[Marc Wielage]

Complex visual effects like split screens are not going to import well into any editing system, Resolve included. My advice would be to bring each split in as a full-frame shot, color-correct it on its own, and then combine the splits in a separate program and bring those shots in as flattened files back to Resolve.

[Marc Wielage]

I would add to the above that Chapter 22 of the Resolve manual (“Importing Projects and Relinking Media”) is a critical one that new users need to read twice, maybe three times to let it sink in. My joke for years has been that it’s gotten to the point where the conform is almost as stressful and challenging as the color correction. When you have more experience, it gets fast enough that you can throw together a feature in less than a day and literally be color-correcting in a few hours. But it takes time to get there.

A lot depends on the preparedness of the editor and/or the post crew. If they’ve been sloppy, didn’t use correct reel names, and didn’t structure the file directories in an orderly way, it can kill you in the conform. Most colorists I know have a memo they routinely send the editor before starting a project so that they can establish a predictable workflow and have all the materials they need, the way they need them.

I agree with Joe and the others’ advice above. Having a low-bitrate reference movie as a guide is a must, since this will tell you if the shot is correct or wrong. There are also tricks you can do, like bringing all the material into Resolve first and then importing the XML and let it find the files that way, and there are also ways to force Resolve to filter reel names based on file names. All of this is covered very well in the manual.

Make sure you charge these people for the additional time they’re forcing you to take for the project. Filmmakers have to learn that there are established methods you have to follow in order to put the pieces together for color (and VFX and sound), and there are no shortcuts to doing this in a haphazard, lazy way.

[Marc Wielage]

I have successfully done SLog3 projects in Rec709 color space and no LUTs just by turning the knobs. It can be done — the existing curves and primaries and secondaries in Resolve work very well. What does help is to have the crew shoot color charts during the project so you can establish what normal levels are based on their exposure and lighting. Without that, you have to basically guess… but we got along for many years doing this in film, and it’s not as hard as you might think.

[Marc Wielage]

And I would add to what the others say with this observation: Ultimately, the look of a scene is more tied to the art direction (set design, props, etc.) and the cinematography than it is the color correction. I can tell you I’ve worked on million-dollar commercials where we put the material up and gave it a very basic look and it looked incredible… because it was shot that way.

A given technique for specific material can’t be predicted because so much of what a colorist does hinges on how good, bad, or ugly the material was shot, what camera was used to shoot it, how it was lit, what the circumstances were, and what kind of file format was provided.

So in other words: there are no simple answers. Power windows, qualifiers, masks, curves, primaries, secondaries… sometimes it’s all of the above, sometimes it’s just 2 or 3. It depends on many factors and there are no hard and fast rules.

One rule I would say is true is: with few exceptions, you can’t shoot something inexpensively and quickly and expect to be able to equal the look of an intricately-prepared large-budget Hollywood feature or commercial. It might be possible to put it vaguely in the area of the major motion picture, but how close you can get is unpredictable.

[Marc Wielage]

If this is a standard Disk database, then the default location of the Disk database for Mac OSX is:

/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Resolve Disk Database

on the boot drive (or at least your standard application drive). In general, you’re better off making a manual backup of the database and then restoring it separately, rather than copying files outside of Resolve. Be very careful and backup the system before you do attempt to do so.

It’s also a good idea to export a temp copy of whatever current project(s) you’re working on every day or so just in the unlikely event of a crash or data loss. I haven’t had to use these frequently, but it’s happened once or twice in the last few years, enough to make me paranoid.

[Marc Wielage]

Resolve is very dependent on Reel Names, and if this metadata is corrupted or missing, or if you have several clips with similar or identical names and identical timecodes, you’ll run into conflicts. The section of the manual on “Importing Projects & Relinking Media” (pages 500-558) is very informative, and you should read this a couple of times to get a grasp on the logic behind how the conforming works.

I have rarely encountered a project that imported 100% perfectly, but generally it’ll get 95% of the way there and the minor fixes left are usually pretty simple to take care of. I always ask the client to give me a low-res timecoded reference file of the project so I can use that to compare the conform and make sure all the repositions, wipes, titles, cuts, speed changes, and so on are exactly correct.

XML can be a bit dicey, but this is a problem when moving a project from Premiere to Avid or Avid to FCPX or FCPX to Resolve or whatever. I think there are some vagaries in the limitations of what XML can describe, and so things fall through the cracks. As it is, it’s amazing to me that it works as well as it does.

Relinking to camera originals is fairly simple and that’s covered in the manual. It helps to manually point Resolve to the specific folder with the camera originals and tell it to ignore the file extensions. As long as the file names are exact and the timecode matches, it should work.

[Marc Wielage]

Shoot a test and use color charts — the DSC Chroma DuMonde is excellent, and the XRite Colorchecker Video is cheap but OK — then bring the clips back into Resolve and evaluate them yourself. Try different decoding methods and see what works. The scopes will tell where you are in terms of accuracy, and the monitor will tell you if the image is appropriate for the nature of the project.

In general, I think it’s possible to create these looks in the first node or two just by using curves and primaries, but you do have to at least start with the right color science. For example, with Red R3D material, I think it’s good to use RedColor4 or DragonColor (or whatever is current with the camera) for color, then RedLogFilm for gamma space, and then take it from there to create a reasonable picture within Resolve. There are pros and cons with using LUTs, but in general I don’t think they’re necessary unless the LUT is a client request and was specifically created for that project.

[Marc Wielage]

What if you manually set the sizing in Resolve as the clip is rendered? This has always worked for me. If the output resolution is 2880×2160 (1.33:1) that’s how it’s going to wind up. If you want it scope, resize it to 2880×1205 with a vertical unsqueeze and then it’ll be 2.39. I would do a test and see if this will work.

[Marc Wielage]

I can see why it would still consider these clips to be “graded”: there is kind of a grade, because with a Pre-Clip or Post-Clip Grade, you’ve changed the original look of the clip (though not on the Clip level).

I think all you can do is manually go through the entire thing and spot the uncorrected icons in the timeline, or (what I do) just watch the entire thing and stop when the color-correction is wrong or doesn’t match.

[Marc Wielage]

Shoot a color chart (like the X-Rite ColorChecker Video), bring it into Resolve, and see how it looks on the scopes. Without that, there’s going to be a lot of guesswork.