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Editing in Resolve

by alexis

Great site – which I have just discovered. I am a technician at a UK university and we have recently made the move to shooting on Blackmagic cameras and using Resolve. You seem to be one of the few people going into depth about editing in resolve 11 – and I wondered if I could ask some advice. Is it now feasible to work completely in resolve 11? I am writing a new workflow and even though we also teach Avid and Final Cut – I thought maybe now is the time to actually teach editing and grading in the one package. Is this covered in your tutorials? creating and editing with proxies all with da vinci? 

To answer your last question first, my brand new “Editing in Resolve 11” title from Ripple Training is completely focused on how to edit in DaVinci Resolve, walking you through how to bring media into Resolve, organize it for editing, and cut and trim it into an edited program complete with transitions, composites, and other effects. There are a few lessons included that cover grading for editors, which are designed to give an introduction to those tools for folks that don’t know grading, but the overwhelming majority of the videos are all about the various editing, effects, and audio tools available in Resolve’s Edit page, and how they’re designed to be used together.

Now to answer your previous question. Yes, I consider it completely feasible to edit a project from scratch inside of Resolve 11. Obviously I’m biased since I helped design the feature set, but I’ve been using the editing tools as long as they’ve existed, and have cut a few very short projects with them, and I’m very happy cutting in Resolve.

Editing Tools in Resolve 11

Editing Tools in Resolve 11

Of course, the cool thing about Resolve is that it also has extensive support for importing and exporting XML, AAF, and EDL project exchange files between just about every NLE currently in use, so you can mix and match NLEs with your Resolve workflow in any way you want. But, if you want to take advantage of Resolve’s ability to let you cut away in the Edit page and then, with the single click of a button, start grading in the Color page, going back and forth as you please cutting and grading the same timeline within the same application, you’ve got a nice editing environment with which to do so.

Furthermore, Resolve 11 editing is based on an editor-friendly source-record style paradigm, with strong track management in the timeline that makes it easy to segue from craft editing into finishing. You’ve even got the ability to customize the name of each track. Bottom line, editors from other environments won’t have to relearn everything to start cutting in Resolve, and beginners will find a nice, clean UI that I consider to be very approachable.

The Editing Timeline in Resolve 11

The Editing Timeline in Resolve 11

However, in the spirit of complete honesty, there are a few caveats you should be aware of.

  1. There’s no multicam editing. If you require multicam, I recommend using FCP X’s wonderful multicam tools, and importing the result into Resolve via XML for finishing (works like a charm).
  2. Resolve 11’s current audio tools are a bit sparse. On the plus side, Resolve does have keyframable clip level overlays, multi-channel 16-channel adaptive timeline tracks, individual channel muting in source clips (via the Clip Attributes command), multi-channel waveform views in the Viewer and timeline, and a track/clip level mixer with assignable channel routing for both digital delivery and tape output, and crossfades. On the minus side, there are no audio filters, audio mixing cannot currently be automated at the track level, and there’s currently no way to export AAF to ProTools directly. However, you can export XML to FCP 7 and then export an OMF from there to ProTools (I’ve done it and it works).
  3. Media management in Resolve doesn’t work the way it does in other NLEs. That’s not to say Resolve doesn’t do media management, in fact it has a wealth of media management features, but they’re accessible in different ways, and they require some reading of the manual to get a handle on if you’re used to other applications.
  4. Given Resolve’s continued emphasis on top-quality, 32-bit floating point precision in all of its processing, even the editing tools benefit from the highest performance GPU you can give them. In particular, if you’re planning a classroom full of iMacs, getting the top-of-the-line GPU option is the best way to go (there’s an updated configuration guide if you want more information available at the Blackmagic Design support site).

Keep in mind that this is only DaVinci’s second year of adding serious editing tools, so there are bound to be small features here and there that you may find missing if you’re used to other NLEs. However, the team worked hard to put together as complete a set of editing tools as 24 months of arduous work has allowed, and there has been a lot of thought put into the current set of features to make sure the tools are robust and work together elegantly.

All of the basics are there including full JKL transport controls, absolute and relative timecode navigation and trimming, source-timeline viewer ganging, three-point editing, insert/overwrite/replace/place-on-top/fit-to-fill edits, a fantastic and complete set of trim tools, timeline and clip markers with multiple colors and notes with optional marker rippling, multi-clip selection with select all clips forward and backward commands, compound clip creation and editing, multi-take clip management in the timeline, per-clip transform and compositing controls, linear and variable speed effects with optical flow processing, keyframable effects with an in-timeline curve editor, paste attributes, some really nice media organization tools in the Media Pool, a filterable Edit Index that you can use to list all your markers, offline clips, through-edits, etc., and a great “Smart Cache” system for automatic render caching of processor-intensive effects. Obviously there’s much, much more to the Edit page then I can describe here, but these highlights should give you a good idea of how much there is to be found.

Markers in Resolve 11

Markers in Resolve 11

Furthermore, every function has been designed to work well using either the mouse, or via extensive keyboard shortcuts. An excellent example of this is the simple ability to add transitions. Using the mouse you can right-click on an edit and choose one of four different timings of the current standard transition. Or, if you select an edit by pressing the V key, you can use the U key to choose which side of the edit is selected (incoming, outgoing, or center), and then press Command-T to add the standard transition at the incoming, outgoing, or center of the edit, whichever is selected.

Adding Transitions

Adding Transitions

And of course Resolve’s extensive format support, support of mixed frame-rates/frame sizes/codecs within a single timeline, and extensive project import/export support for multiple XML, AAF, and EDL workflows makes it easy to use Resolve in an incredibly wide variety of workflows, including converting project exchange formats and exporting to just about any media format you’d want to.

Resolve 11 Export Formats

Resolve 11 Export Formats

Oh, and of course you can switch from editing to using Resolve’s incredibly deep grading environment with the single click of a button. No reconform needed, as you’re working on the exact same timeline in both pages.

Resolve 11 Grading at the Press of a Button

Resolve 11 Grading at the Press of a Button

While my current title for Ripple Training focuses on Editing, they’re working on my already-recorded “Grading in Resolve 11” title which is a completely updated grading title. It’ll probably be available in a month or so there’s a separate title on Grading that’s now available.

With all this said, I’d absolutely recommend downloading the Lite version (for free) and checking it out for yourself. The best way to get a feel for Resolve’s editing is to get your hands on it. I think you’ll like what you find. And don’t forget the newly updated Resolve 11 User Manual, written by yours truly, that comes along with the app (it’s installed in the same folder as the Resolve 11 application). The Edit chapters are totally revised, and worth a look if you want to understand how everything works.

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1 comment

DaVinci Resolve 11.1 Tips and Tutorials | Jonny Elwyn - Film Editor January 23, 2015 - 11:39 am

[…] and author Alexis Van Hurkman has posted a nice little write up about the new editing features in Resolve 11 on his blog, answer the question of whether Resolve can be used as a fully fledged NLE. The answer is a […]

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