This workflow will allow you to bring your video into Avid, cut in DNxHD 36, re-color the original footage, and relink your sequence with DNxHD 444.
- Open DaVinci Resolve lite. Resolve is a professional grading application that for the price of $0 is one of the best deals you will ever come across. If you don’t have it, don’t worry, its easy to download! You can find it at http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support. Select your OS and select Resolve from the drop down list.
You will need to create an account, this feature is there because multiple colorists could be working on the same system.
Once done create a project by clicking the plus sign in the bottom left corner. Name it the same as your project.
You need to change you conform settings in the “Project Settings”. You need to set “Calculate Timecode At” “23.976″ You must do this before you add media to the “Media Pool.”
The First step in Resolve is to get your media into place in your “Media Pool.” Navigate in the “Library” window to the folder containing your DPX sequences from the Gemini. You will find this information in the “Media” tab. The tab is on the bottom of the screen.
I have some test footage from a VSX test where the Gemini was used so I will take you through these steps with that footage. Once you find your media, go to the top level folder. It will be named something resembling }CLIPS{__________GEMINI__444.
Drag that folder into your “Media Pool.” The Gemini creates .wav files that accompany the DPX but unless your shoot has configured it to capture sound these will be empty and can be deleted from your “Media Pool.”
As you can see Resolve will show you prevalent information about the video: Resolution, FPS, and Color Bit Depth. The 10b is for 10Bit color.
- The Gemini has the option to capture Sony’s S-Log from the HD Dual Link SDI, which gives you greater dynamic range for color correcting. What S-Log does is compress the Highlights and the Shadows. This will preserve the details in the image. The issue with that is that the image will need to be color corrected to get rid of the milky look on the image.
Some editors might not care about this step, but when I edit I like to have something as close to the final color as possible as it might effect my perception of the emotion in a scene. To do this one light, go to the color tab.
Most of the time I just play with the Gamma Curve to push the black back into the darks. With Resolve you do much, much more and you should experiment with coloring in it as you might end color your film (as has happened to me a few times).
A simple tweak like the one below will give you a simple fix for now.
- The next step is to export to get into Avid. First go to the “Deliver” tab.
Next you need to select the format container/wrapper. For this workflow I am using DNxHD. Select “Avid AAF Round Trip” under the “Easy Presets” drop down.
Now select MXF where it says “Render to.” Next select the “Codec” to “DNxHD 1080p 36 8 bits.” Your “Resolution” should be set to “1920×1080″ and the “Frame Rate” needs to be “23.98.” (The Gemini with the F3 will only do 23.98/23.976. The Gemini 4:4:4 takes Sony’s 23.976 PsF (PsF is a method to create a full non-interlaced image utilizing interlaced scanning) and creates the image that the Gemini 4:4:4 captures.
Set your outputs like the images above. Next you need to set your “Render Timeline As” to “Individual Source Clips.” This will create individual clips that are 1 to 1 in length of the original DPX. If you set it to “Single Clip” you will get all the clips in one long video (don’t do that). You also need to choose a “Directory” where you will put these new videos. They must go into the Avid MediaFiles folder on the hard drive you will be editing from. You must create a new numbered folder under the MXF folder.
As you can see on the “Timeline” above there are my clips. Wondering what the colored indicator means? Its simple, it has color applied.
I have only applied color to one for this example but if this where a real scenario I would apply a “One Light” to all clips. If you need to get to cutting quick you can skip the “One Light.” On the “Timeline” you need to mark the first clip with a “Mark In” and the last clip with a “Mark Out.”
You’re now ready to add your export to the “Render Queue.” Click the “Add Job” button.
This will add your “Job” to the “Queue,” but first it lets you know that it will overwrite anything that could be there.
Hit the continue button and it will be added. Next, hit the “Start Render” button.
It will render your clips. This can take some time if you have a lot of clips and a regular speed hard drive. With a Segate thunderbolt adapter, reading straight from the SSD, I was getting around real time conversions.
- You now need to create an AAF from the “Master Timeline” under the conform tab.
Right click on the “Master Timeline” or go to “File” and select “Export AAF, XML…”
Name it something something that you can remember.
- Once your files are all exported you can bring them into Avid Media Composer.
Set up your project settings to the following. “Project Type” should be “1080p/23.976.” “Color Space” should be “YCbCr 709.” Your “Raster Dimension” should be set to “1920×1080.”
Create a bin for your SEQs, DNxHD_36_Dailies, and DNxHD_444.
- Now you need to bring in your DNxHD 36 files via the “Import button.” Right click in your DNxHD 36 bin.
Navigate to the folder where the AAF from your DNxHD 36 export is located. Select and import it.You should see your videos in the bin as well as the timeline from Resolve. You can delete the timeline.
- Now you can rename the files what they actually are. Do all the normal assistant editing work: bin organizing, syncing, and labeling. Start to edit your sequence.
- Once you’re finished editing and are ready to update your color you need to send the sequence back to Resolve. The first step is to export an AAF from Avid. Select your sequence. Right click and choose “Export.”
Set the settings like this. Select AAF from the “Export As” drop down. Only check the “Include All Video/Data Tracks in Sequence.”You can use the “Enabled Tracks” and/or “Marks” feature.
Export the file where you can remember it.
- Now we need to go back to Resolve.
- Add the DPX files back to “Media Pool” if they are not already there.
- Go to the “Conform” tab. Select “File” and click “Import.” Navigate to the folder where you exported the AAF.
This box will come up. Select the settings in the picture below. Only click the button that says “Automatically Set Project Settings.”
Hit ok and it will create a new timeline named after the AAF. You may get a pop up that looks like an error. If you do, just hit ok and move on.
- Select New timeline in Resolve
- Color!
I chose to do dramatic color changes to help you see when we go back to Avid. No, I’m not that bad at color correcting.
- Once you’re done coloring, you need to select the “Master Timeline” with all of the dailies (If you export from the new timeline it will create new videos using the in and outs of the new cuts). To save time I would advise you to figure out which clips you used and only put those in the “Media Pool”
- Repeat “Step 4!” Except choose DNxHD 1080p 444 and set a new numbered folder under the Avid MediaFiles for your new files. Don’t forget to export a new AAF also.
- You can now go back to Avid!
- You now need to import your new DNxHD 444 files using the new AAF. Right click in your DNxHD 444 bin and select import.
Navigate to the new AAF and open it.
You can delete the timeline from the AAF.
- We now need to relink the DNxHD 36 sequence to a DNxHD 444 sequence.
Right click on the edited DNxHD 36 sequence and select relink.
Choose the settings in the photo below. Select the option that says “Media on Drive,” “Load media databases,” and unselect “Relink only to media from the current project.” Relink by “Original” “Start” and “Tape Name or File ID.” Check the “Match case when comparing source names.” Also check the box that says “Create a new sequence.” Hit ok.
It will create a new sequence that should be DNxHD 444 and ready to export. With this method everything that you did to your original sequence will transfer to your new one.
- Export your sequence for final delivery.
Thanks for the great article..
Hi, Ross
I would like to ask if you know another worklfow of the same camera and sampling, but without using the Gemini. Is this possible?
We are going to record a short film the next month with this camera. They give it to us free, but we don´t have professional workstations for postproduction. So, what is your recommendation for us?
Thanks you so much!
regards