ad Age's Best of 2026 list and picked up wins at Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show and the AICP Awards in 2026.

Recent company-wide work includes spots for Microsoft, DoorDash, Levi's, Roku and Toyota. Earlier San Francisco projects included Xbox with 215 McCann, PlayStation with Venables Bell + Partners and DraftKings with Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Editors from other Cut+Run offices are also bookable through the San Francisco team.

4. Outpost Studio SF

Family-run · Northern Waterfront · outpoststudiosf.com

Outpost Studio SF has been on Battery Street since 1996 and is run by founder Dave Nelson and his son Karl Force. It has four recording studios and an engineering staff of eight, and covers dialogue editing, ADR, Foley, sound design, Dolby mixing, voice-over and game audio implementation.

Its clients include Netflix, Disney, Apple TV+, Amazon, Warner Bros. and A24, along with game publishers such as Activision, EA and Ubisoft. Credits include ADR and dialogue work for 3 Body Problem, Bel-Air and 9-1-1, Need for Speed Unbound, audiobooks for Audible and Penguin Random House, and podcasts including Radiolab.

5. Mission Film & Design

Independent · Telegraph Hill · mfdsf.com

Mission Film & Design is a finishing studio at 1 Icehouse Alley that handles colour, online and conform, visual effects, and sound design and mixing under one roof. Its colour suites are Dolby Vision certified and run Baselight Two, and it has an Autodesk Flame for compositing, conform and delivery.

The sound side has a 5.1 mix room with a voice-over booth attached, so a spot can be graded, finished and mixed without moving between facilities. It suits agencies and production companies that shoot their own material and need a single finishing partner for the last stage.

6. Rough House

Independent · SoMa · roughhouse.com

Rough House is a production and post-production house that cites more than 30 years of experience. Its services cover editorial, colour, visual effects and audio, and it offers remote colour sessions with colourists based elsewhere.

The studio works on broadcast, web and social content, and takes on full productions as well as finishing-only jobs. For brands that have already shot, it is a practical option for offline edit, grade and conform without leaving the city.

7. Ajax Creative

Independent · SoMa · ajaxcreative.com

Ajax Creative is a production and post company founded in 2016, with its San Francisco studio in SoMa and further offices in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Its post department covers dailies, offline and online editorial, colour grading, motion graphics and VFX, original music and sound mixing, and delivery work such as QA, subtitling and closed captioning.

Clients include Microsoft, TikTok, Unilever, Air Canada, Arc'teryx and Coors. It is a sensible choice for brands that want production and every stage of post managed by one team.

8. Earwax Productions

Founder-led · North Beach · earwaxproductions.com

Earwax Productions has worked in sound since 1983, when Jim McKee co-founded it with a group of composers, electronic musicians and journalists, several of whom had studied at Mills College's Center for Contemporary Music. It is based on Kearny Street and offers sound design, mixing in stereo, 5.1, 7.1 and VR formats, voice-over and ADR recording, and archival work.

Its credits run from Bram Stoker's Dracula and Cast Away to IMAX films and Ai Weiwei's @Large installation on Alcatraz, and it has done audio branding for Apple, Logitech and Pinterest. Recent projects lean towards independent and documentary film, including Venice Underwater and Racing to Zero.

9. Disher Sound

Independent · North Beach · dishersound.com

Disher Sound is an audio post studio on Broadway, in business since 1993. It records voice-over and ADR, and handles sound design, mixing, music scoring, Foley, and podcast and audiobook production.

The studio reports work on more than 200 films and thousands of commercials. Recent credits on its site include MGM's Jinn, Lunch Lady, The Cherokee Word for Water and Cirque du Soleil's X-O.

10. IMRSV Sound

Owner-run · Berkeley · imrsvsound.com

IMRSV Sound is a post-production sound company run by Jacob Bloomfield-Misrach and James LeBrecht, with studios in Berkeley (including the Saul Zaentz Media Center building on 10th Street) and in Los Angeles. The former Berkeley Sound Artists website now redirects to IMRSV.

