Like what are their exact roles and responsibilities in the pre/post or even during production?
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It varies a bit between productions but in general the director is responsible for every artistic aspect of a film (as opposed to producers who are responsible for all the non-artistic aspects).
Any creative or artistic decision about the film is made by the director or someone the director has delegated the decision to.
Directors are usually one of the first people brought onto a project (often initiating it) – they have an idea of what they want to make, and they find a producer to make it happen. They may choose a writer or story, they will pick the tone of the film, the style, what it is filmed on, they may be involved in choosing their production team, involved in casting, picking locations (and choosing how much is filmed on location v on a set), they may end up personally approving concept art, costumes, set design, prop design and so on, all before any shooting happens.
During shooting they are responsible for staging (where people stand, how they move), camera angles, lighting, how the actors act (so give actual directions, on set, to the actors). Once shooting is over they will oversee the editing process, the sound design, music, visual effects etc., and will be in charge until the final edit of the film is done.
Now often they won’t do all of this themselves; they will delegate a lot of it depending on the production, the director, what else they’re working on and so on (and will have any number of assistant directors, second unit directors to help out). But in general they are responsible for the decisions and are “in charge.” They are pretty much the “first involved” and “last to leave” a project from conception until the final edit is locked.
There is some variation – particularly with big, studio-led films, where the producers (i.e. the studio) might have a specific vision and override the director (which is why we sometimes get a “Director’s Cut” of a film) – sometimes the directors are Ok with this and accept it as part of the job, sometimes it causes problems and the director ends up leaving/being fired (this happened with a few of the Disney-era Star Wars films, for example, where directors were switched out due to having a different idea for what their film would look like than Disney).
It also works slightly different with TV series, where often you will have a show-runner who is mainly responsible for writing the show but they will have a different director for each episode; each director will see through their episode from initial concept to final edit, but will be working within the limits of the overall show (so a fixed writer, cast, crew etc.). Each episode needs its own director so production can move smoothly from one episode to the next, with different parts of the crew working on different episodes at once.
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