Working Color-Managed In A Flat File Workflow

August 10, 2021

Learn how to tag a single clip with multiple 'input color spaces' in DaVinci Resolve when executing a 'flat file'/preconformed workflow.


Series

If you’re color grading in DaVinci Resolve but your clients are editing in another software then you may be following a common workflow, often referred to as the ‘Flat File Workflow’. Here on Mixing Light, we’ve been talking about this workflow since the website was founded in 2013. If you’re unfamiliar with this approach for moving from an NLE to DaVinci Resolve, this early series on ‘preconformed’ workflows will get you up to speed.

The question I recently faced on a series I was grading:

How can I execute project-level color management in a preconformed/flat file workflow?

The crux of the problem is this: In flat file workflows, every shot references a single, common video file in Resolve’s Media Pool. A single clip can only have a single color space input transformed assigned to it. If your flat file has shots from multiple cameras recording in multiple gamma/gamut profiles, what then?

In this Insight, learn how to assign multiple color space input settings to a single video clip.

At first, this may seem nonsensical if you’ve set up a color-managed project. The key in the workflow I share in this video is to combine a typical XML export from the NLE with EDLs for each camera profile in the timeline. Then, in Resolve, you use the EDLs for each camera to ‘Split and add to Media Pool’ and the overall XML to rebuild the entire timeline.

There are a few tips in this video on how the editor should organize the timeline they send the colorist. There are also a few tips that I found useful when importing these assets to make assigning the input color space transforms painless.

Comments? Questions? Observations?

Please, use the comments below to share your thoughts on this workflow. I have a suspicion this approach may generate more questions than answers. I’ll be happy to flesh out anything in here you’d like to see explained in more detail.

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Comments

Homepage Forums Working Color-Managed In A Flat File Workflow

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  • Evan A
    Guest

    Nice workflow!


  • R Neil Haugen
    Guest

    Patrick, that is the slickest Pr/Resolve workflow I’ve seen. Easy to understand the process, and allows for full and easy CM in Resolve.

    And yes, as someone who does a ton of Pr/Resolve stuff and handles queries on this sort of thing, I would love to see any follow-ons you could have. This to me is a massively updated *and upgraded* workflow.


  • Jacob F
    Guest

    It’s much simpler to just enable the “Extract reel names from EDL comments” option 🙂


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    LOL. Quite true. But then, I’ve worked on plenty of run ‘n gun jobs where reel names were useless for separating out cameras. Although, adding reel names related to the cameras can work if the NLE will honor that metadata change on EDL export.

    It’s definitely a workflow variation worth testing when executing this process. Thanks for the idea.


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    Neil – thanks! If you get any specific queries, definitely let me know. The ‘EDL Comments’ one is a good one worth breaking down – but that’d be a short video, so I need to collect a few more thoughts, questions, or approaches to warrant a full-blown video.


  • Jon Coy
    Guest

    Really excited to give this workflow a shot! Thanks for the ideas, Patrick.


  • Jamie Dickinson
    Guest

    This is a great Insight, exactly what I needed to explore yesterday! I went a different way though… For some reason I can’t get Split and Add to work at all, even though the same EDL works as PreConformed EDL. And it is now possible to have a single master clip but change the Input Color Space for each shot (p988 on the 17 manual). EDL comments and C-mode sort in the Lightroom work nicely and the info panel shows reel names as I step through each clip and group and colour code them. Oddly Data Burn-in Reel Name doesn’t work but %Reel Name does!


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    You’re welcome. Let us know how it goes?


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    Jamie, what’s happening to you on Split and Add?


  • Jon Coy
    Guest

    Will do.


  • Jamie Dickinson
    Guest

    Trying this again with another test… It doesn’t work. Either nothing is added or it just adds a couple of clips but not all the shots as I assume it should?


  • Tony S
    Guest

    Patrick, Another fine example of a workflow which makes Mixing Light a wonderful source of colour grading intel. 🙂


  • Marty
    Guest

    I think you can actually cut out your whole edl step. You can import the same clip into a bin multiple times, tag each as a different camera source then conform lock each of your timeline tracks to each of those master clips and you’re done.

    I do this a lot when I have a single camera source but with a few rec.709 stills or archive. I import the flat file twice, tag onc with the correct IDT and one with a rec.709 IDT and conform lock the timeline clips accordingly as I go along.

    The only real difference would be that you have one master clip for each camera instead of a master clip for each shot. But I don’t think that will matter since those master clips all have to share the same IDT anyway.


  • Pat Inhofer
    Guest

    For longer-form projects this workflow proved messy for me. I found it much simpler to use the track-based approach with the EDL allowing each shot to be tagged independently of all the other shots. It’s not unusual in ‘run-and-gun’ productions where a few shots were recorded differently and need to be treated differently than other shots from the same camera.


  • Troy S
    Guest

    It seems like we wouldn’t have to go through this very clever work around if Resolve could keep the reel names from the EDL after you relink the EDL to the flat file.

    My work around is to bring in the EDL and keep it offline. Duplicate the sequence and relink the duplicated sequence to my flattened .mov file. Then I cut the relinked sequence into layer 2 of the original sequence with the offline EDL. Layer 2 is what I color and layer 1 (with offline media) is there just so I can see the camera name.

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