Conforming in Baselight? Start here.

Guide to Mastering the Conform Tool in Baselight

For any colourist who doesn’t have a DI assistant – conforming footage from an NLE into grading software can be a rollercoaster. If the project is prepared well in editorial, it can be a satisfying, methodical first look at the project, allowing you to overview the camera footage and identify issues before you start grading.

If the project is prepared badly, it can be a hair-pulling, yawn-inducing crawl toward a complete sync check.

FilmLight’s Baselight is a finishing tool first. Doing any sort of editing in Baselight V5 isn’t a user-friendly experience (although big editing improvements are on their way in Baselight V6). Conforming a timeline from an NLE into Baselight is an essential task for any colourist to be comfortable with, because, frankly, unless some Machine Learning tools appear from nowhere, this is a task colourists (or their assistants) have to continue to do for a while.

In this Insight, we’re going to import a simple EDL into Baselight and break down how to use the Conform tool. We’ll cover the full conforming process, ensuring that the footage is in sync with an offline reference clip and that any issues have been troubleshot and fixed.