Episode 8: From the Mailbag

Getting Out Of A Creative Funk & Consolidating A Multi-Reel Project

The questions keep pouring in… and Dan, Pat and I do like to chat! What’s a more a perfect match?

We tackle another two questions in this ‘From the Mailbag’. The first is a general ‘creativity’ question. The second is DaVinci Resolve-specific.

Remember, if you have questions that you’d like to get an opinion on please use the contact form. Your questions can be aesthetic, technical, client related or anything else. We’d love to hear from you, and you might make future episodes of From the Mailbag.

Getting Out Of A Creative Funk

Recently, I posted an Insight on Recharging Your Creativity In 5 Steps. Right before that posting we got a great question from Mixing Light member Remco about getting out of a creative funk.

So in addition to my Insights article, the guys and I decided to tackle this subject and had a fun time discussing how each of us works through creative blocks. 

[DaVinci Resolve] Consolidating A Multi-Reel Project

Next up, Mixing Light member JT has an interesting question about consolidating multiple “reels” into one project. If you’re not familiar with this concept of Reels – for a decade in digital color correction, if you had a feature length film then the recommended workflow was to break down those long timelines into 20 minute ‘chunks’ or Reels. Not only is 20 minutes about the length of an actual film reel projected in a theater, breaking a timeline into 20 minutes reels—and putting each Reel into individual projects—would keep the color grading software stable. It would crash less often.

MixingLight member JT has followed that traditional advice on a feature film he recently graded. It’s broken into 6 Reels and each Reel is a separate DaVinci Resolve project. Now he wants to get them all into one project for final rendering. But Resolve keeps crashing when he  does the import. We attempt to help JT out with troubleshooting advice and tips on consolidating projects like this using Resolve’s ColorTrace function.  

Enjoy!

– Robbie