Blackmagic Forum

Hi all.

Just started in Resolve and read the introductory material in the documentation.

I've edited a music video in Premiere, and now I want to color-correct it. I would think that I could bring the clips used in the project into Resolve, grade them, and then write them back out with the same filenames and reconnect those graded files to the timeline in Premiere.

But it does not appear that I can do anything without a timeline in Resolve. So what's the typical workflow? I presume I can export the Premiere project to FCP XML and then import it. But then can I work on clips in their entirety, or will I be working on individual timeline events (and have to copy the grade I do on each one to all of the others that come from the same clip)?

To summarize my question: How do I grade each clip (not each timeline event), so I can have the corrections reflected throughout the entire timeline?

Thanks for any insight.

No offense, but there are lots of videos on YouTube and vimeo that will show you how to roundtrip from davinci. Also a timeline is pretty much the same thing as a 'sequence' in premiere, you can edit clips, cut them, splice them, change speed etc.

I typically export an XML from premiere then open davinci and create a new project. Then click the edit tab at the bottom then go to File>Import and import the XML. Make sure it is importing the correct sequence and settings. Then click the color tab and color each clip as you see fit. If you want to make adjustments to the whole timeline you can click on the button that says clip in the top right corner of the node window and select timeline. Otherwise you are just grading each clip individually.

After you are done grading go to the deliver tab and click advanced. Choose the final cut pro XML round trip preset, change the codecs/destination/anything else you want and click export. I typically also have the option "render with unique filenames" on because sometimes the XML gets confused when relinking in premiere.

Once everything is exported there should be an XML in the directory you saved the footage in. Import that XML into premiere and do your finishing/whatever else you want to do there.

Look up remote grades in the manual. Not remote grading. But remote as opposed to local.
Also look at master timeline in the manual. This does what you are asking but not a great way to color grade as you want to see it in context.

Thanks, guys.

I'm not worried about round-tripping so much as grading the clips, not the timeline events. And yes, I do want to see the shots at least side-by-side for comparison. In context (in the timeline, as edited) would be ideal, certainly.

Somehow Macromedia (creator of FCP) and Adobe missed an important distinction that was handled properly by other NLEs: Clips and timeline events are different things. Clips are references to media files on disk, and they typically live in bins. Timeline events are references to clips.

This means that effects that you apply to a clip should automatically be reflected in all timeline events that refer to it. The footage in a clip is typically one take of one shot, so you're most likely going to be applying consistent color to its entirety. Then, no matter how many slices of it exist in the timeline, they're all fixed. And if you make adjustments, they're all adjusted at once. Why would you want to run around the timeline looking for events that refer to the same clip and applying the same color correction to them, one at a time? Do people really work this way?

I'll take a look at "remote grades" as you suggest, Paul.

Edit: Looked it up:

If you’ve set your project up to use Remote versions, then any clips that refer to the same file in the Media Pool are linked and share the same Remote versions of grades that are applied to them. For example, two clips that are close-ups from the same take refer to the same media file, so they’re both automatically linked to one another and share the same remote grades.

So I had Premiere's Project Manager export the project with only the clips that were used, untrimmed. Then I exported FCP XML, created a new project in Resolve, and imported the XML. So far this is working essentially as I'd hoped. It took me a while to find the "remote" option in the project settings, because the word "remote" doesn't appear anywhere. The critical setting is under Color, and it's labeled "Use local version for new clips in timeline." Talk about asinine obscurity! That label doesn't even make sense. It doesn't tell you the version of what, and doesn't define "new clips"... just bad, bad UI.

Thanks for the tip. Would never have found that!

Grab Still to save individual grades and middle mouse clip to copy a grade.


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Yep like Paul said remote grades will do the trick for you. When you use remote grades rather than local the grade will be applied to all timeline events. However this doesn't work very well with tracking, as a tracked window on the face of a person made on one timeline event will not be in a correct place in another timeline event. For that you'll need to version up the grade and retrack or track the window across the whole clip in the master timeline. Both the master timline and the remote grades need to be switched on in an empty project before you bring anything in. However like Paul said this isn't really a good way to color. Some people who come from stills backgrounds really want all timeline events to match to each other, like a skintone of a person in the beginning of the spot and the same person in the end, but the truth is that is not always the case. It has to flow withing context of the shot before or the shot after.

PalmerWoodrow wrote:Why would you want to run around the timeline looking for events that refer to the same clip and applying the same color correction to them, one at a time? Do people really work this way?

Stepan Ko wrote:Some people who come from stills backgrounds really want all timeline events to match to each other, like a skintone of a person in the beginning of the spot and the same person in the end, but the truth is that is not always the case. It has to flow withing context of the shot before or the shot after.

Good answer, right answer.

Yes, most --if not all-- professional colorists will treat every instance of every clip almost as if it were its own movie. Waste of time? Or recognition that image gathering is utterly dynamic and that every change in T-stop, focal length, external lighting, flare, kick angle, you-name-it... will require a separate action and that one correction for every instance of a particular source is unlikely to be successful in coping with where it is in the narrative. It is wing-walking with no parachute and no hand-holds. Remote grade used to be the default link for every clip on the timeline back to the master element list and was the first thing that had to be shut off if you wanted to do in-context grade. If you want to tie clips together there are "group" strategies that do make sense but still allow individual node adjustment while preserving a "pre" and "post" commonality.

For all the discipline usually found on set, it still is a kind of organized chaos that does not respond well to preconceived assumptions about what is really going onto the memory cards.

jPo

I meant master timeline grading is not a great way to work, but certain round trip workflows can benefit from it as you can just replace all media with graded footage without relinking issues, loosing efx etc back in nle.
Remote grades can be very useful and speed up some situations, like interviews, dialogue scenes, etc. but the tracks between shots issues can be a real pain. And of course yes lighting and context changes.

You can also just bring the clips in the media pool, select them all, right click, select the last item on the contextual menu "create timeline using selected clips".

Grade the clips on the new timeline

On the render settings select Render timeline as: individual source clips.

This is a common workflow for dailies and transcoding clips.

Thanks for the additional feedback, guys.

JPOwens wrote:Yes, most --if not all-- professional colorists will treat every instance of every clip almost as if it were its own movie. Waste of time? Or recognition that image gathering is utterly dynamic and that every change in T-stop, focal length, external lighting, flare, kick angle, you-name-it... will require a separate action and that one correction for every instance of a particular source is unlikely to be successful in coping with where it is in the narrative.

In my limited experience, I don't see a lot of those adjustments going on the middle of shots. And, at least the way I organize things (and see them organized), a clip = one shot. Shot and take are right there on the slate, and we do one slate per clip.

And yes, I understand that animated effects are often going to be instance-specific.

Regardless of that, though: Applying adjustments to a clip certainly shouldn't preclude you from overriding them (or adding to them) at the timeline-event level. If you like to adjust everything in the timeline, then do that instead of adjusting the clip. Or, do major adjustments (like bringing levels within limits) to the clips and then do more-specific adjustments to events.

That's where Resolve's approach to this seems to be flawed: There's a global switch to control whether you're working on the clip or the timeline event. What if you do want to make fine adjustments to one event, after setting the project for "non-local"?

Then you make a new grade version for that instance.

Paul Provost wrote:Then you make a new grade version for that instance.

Ah, now I see that the instances in the timeline have a context menu that lets you select local or remote grades. Good!