After Effects green screen - Ursa Mini Pro Log - round trip

I'm compositing some green screen clips in After Effects and need some advice on the correct 32bit color management workflow in AE.

Footage filmed with Ursa Mini Pro, ProRes 4444 Log.
Green screen compositing and a few other effects will be performed,
Neat Video used to reduce noise introduced by a bad sensor (I'm told),
then need to render out back to ProRes 4444 Log to send to the color grader in Resolve with the rest of the clips.

Background plates may or may not be Log.

Is Keylight recommended for the keys? After keys are pulled, use these as a mask rather than final output from Keylight?

Are there any LUT's, or Color Management Working Space plug-ins for Ursa Mini Log footage? What is the correct way to integrate different clips (Log, Rec709, etc) then convert everything back to log?

Thanks.

hi Kevin. Here are some tips while in after effects. Since you're doing your grading in resolve after you composite, I'm guessing you want to keep the original Log footage you imported into AE the same exported back into resolve along with all your composites/effects. Am I correct? Keep your composition 32bit You don't need to worry about color management in AE, keep your Log Footage log. Yes key light is what you will use for your Green screen key. I use a plug called Hawaiki keyer it has more controls than key light, its from FXFactory. First create a lut in Davinci revolve that will closely match your final grade. You'll be using this as reference so you get an idea how your effects and composites will look when you apply your final grade in resolve. Remember it's just a reference so don't expect it to look exactly the same as your grade in resolve but it will help immensely. Export the lut you just created from Resolve to your desktop so you can find it easier, just to keep things simple for this example. Create an Adjustment layer in AE put it over all your other layers. Select your Adjustment layer. Then go to the top menu click on Effects then scroll down to utilities, then click on Apply color Lut. On the Apply color lut effect, click on choose lut. Find the lut on your desktop and click choose to apply the Lut to your log footage. Do your composites etc..and when its time to render. Deselect the apply color Lut effect so that it resorts back to Log footage for render so that you can do the final grade in resolve. Export it as Pro res 444. Same as you had it when you imported it. . If you're doing masks you'll need to render it out separately as .exr files as that holds all the information in the file as you have it in A.E. If that’s what you’re trying to do. ( I’m not sure )There's ways I can show you how to export from DaVinci Resolve and do all your composite in AE and have it update right back into resolve To long to type here ..lol
I found a link to give you an idea on how to roundtrip and update right inside Davinci resolve from Ae and also do versions of composites as well.

i would do the key in resolve using fusion, but if you really want to do it in after effects i would keep everything log, especially the background you're about to put in it. And it doesn't matter what plugin you use to pull the key, if you dont want to use keylight you dont have to. Personally I dont like keylight

I'm doing a lot of green screen work in AE at the moment and I'll confirm that Donnell gave some good advice, particularly about using Hawaiki Keyer which is also what I use, and which in my tests I found to offer far more precise keys than Keylight or Primatte.

One of my main issues with Keylight is that its despill algorithm tends to degrade the footage a bit too much for my taste. Primatte is better but it's expensive. Hawaiki is the best and also happens to be very affordable:

https://hawaiki.co

Regarding Fusion, its Delta keyer is also quite good, but I'm a bit iffy about the workflow to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I love Resolve and use it constantly, but Fusion has been a bit too sluggish at the moment and I prefer to outsource the keying to AE until things get faster.

Great information all.

Yes, it needs to stay Log for the colorist. I will not be grading, someone, somewhere else will be.

The colorist will get the completed composite so no need to send masks.

My understanding is that After Effects default color management is sRGB so rendering will be in that color Working Space, not Log, unless I change it in the Output Module or Project Settings to some other Working Space (Chris Zwar in this article https://www.provideocoalition.com/after-effects-and-alexa-part-2/) see at about 10:20.

Does that sound correct?

Hi Kevin, I’m not by my computer right now. But as far as I remember there is no log profile for any blackmagic camera in Ae. There is log profiles for ARRI I think with different Iso’s. So to be safe set your working space color management to none when you start your project. It will also set your color profile to none even when you try to interpret your footage. Basically it’s setting no color profile for the whole project. When you’re about to export, look under the color management tab in the output module settings It would say something like output profile: Working space none. Just to confirm. It will be greyed out. I don’t want to confuse the situation even more especially if you’re not going to be grading. That would keep it the same, importing, as well as exporting.

Have you found out yet what format the plates will be? Really need to know if they are log or not and even if they are they will likely be a different log.

I guess this is where something like Aces comes in.

All your layers will need to be converted to the same. Perhaps linear. I'm out of practice in this area but assuming you end up with a mix of everything like multiple log types and rec709 layers then you'll need to level the playing field so that when you export from AE.

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here's a color management workflow methods to work with Log footage in Ae and keep in Log for a successful VFX roundtrip: