How to do this workflow when done editing proxies (3 hard drives of movie data)

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Derekhhh6

New member
Hi all,

My film was shot on a RED Gemini in 5k, and is on 4 separate HD drives. I have been editing with the proxies in Premiere which are on my pc. As I'm reaching the final stages, I'm finally confronting the issue- how to color grade (I want to use Davinci resolve to color grade), and how to relink the videos with their original files and do the final render.

The video files are massive.. My PC doesn't have space for them, no sir. Also, a problem is, the cameraman made the backups with a mac, so 2 of the HD drives don't connect with my PC unless I open them with a special program called hfsexplorer.

Furthermore, I usually use Premiere for color grading, but as DaVinci Resolve, I'm told, is better for color grading something like this, I "resolved" to do it there.


So I have like 8 Tb of footage, and all my movie edited with proxies on premiere. All the proxies are on my pc. I'm trying to figure out how to color grade this thing, then how to render it. And the only way to extract files from 2 of these drives is to use a special program. What would the workflow be? (Also I don't know how I'd color grade the project with Davinci, since I'm editing in Premiere, so any tutorials you know, send my way)

I'm thinking an option is to buy yet another HD drive, one that's 8Tb. Then I'd be working off that HD drive, which isn't a good thing to do but I'd have no choice perhaps.

Any ideas? Thanks for the help
 
First and foremost, I would export a master of whatever you have (if you have not yet) just so you have a back-up before you do anything. (A master of the proxy edit even just so you have something under the circumstances.)

Secondly, it would be best if you can consolidate everything on one drive, or at least work out the situation with the 2 drives that require the special program.

Once you have that sorted and you can easily open up Premiere and edit all of your footage, it's time to Google and YouTube EDL/AAF/XML workflows from Premiere to Resolve. Step-by-step instructions you can follow along.

What kind of files are these? At least the ones on the 2 drives?
 
While I'm definitely not an expert or really anyone who has any right to say how to do this (I'm sure there is a better way), I do a lot of work in Resolve and have remote editors using Premiere. XML importing is my preferred way to get edits back so I can handle grading and final touches on my end using the original footage. In your case, if you just want to color grade the footage but not do the final export in Resolve, you'll most likely have to get more hard drive space for the graded footage as well. Resolve/XML files don't like any Premiere specific things like multicam, nested clips, transitions, etc. You're really best leaving in only hard cuts and nothing else before actually exporting the XML file from Premiere.

Make a backup of each scene/timeline and flatten the timeline down to the bare basics to ensure compatibility on the import. As long as your proxy file names match the raw footage, when you open Resolve, import the full quality raw footage first, then import the timeline from the XML. Assuming you did everything right (All project frame rates match between programs, timecodes between proxy & source files match exactly, etc), it should work just fine. Once the grade is done in Resolve, you can export a second copy of the graded footage.

Resolve, if you've never used it, can be a bit much for newcomers, but I love it to death and quit Premiere alltogether as I don't need fancy features in my work. I'll use After Effects for the odd VFX here and there since Fusion is beyond me right now, but other than that, I'm 100% in Resolve now.

Do some small scale testing on your workflow to make sure what you're trying to do will work. On big projects and timelines it's almost guaranteed something will go haywire so save yourself the headache and work out the kinks with a handful of files first before going all in.
 
I do a lot of offline editing with Avid and do all the online conforms in Resolve. I'll export the offline edit into a video file for reference and export an XML of the timeline. In Resolve, I import all the online media (the files from the camera) first, THEN import the XML. DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY IMPORT THE MEDIA WITH THE XML. Import it all by hand. Provided the files names are the same (the extensions shouldn't matter), Resolve will then automatically relink the edit to your online camera files instead of the low quality proxies.
 
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