Working with ‘handles’ is becoming more and more important in a round-tripping world where deadlines are getting shorter and shorter and clients demand 50 frame handles as standard. There can be a few things to look out for when working with handles which I cover in the video below. Once you get to used to the pitfalls and things to look our for managing them will be come effortless!
– Dan
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19 thoughts on “DaVinci Resolve: Working With ‘Handles’ While Color Correcting”
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Really great video Dan, thanks for the tip!
Just wondering about the whole timeline conform option when right-clicking on a sequence to ‘create new timeline w/ handles’?
I remember trying a few times on like in an NLE especially with not having the full panels but just the Element. I want to do the 2sec handles by default moving forward and just want to know best practices for this to have it go as fast possible – It will add some time to jobs is the other thing. Like today I worked at a shop from 10-6:30 and then if I had to do 2sec handles on some of those carefully keyframed shots of the product it would be a whole mess more of work. What do you do in that scenario? If its tedious to begin with with tracking/keyframes and then once approved at the end of the day having to do handles? I might have to structure this into my pricing so clients are aware if its hourly commercial work.
Hey!
Its a tricky one. I need to look into it again as I believe the “create new timeline w/handles” option didn’t work out to well for me. I think I lost a few grades but thats something I’ll check out and let you know on! Hopefully if you do it at the start of a session you could use that to track into handles etc..
Unfortunately we do have to build in an extra hour for adding keyframes etc.. to the handles. Sometimes if there is a huge amount of product / tricky shots we might not actually do all the handles initially but then if the client or editor calls up saying they need them on x amount of shots we will supply them with extra / fixed shots free of charge. Can work out better and quicker that way sometimes 🙂
In Resolve 8 & 9, my solution was to always track the handles when doing any tracking… which meant going into the Master Session and tracking in there. Tedious? Yes. But it saved me from the nightmare of adding them after the grade was completed. And if a shot was linked, My track would cover those shots as well (the joys of the Master Session 🙂
As Dan says, Resolve 10 seems like it’ll be solving this problem for us shortly.
Thanks Pat,
I am finding in both the private and now public beta’s that the master timeline is not working the way it used to even though I have all the options checked as Dan’s video instructs – is that what you mean by “10 seems like it’ll be solving this problem for us shortly”? Like its not totally there yet? On a job this week I had to do a bunch of handles so jumped to my master session and it did not go to that same clip I was working on (even though option to do so is checked). Also seeing some other funky behavior with that but I am sure you guys see that too?
By definition, Resolve 10 Public Beta is *beta* software… they’ll change, modify, add and remove features with each release. With R10 now hiding the Master Timeline and the lack of access to handles in Local grades via the Master Timeline… they need to do something to expose those handles otherwise the handles workflow is useless. So yes, we expect to see something to address that problem in the near future.
Regarding keeping the Master Timeline in sync, I’ll take a look and see if I can replicate.
If you’re finding problems, I always advise to go here and submit a bug report. Don’t assume anyone else has found it: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/request?sid=3948&pid=4446&leg=false&os=mac
Yeah of course Pat, I am on the private beta as well and have been vigilant with bug reports and anything like this I am having trouble with. I noticed in the latest private beta (44 i believe), an option to “show current clip with handles”, that may be something in the works but maybe you would know better than I. Anyways, thanks for the reply man, have a great weekend!
In that case, just keep sending in those bug reports 🙂 But no, I don’t have any inside information other than what they’re sending the Private Beta testers… and I don’t like posting those details since they reserve the right to change the software and I don’t want to get caught promising a feature that never makes it into the final product.
But the ‘handles while grading Locally’ is something they need to solve.
ah ha! I didn’t realize how to do handles, this will save so much time in my round trips. I am assuming you have to render out as individual clips to keep the handles and not as one source video?
Hey Chris,
Thats it! If you use the single clip mode it will still render the timeline out as one single clip so you’ll need to use the individual clips mode and everything should work out well for you!
D
Is there a way to have clips in single clip mode render out in order of the timeline. The few times I have rendered out individual clips they dont render from beginning to end in the way the files are numbered.
Hey Chris!
Normally you would need to use an XML or AAF from Resolve to get the clips back into your NLE system. I can cover this in an insight if you would like!
D
That would be great! I am kind of a one my band where I work. So I dont always do things the right more or less as long as I can get things where they need to be I am happy.
Hey Dan,
What if I already copied the grades to local in Resolve. Is there a way to go back to the master timeline and work with the tracks then or do I have to keep the grades in remote to make this work? Do you have a solution if it’s not working in Local?
Big thanks,
Simon
bump. Any answer to this question? Am I out of options? Do I have to copy the grades to the remote grade timeline and re-track all shapes or is there a better way?
You could jump out the Local grade to the Remote grade, track in the Master Session and then copy it back into the Local grade. That *might* keep the tracking data for the handles.
If that handles solutions in Resolve 10 ends up in the final product… it’ll be a breeze to deal with tracking handles in the future.
Hello Patrick,
Thanks for answering. I’ll guess my biggest problem is that i made several new versions in the local grade so that doesn’t match with the remote/master timeline. I’ll probably need to copy shot by shot via stills and re-track the shots that needs it. Bummer that I did a lot of hand animated roto on those shots too. 🙁
It is this things you learn from. I won’t do like this next time, for sure.
Hey Simon,
I hadn’t realised this myself but you need to click use remote grades in your timelines for it to attach it to the master session. There is also an option for this in the settings now for it to default to this behaviour.
It’s always fun when major releases of software come out and the normal things I take for granted have changed!
D
Hey Simon!
There is a new solution coming to this problem very soon. I had spoken to BMD about this during the beta stage and it will be included in the next pubic beta release of Resolve 10 I think. It will include a new option on the view menu that will show handles for the current clip and will allow you to track your clips into the handles easily!
I’m not sure what is the best current solution as if you copy your grades onto the master session via color trace you will need to render all of the clips. I’ll have a look into this and let you know asap!
D
Hey Dan!
Good news about the new feature in v10. That would make our life easier. I will have a look at that once it releases. I have done some tests with colortrace but it seems like it only copies the grades from the remote timeline. There’s no way in my knowledge to choose to copy from local grades.
Cheers.