Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:13 am
Traditionally, motion pictures (particularly long films with lots of changes) use "reels" that date back to motion picture film in ancient times. (You know, like 10-15 years ago.)
I like to break down features into roughly 20-minute reels, finding a cut point on a scene change or a vastly-different shot -- say, a day scene immediately after a night scene -- so it's a completely different mood, with color that has nothing to do with what we just saw.
The advantage is, if you have to make changes to that segment, you don't have to then ripple that change throughout all 2+ hours of the project. You can also jump ahead to finished reels while earlier reels are being reworked by the editor.
Resolve tends to run slower when you have (say) 2500 shots in one timeline with lots and lots of nodes, vs. only 500 shots in five different timelines. I find it's a lot easier to work that way, but then, I'm a traditional guy used to working this way with film. I also prefer the challenge of judging progress by the number of reels done in a day; I aim for at least one 20-minute reel (or more) per day if possible. If it's a TV show, it's usually about 42-44 minutes, and I'll try to get about 25-30 minutes done one day, the rest the second day, and then have the client come in for viewing and notes towards the end of the day, which takes about 2-3 hours.
When the project is finally locked, it's easy to create nested timelines and render the entire project out as a single file.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood