Da Vinci Questions

[Vladimir Kucherov]

1. In my experience the EDL perfectly handles fades and dissolves, and will correctly time speed changes. The speed change method is very rough, so in most cases you will still want to do the final render of that in After Effects, but the timing will be correct and it’s fine for grading.

Zooms and pans have not carried through for me, but they are easy enough to recreate with overlay offline mode.

2. As long as all your media has a relatively simple reel extraction procedure, you’ll be fine. As mentioned in previous posts, R3D/DSLR mix tends to work just fine.

3. Resolve can render out the full program as one quicktime, or render out individual clips in source render mode.

In source mode, the clips will be named the same as their original source clip, and can be placed into individual folders (you can even render out all your grade versions at the same time)

The problem with this render is it’s not easy to take it back to FCP. I don’t think there’s a way to generate an EDL that will relink a new FCP sequence to your output footage, etc.

[Thomas Wong]

Hey thanks for all the help! a lot of that was exactly what I was looking for. Just to clarify what do you mean the speed changes can be very rough? Do some clips work and some don’t? does the speed change translate in resolve itself so you see it slow or fast in Resolve? or does it just re apply the speed change no the render?

can I add handles on the individual clips I expert?

kind of blows I can’t create a new edl to ingest back into fcp, I can just imagine it being a media reconnect nightmare…

some other things I’ve been wondering about. Is there a batch looks ability, and render out from source files. Meaning similar to speed grade, i can just apply 3200k color temp to a whole bunch of files and export them right away to a offline codec. Is it possible to use Resolve in such a respect? Just applying 1 light grades to RAW files and batch exporting them?

[Ola Haldor voll]

Just a thought here.. Since you already used an EDL from FCP, isn’t it possible to use the same EDL to build a timeline with the newly rendered media? I honestly haven’t tried this. I’ve usually received single Prores files and cut it up using the Scene cut function.

And Vladimir, how you render all versions in one go? 🙂

[Dan Moran]

The way I like to get my material back to FCP is :

Export EDL from FCP
Conform In Resolve
Grade!

Open Render Page
Click use prefix and suffix and number of digits from source
Select Codec (I use ProRes 422 HQ)
Click Source Mode

Select Render Destination :

I make a new folder in the same destination as my rushes and call it “graded material”

Render!

Resolve will now make QT’s with the same name and TC etc as your origional rushes.

Open FCP

Make your Media Offline (don’t delete it off the disk though)

ReLink your Media but point it to the Graded Material folder

All your graded clips are now back in FCP!

Hope this helps but let me know if you need any help going this route

Dan Moran
Blackmagic Design

[Adam Hendershot]

Is there a way to do this FCP roundtrip workflow when you have a source clip that is used for multiple shots within the edit (such as a master shot that cuts back and forth with a closeup)?

[Gabriele Turchi]

guys,
I am training for resolve and conforming is one of my biggest lack at the moment …

how do you handle and edit that have several layers of compositing and dissolve ?
do you export all layers as independent edl and grade the elements (layers)separately ?
i always ask to flatten to 1 layer of edl as much as the editor can , but most of the time a complex edit require a minimum of 3 o 4 layer …

resolve is not able to rebuild that kind of complex edit right ?

thanks

g

[Dan Moran]

If you put Resolve into Track mode which can be found on the 3 tabs in the top right of the GUI this will let you add a node across the whole timeline.

So If you had a preset saved you could just apply this etc..

So a step by step would be
Load your material in.
Click Track
Apply your grade
Render (in source mode)

The same would work on a LUT basis also if you want to go down that road.

If you right click on your timeline on the Conform page in Resolve it will give you the option to save an EDL

Dan Moran
Blackmagic Design

[Christopher Adams]

I assume when you get the long full quicktime that you do a scene detect on. which sounds like it is the easiest for the editor.. and then you render it out how can you have handles? or do you bother?
that must give the editor a nightmare when they get it back.. I find out of all the things that seem like are not taught. its this last 2 % of editor to resolve back to the editor sections! No one ever seems
to talk about how this workflow should be done. I always have a hard time explaining to an editor what i need and in most cases seem to have to almost teach them.. As we get more and more indie films out there this is only going to get worse.. Is there a good set of instructions and best practices anywhere?
one for say FCP one for say Premiere and maybe Avid and Vegas?

This is by far the most frustrating part I find in color grading!

[Vladimir Kucherov]

The problem with using the same EDL (or timeline) comes when you’re working with master clips that have been cut up throughout a scene.

Say you have an R3D shot used 3 times in the cut. That means, on render out, DaVinci will try to make 3 files with the same filename (what’s worse is, if you don’t have “put in different folders” turned on, it just overwrites the same file and you lose 2 of your renders).

Unfortunately, FCP still expects 1 file. It’s not smart enough to ignore what file what comes from and go purely from timecode. So relinking would be manual at best.

Things get worse if you want to give the finishing guys a program with handles.

That’s why with Resolve I usually try to be the last link in the chain – it’s a lot easier to render out the final program in Target mode.

And Ola,

Although I haven’t done this myself yet, I think all you do is click on “Use Commercial Workflow” on the render screen, and check “clips in separate folders” and “use version name for folder”

That way each of your grade versions end up in their own folder during render.

[Vladimir Kucherov]

No, unfortunately Resolve will only handle 1 layer of video (plus simple dissolves)

I would put each video track in its own EDL and bring them into Resolve separately.