The studio covers dialogue editing, ADR, Foley, surround mixing and original scores, and its work leans towards documentary. Credits include Patrice, which it lists as an Emmy winner, Lead and Copper and The Masters Wait, and director Pete Nicks is among its clients.

What to look for in a San Francisco post-production studio

Work out first whether you need picture, sound or both. San Francisco has many more audio post rooms than picture finishing houses, and a lot of commercial editing now happens inside production companies. If your production partner already cuts and grades in-house, you may only need a mix house. If you shot with one company and want a different team to edit, a dedicated editorial shop such as Cut+Run gives you more editors to choose from.

Check the delivery spec early. Streaming platforms, cinema and broadcast each set their own requirements for HDR, loudness and surround formats. Ask whether the studio grades in Dolby Vision, mixes in Atmos or 5.1, and has delivered to the platform you are working with. Studios that work on documentaries and series are usually more practised at full deliverables packages than those that mainly finish 30-second spots.

Ask who is in the room. Bay Area post houses are small, and a single senior mixer or colourist often carries a studio's reputation. It is reasonable to ask for that person by name and to check their recent credits, as well as whether sessions are attended in person or run remotely.

Agree how media and feedback will move before the edit starts. Camera originals, proxies, project files, stems and version notes tend to spread across drives, email and transfer links over a long job. Studios that keep everything in one shared place, with a clear record of which cut and which mix were approved, lose fewer days at the end.

How Fabric helps post-production teams

Fabric gives a post team one workspace for footage, project files, stems and client notes, with AI search across all of it. The cloud drive streams files on demand, so heavy media and project files take no local disk space and open without a full download. Shared team folders always show the latest version. There is more on this in how to edit video without filling your SSD and the guide to proxy workflows.

For sound teams, session files, stems and reference mixes can sit alongside the picture they belong to, which is the problem covered in your audio sessions are scattered. Uploaded MP3, WAV, MP4 and MOV files are transcribed automatically, so interviews and dialogue become searchable by what was said.

Search works by meaning across documents, PDFs, images and transcripts, and results jump to the page or the timestamp. That helps when an editor needs a particular line from 40 hours of interviews, or a producer needs the version of a script that went to legal.

For client review, a cut or a folder of deliverables can be published as a web page with password protection, and link analytics shows when each named recipient opened it. Clients can leave threaded comments through a shared link without signing up. Highlights and comments on PDFs and documents work today, and timestamped comments and drawing on video, audio and images are listed as coming soon on the annotations page.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best post-production studio in San Francisco?

It depends on the job. Skywalker Sound is the leading name for feature and series sound, and its team shared the 2026 Oscar for Best Sound. For commercial editorial, Cut+Run has the largest roster of editors with a San Francisco office, and Mission Film & Design and Rough House handle colour and finishing.

Where is Skywalker Sound?

Skywalker Sound is at Skywalker Ranch on Lucas Valley Road in Nicasio, Marin County, about an hour's drive north of downtown San Francisco. It is owned by Lucasfilm, part of Disney.

Which San Francisco studios mix in Dolby Atmos?

One Union Recording has two Dolby Atmos rooms among its five studios, and Outpost Studio SF offers Dolby mixing for theatrical formats. Skywalker Sound mixes features and series in immersive formats at the ranch.

Which Bay Area studios work on documentaries?

IMRSV Sound in Berkeley works mainly on documentary sound, with credits including Patrice. Earwax Productions and Disher Sound also mix independent and documentary films, and Outpost Studio SF handles dialogue and ADR for streaming series.

Where can I find visual effects studios in San Francisco?

Visual effects houses, from Industrial Light & Magic in the Presidio to commercial CG studios, are covered on our list of the best VFX studios in San Francisco. Rough House and Ajax Creative appear on both lists, since they offer VFX alongside editorial, colour and sound.

Related lists

Post-production studios in other cities: New York · Los Angeles · London · Chicago · Toronto

More in San Francisco: Creative agencies · Video production · VFX · Animation · Content studios · Advertising agencies

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